What things are great when NOT used for their original purpose?

C

Contrarian

For me, it's got to be milk crates.

As a student, four milk crates and a door was an automatic diy dinner table! Milk crates were great for storing LP records. And then of course if you had quite a few, it'd be a great base for putting a mattress on.

Hills Hoists were great childhood swings! Of course you only went on them when parents weren't home! I know of one old codger who had a brilliant idea for his two dogs and his Hills Hoist. He put a chain on each opposing side and the dogs secured to each one. Of course the dogs would get heaps of exercise running round and round after each other.

In developing countries, they use old tires to make into soles of shoes.

So people, what suggestions do you have for something that's not used for their original purpose?
 
C

Contrarian

A big circular saw blade makes a great barbecue! Pantihose makes a great emergency drive belt for your car. And they're great for making crab traps!
 
xZaidax

xZaidax

Reception and Bartender in the ACT
Gold Member
Points
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some bricks and a bit of tin roofing.... used it once when we went bush and forgot the camping bbq.
 
T

Tania Admin

Glad Wrap!
It has so many uses.
I heard rumours in high school of students using Glad Wrap instead of condoms.
In the ambulance service, during my training, we were told lots of reasons why to carry Glad Wrap in our own first aid kits.
Splinting, Glad Wrap is awesome for splinting.
Burns, great for burns and you can still run water over the Glad Wrap and continue cooling the burn even after it's wrapped.
Chest Injuries, to allow protection but still allows blood to flow out so that lungs can't drown.
Deep cuts and heavy bleeding, to help slow a bleed.
Glad Wrap can even be used as a tourniquet.

I wouldn't suggest using Glad Wrap the way Bad Boy Bubby did though.

And yes definitely Milk Crates, there must be a million and 1 uses for Milk Crates too.
 
F

Farm Boy

Contrarian said:
For me, it's got to be milk crates.

As a student, four milk crates and a door was an automatic diy dinner table! Milk crates were great for storing LP records. And then of course if you had quite a few, it'd be a great base for putting a mattress on.

Hills Hoists were great childhood swings! Of course you only went on them when parents weren't home! I know of one old codger who had a brilliant idea for his two dogs and his Hills Hoist. He put a chain on each opposing side and the dogs secured to each one. Of course the dogs would get heaps of exercise running round and round after each other.

In developing countries, they use old tires to make into soles of shoes.

So people, what suggestions do you have for something that's not used for their original purpose?
Click to expand...


download.jpg


Try a smack on the head with one of these.
 
Happy2

Happy2

Legend Member
Points
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In developing countries, they use old tires to make into soles of shoes.

Winnie Mandela and her friends had a far less friendly and worse still, unenviromentally friendly use of car tyres Contrarian
 
Happy2

Happy2

Legend Member
Points
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Of course the old plough discs FB Who hasn't made a good BBQ out of them Or polished them up and put them at the back of a fire place in a big public area fireplace like in a pub Heats up a cold winters night real quick
 
homer

homer

Doh!
Legend Member
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safety pins , paper clip very handy if you split your pants and no one will ever know why you walked funny that day.
 
C

Contrarian

happy2 said:
In developing countries, they use old tires to make into soles of shoes.

Winnie Mandela and her friends had a far less friendly and worse still, unenviromentally friendly use of car tyres Contrarian
Click to expand...

Wasn't only Winnie Mandela, the white folk of South Africa were angels too particularly in the apartheid era.
 
C

Contrarian

I've seen shovels being used as barbeque grids at many a truckstop/resting area.

A bit dated now but many people had uses for old kerosene tins - even houses were built from them. A friend of mine recalls, when she was a kid, in the 50s and 60s recalls how they'd use kerosene tins opened up on one side, filled with hot water and heat up sausages to sell for hot dogs. She can't recall washing them!
 
C

Contrarian

6633ed82fa.jpg Plough disc converted to barbecue.

