I went to a "Pack Rat" sale that had been going on for several days.
Over the last year, our son replumbed our house, with me as the laborer; I wound up with leftover copper pipe fittings, and needed a toolbox to store them in. This box looked like it would do the job, for $1:
When I opened it, I saw the usual pile of junk:
Got it home, started sorting through; yep, plenty of junk. Some will belong to the metal recycling bucket, some to the trash bucket. A few mysteries:
The "chain" in the top left corner, above, seems to be a long fabric tube with BB-sized shot spaced periodically. It's a bit like a pull chain for a light fixture, but in cloth. Any ideas?
There were several square cotton "bags" sewn shut around what looks like chunks of lead, as shown there to the right. ??
And a stamped wrench marked "Acme," probably for maintenance on one of Wile E. Coyote's Road Runner catching devices. Unless I hear that this is fabulously valuable, it's probably going in either the extra wrench drawer, in case I ever need a really thin wrench in that size, or in the metal recycling.
There were some useful tools:
The Husky ratchet is headed for the RV toolbox, if I can get the side designed to accept 1/4" hex bits to work (rusted up right now). I've owned these fabricated ratchets before, and they are not usually lifetime tools; but Husky offers a lifetime warranty, so maybe it'll last a bit longer.
The file is "Made in U.S.A.," with a logo of a lion facing left. Any idea who made it?
And then there was this little metal canister:
which, on closer inspection, is an early tape measure
a worthy addition to my little herd of tape measures.
Since I was pleased to have found a good box for the plumbing fittings, and since I'd have happily paid $1 for the tape, I got one of them for free, plus the other little-bit-useful tools for free either way.
