Repurposing handy items (sub title: I am a cheap bastard)

[DozerDan]

My 'work bench' is an old desk. 3/8's piece of scrap diamond plate for a top, vice mounted, 2 draws full of misc scrap on the right , 'keyboard' slide out holds welding gloves, soap stone, chipping hammer, wire brush.. 'foot' hold is full of the cased tools (sawzall, drill, 3/4 socket set, drills, etc ) the back over hang I added some shelves and they are my stock storage, all that sitting on some casters.


I have lots, I am a hoarder who uses this stuff.

 

[Uncle Bryan]

I'm rebuilding my forks and needed the fork tool. So I dug thru one of my bins of fine antiquities (she has the nerve to call them boxes of junk) and found an old bicycle axle with a nut on it that fits a 17mm wrench, score!. Then I found a piece of 3/8" tubing that the axle just fit into, welded it up and...
BAM! fork tool.

 

[peanut]

I needed something to put on my sunroom table, to hold a camera always at the ready for taking quick snapshots of my garden birds and wildlife whilst I surfed and worked on the bike.

I couldn't find anything suitable so I designed and made something for just a few bucks.
I was quite pleased with the result and thought it might be useful to someone else so I did a video

Here are some of the results
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57957957@N08/

 

[haxto]

I'm rebuilding my forks and needed the fork tool. So I dug thru one of my bins of fine antiquities (she has the nerve to call them boxes of junk) and found an old bicycle axle with a nut on it that fits a 17mm wrench, score!. Then I found a piece of 3/8" tubing that the axle just fit into, welded it up and...
BAM! fork tool.

Like that!

 

[haxto]

Repurposed Harbor Freight Roller Stand to Light Stand.
These stands are about $10 at HF. I never used mine for the purpose I bought it but found it made a great light stand for one of those Halogen lights.
Removed the top bracket holding the roller, using existing hole mounted a clamp used for hanging steel plumbing pipe. I changed the nuts to wing nuts for ease of attaching and adjusting the light. Works great, I use the light WAY more often now that I can quickly set it and adjust it to shine where I need it w/o zip tying or strapping it in place!

 

[haxto]

Might as well throw this one in here as well! I used one of those short stubby cigarette lighter plug USB outlets for charging my iphone and just wired it into my leather bag that houses the wiring harness junctions that used to live in the stock headlight dome.
I like the little bright blue LED in this one and people seem to get a kick out of an 'ol school bike like this with a blue LED USB charging port for an iphone.

 

[goodgollyjosh]

This is an old blown up circle track engine, most of the cylinders were destroyed. #1 was still good so I threw a crank in it, one rod and piston, a couple cam bearings, and a timing chain. I use it as a poor man's cam doctor. Guys are always grinding the part numbers off their cams because they don't want you to know what they run. Occasionally, a winning engine will come up for sale and people often buy them to tear them down and see what kind of goodies they have in an attempt to improve their position in the next race. Most of these guys don't know how to degree a cam so they would bring them to me and I would make them a cam card in about 15 minutes for a 20 dollar bill (or wine, cigars, craft beer, etc ) with all the info you would normally get when you receive a new cam. I would even tell them if the firing order had been altered or not. The only thing I can't tell them is where the cam will be installed in their engine with regard to advance or retard due to variances in sprockets, woodruff keys, and their block. I can do any sbc cam, I keep a solid roller and flat tappet lifter on hand. I have had this pic in my albums for a while and thought I would throw it on this thread. Love the posts so far, we are a crafty bunch, that's for sure.