Never seen one in real life but interesting bit of engineering.
 
C

Contrarian

One of the more dangerous things kids have done is use water tanks as swimming pools in hot weather. Of course, the innocence of youth being such, many didn't account for the depth of water and so happily got in. And if they couldn't get out? Well... the rest like they say is hysteria.

Some people did opt for converting the half of a 44 gallon drum into watering tanks for farm animals and kids would soak in it on a hot summers day.
 
C

Contrarian

Not very fashionable these days but people would convert old rubber tyres into swans for their garden or make pots out of them. Of course, who can forget tyres being made into old fashioned swings of childhood?
 
C

Contrarian

I suspect the one on the right is more "purpose built" and than using an existing milk can. Many did use their milk cans though as letter boxes.
Once on the ABC's New Inventors (great programme, sad that they took it off air) when this guy who was broke and rebuilding used a green sulo bin. He filled it up with water and it was solid as a rock and used it as a work bench for wood work.
 
C

Contrarian

Swan song for the rubber soul of the old Australian garden
By Brigid Delaney
March 20, 2004
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Bend it like . . . Michael Keating is teaching Nikki Morrison, 12, and Sam Currie, 15, the traditional Australian art of sculpting swans from old tyres. Photo: Kate Geraghty
It's another native animal close to extinction.

Cut from old tyres and often painted white, the swans could hold pot plants and ferns or just sit there - adding a bit of grace to the garden.

But a tyre swan-making competition held tomorrow in Rylstone, 50 kilometres from Mudgee, is trying to revive this lost art. "I've noticed that they are gradually disappearing from Australian gardens - which is a shame," said competition organiser Ginny Handmer.

"Tyre swans remind people of their own childhood. Making them relied on the grandfather's brain and the grandchild's brawn. But nowadays children are less likely to play in the garden and parents are less likely to make things with their children for the garden," she said.

Michael Keating is trying to breed tyre swans out of extinction. He started making them last week in his shed in Rylstone. Placing an old tyre on a workbench, he marks it with chalk, before cutting, then chain-sawing into the tyre, creating a beak, a back and the swan's neck.

Then comes the hard part, turning the tyre back to create the body of the swan. The steel in many new tyres has made this harder, Mr Keating said.

"It's back-breaking work. You have to stand on the tyre, put your whole weight on it and try and turn it around, " he said.

Agnes Tilley, 67, of Cullen Bullen, still has tyre swans in captivity. They have been at her garden gate for 23 years and are showing signs of age.

The rubber has lost its shine, the paint of their beaks is peeling and their necks have started to droop. But her husband loved making them and giving them as presents, and they are a reminder of his work in the garden, even 18 years after his death.

But maybe the extinction of tyre swans is a symptom of an Australia that is fast disappearing.

Mrs Tilley said: "It's much easier now for people to just go and buy something for their garden. They think: why make anything? It's too much effort."
 
A

Al Swearengen

Super glue!
Super glue was originally developed as an emergency medical item for the military for soldiers to glue wounds together. Works beautifully too. A mate of mine has a 3 inch scar on the fleshy bit of his hand where the doc just glued the cut together.
Technically that means that EVERYTHING you use super glue for that isnt medical isnt what its meant for.
 
Happy2

Happy2

Legend Member
Points
15
Al Swearengen said:
Super glue!
Super glue was originally developed as an emergency medical item for the military for soldiers to glue wounds together. Works beautifully too. A mate of mine has a 3 inch scar on the fleshy bit of his hand where the doc just glued the cut together.
Technically that means that EVERYTHING you use super glue for that isnt medical isnt what its meant for.
Click to expand...

So to save on vets fees I could just get the bitch that I was going to spend $100 getting spayed .And I can just superglue it shut or use Homers safety pin idea and pin it up Then she could still pee
 
C

Contrarian

In Queensland, people have been known to use their fly swatters as thongs for their feet!
 
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