Brass Pipe Fittings

Just over two weeks ago I saw a neighbour walking out with a small plastic bag placing it neatly beside the trash dump across the street. I thought if not in, it may be interesting.

Here are the contents. Listed the next day, sold this morning at €10. Perhaps too cheap, because depending the model such joints go between €6 and over 60 new, but it's fine. I don't know anything about the product and wanted to be sure to get at least some money out. I hoped to make some DIY enthusiast happy with the lot, but to my surprise a professional fitter, though probably self-employed,  came for it.

Philips D 5420 Direct Drive Turntable

I found this over a year ago in front of my door, still looking for a working record player to replace my other, found in front of door, but that has a broken belt. Which I sewed together with some stitches! Image that, it works but it's not ideal. 

However, this machine, which is a direct drive, has a hick-up, the disk kind of jumps up every second or so. Besides that it's some special system that has an amplifier inside and I never tried out if that would work for me. End of story tried to sell it for parts or repair, but after 16 weeks no success. At the time I found one for sale on line in mint condition abroad. Probably the model has never been a big success. I decided it will go to recycling. Now that we have the Droppie shop in my neighbourhood it will make me a 20 cents or so. Still better than retrash it.

Vintage Telephone

 Who remembers this device?

Indeed, a phone. The exact model my parents got in 1967 or 1968, model SSB 51553. I remember being at home alone with my mother pre-school age when the technician came to install it. Found in front of my door 2018. Sold quickly on line €10.

But the fun is years before, 2010/2012? I don't remember... Found one also in the street even older, the 1950's or older model my grandmother had and she always had a phone when we didn't have one yet. Unfortunately no photo's of that one but I do remember selling it at a market, probably €5. Must look up paper admin maybe I can find something about.

Edit 12/06: I looked that up today and found sold September 2012. Similar to the one on the photo but it had a rigid cord, not the curly one. I found listings for vintage bakelite phones on Etsy for unbelievable amounts. Also locally I found one of my model for much more. Maybe they are getting more scarce now.

My Antique Stereo

Real Music lovers my laugh good and hard at my old Akai tower. But hey, I got it for free and it serves my needs. Ten years ago when I picked it up it just came in time to replace my even older system that still consisted of all the separate components and that had all except the loudspeakers broken down.

Okay the cd player of this one doesn’t work either and I’m not too sure about the tape deck. But hooked up to my still fantastic IMF speakers and my computer I can play cd’s and have great sound on anything else I listen or watch online.

The radio tuner works fine as well and look at my latest addition on top! A turntable? Yes indeed, just found it in the trash a couple of days ago and I’m so happy now occasionally I can play an old record again. And by the way haven’t you heard the LP is coming back? Some people just don’t like the sterile digital sound and I’ve even heard of a famous orchestra recently releasing a recording on vinyl.

My Antique Matrix Printer

(Find a tutorial for simple and cost free packing bags for small items at the bottom of this post)

Meet my antique printer. It’s a Star AX-20. Yes, it’s a dot matrix printer from the last century! It’s designed for chain paper but has an option for single sheets that have to be fed one by one. So that’s clumsy, slow and it only prints text and simple drawings in one colour. But before you start laughing out really loud let me explain why I love and keep my machine from the stone age.

When I found it in the trash about eight years ago bubble or inkjets were still fairly expensive and I couldn’t afford one. So I was more than happy to be able to at least print my own letters, invoices and so on at home. Or recipes or other instructions from the internet. If the web page look makes it difficult for my machine I just copy the text in a text document first.

It’s reliable. It’s strong and sturdy and just always works. Believe me I see countless broken inkjets in the trash every week. And I don’t have to clean up print canals after not having used it in a while.

But most important: It’s very low cost in use and eco-friendly. I doesn’t need expensive and polluting ink cartridges. The first time when the print started to fade too much I searched all over the internet to buy a new ribbon cassette but with no luck. And then found a simple solution. With a bit of stamping ink that I still had I just re-inked the whole ribbon by carefully dripping the ink on while turning it through by hand.

Last week at the office when we were clearing out a file cabinet I found some blue stamp-pad ink and took it home. No honest, nobody in my department still uses stamps, it would have disappeared in the waste bin.

Now my printer prints in blue.

My printer has a relatively fine print as compared to what most people know as a dot matrix print like this example I found on Wikipedia.

With a freshly inked ribbon in fact the result of my printer is almost as good (left) as that from a modern inkjet (right).

So yes, today I have a better printer as well. A few years ago I snatched a special offer for less than 75 dollars. But as it was a model that was going out of production I already found out by now I can’t get the cartridges in discount shops anymore. Hopefully I can still find them online. But as I’m carefully saving this printer only for photo’s, my business cards and such I’m afraid some day I will have to throw out a perfectly working machine just because I can’t get the ink anymore. Doesn’t that suck? That’s how even if you take care of your stuff progressing technology feeds having to buy new things.

Last month I got my third pc in ten years at home. I never had Windows 2000 and went straight from 98 to XP. I was a bit scared my printer wouldn’t be in the list of pre-installed software anymore, but it still was! I can tell you I was thrilled!

So I’m glad my stone age printer will serve me for quite a few years to come. I also use it to print the packing slips for my second hand book orders. Books that I take from the trash and sometimes go with a profit of less than a dollar so I don’t want to spend any extra money. For the paper I use the blank back side of non-confidential print work from the office or letter sized advertising that I find in my mailbox.

My cost free printer and paper are also very useful for this:

I’ve been selling at quite a few craft fairs lately and I started to run out of my paper lunch bags to pack up my items. So I had to think of something new to create a cost free and eco-friendly packing especially for small items like my flower brooches or bracelets.

To keep in line with the character of my art, fiber work, I decided to not just fold and glue the paper, but sew the sides together. This also is done much quicker as it needs no extra folding and careful cutting!

But that looked a bit to ‘blank’ and I would still have to staple my flyer to the bag. Though I still have enough of those I thought simply printing the information on the bag would be a lot more efficient. I cut the corners of the bag to open it more easily to put the goods in.

Of course if you are inspired by this to make your own packing bags you can still use a laser or inkjet printer as well. But Googling around I found in this day and age of laser and inkjet, matrix printers are still being produced and sold. Unfortunately at a much higher price than the inkjets you can find in consumer’s shops. But think about it, it may be an advantage to have one next to your colour printer. They are more durable and cheaper in use so if most of your print work is black on white text the initial cost may be worth it. On top think of the profit for the environment. And of course you can try to find a second hand, but some of the modern matrix machines may be faster and have better options for single sheet feeding.

The Television

When I wrote about our couch I already said that between earlier and later photos of it, the television in the picture had changed. Here's how:

After we had found the couch my BF was bragging about it to a friend who then, looking around him at the table, the dresser, and some other stuff asked: What are you still looking for on the curb, what more do you need? Th BF replied: A larger TV! Sure, said our friend, like the neighbours are just going to hand it to you. True, even when on several occasions elderly neighbours moved to a home and left us with a fridge, vacuum cleaner and cooker, their tv's were sold or they kept them.

But a few weeks later when we almost finished our tour and turned the last corner we saw a man coming out of his house carrying a huge set. Before he even put it down we asked him if it was broken. He said only the scart socket was a bit loose. So we took the chance and I went for our cart.

At home it turned out the scart connection was really bad, but a makeshift repair with tape and toothpicks solved it. And we went from a brand 'X' 50 cm (which the BF now has in his bedroom) to a Panasonic 70 cm screen.

Technically it has never been in the trash, as the man literally handed it to us. I just had to buy a new remote for it. We forgot to ask...