Diamonds in the rough.

One of my favorite pastimes is to find something old and junky that nobody wants and make it into something really desirable or at least useful.

I'm not very good at building things from scratch but if there is a repair to be done or a need to rig up something I can improvise with the best of them.

I remember when I was 5 years old my grandmother liked to read and crochet a lot. One day she dropped her glasses, broke them and lost the screws to the ear pieces. She was really upset because she couldn't get a new pair until her vision coverage renewed.

I picked up the pieces and some stuff from the junk drawer and got to work wiring the frames back together with bread twist ties and replacing the lost screws with small safety pins.

The glasses weren't pretty but they worked. My grandmother was surprised and pleased with my ingenenuity. Best of all, she was able to read to me again. Well actually, the best thing was her to not driving on the sidewalk anymore...

I used to really enjoy going through old places looking for old stuff. One time I found an old wooden chest that was broken in several places, with bent up hardware and had been used as a table for spray painting other items.

The thing looked awful but when I opened it I noticed it was made out of solid cedar and had a label showing it made in the 1920's.

I took the chest outside, stripped, sanded, glued, clamped polished and put several layers of tung oil on the old box.

When I was done the thing looked like a million bucks. Now its prominently displayed in my living room and used as a coffee table.

Several years ago I saw an old weather worn car for sale in a parking lot in a bad part of town. the price tag was $400. The car was a 1978 Lincoln Mark V. After inspecting the car and talking to the owner I was able to drive the car home for $300.

I did some checking and noticed the car only had 45k original miles on it, complete power everything and beautiful two tone leather interior. the trunk was full of expensive tools and many car parts that I needed to get the lincoln back in shape.

After replacing the shocks, brakes, buffing the paint and a tune up this car turned out to be a real beauty. It had 460 CI V8, power seats, mirrors, automatic lights, cruise control. This car drove like a dream. It was probably one of the most comfortable cars I ever owned.


I'm always looking for a new project. It has to be ugly, cruddy and appear worthless for it to pique my interest.

I was making my way through the gun shops and pawn shops for one of my normal deal finding runs when I ran across an old pump shotgun that was ugly as heck but mechanically solid.

It was a Remington 870 Wingmaster and the serial number placed it as one of the very first made in the initial year of production.

The gun was a mess, covered in maroon spray paint, green paint on the stock and some kind odd black chunky crud covered the rest of the gun inside and out like it was dropped into a vat of industrial waste. The Shop owner let me have it for $69 but wouldn't come down because it was dove season.

After a great deal of scrubbing I found that under the crud the gun was 100% perfect with the finest walnut stock I have ever seen, the bore shone like a new mirror after a few passes with a brush. The crud had actually protected the gun for the past decades.

It has a 32in barrel and a external dial a choke which to my surprise is extremely effective. It's now one of my collection favorites.

I'm still looking for new old stuff to fix up. I don't believe in recycling in general but I hate to see a well crafted item go into the junk heap due to someone's laziness or ignorance.