Car Boot Sales

[Colin Jacobs 1Participant @colinjacobs1]

a new ME who I met gets loads of stuff from engineering from the car boot sales. has anyone else bought anything good from them?

[Colin Jacobs 1Participant @colinjacobs1]

anyone bought anything good

[Ian AbbottParticipant @ianabbott31222]

I picked up a 5″ Metro, frames, castings, wheels etc. from the back of a lorry for £35 at the South Hams Working Meet and a 110v Sears Craftsman circular saw for a fiver off a different lorry at the Torbay Steam Fair last year.

 

Recycle depots are good too, I brought home a pile of Whitworth spanners from Newton Abbot and a nice wooden smoothing plane from Totnes recently. Total cost, a quid.

 

Lots of good stuff in my toolboxes came from boot sales here and garage sales in Canada. Picked up a Seagull in perfect nick for $25 on the West Coast (the outboard, not the bird, we’ve got too many of them).

 

The list goes on and on.

 

Thars gold in them thar rubbish piles.

 

Ian

[peter walton 1Participant @peterwalton1]

I’ve got lots of brass from ornaments and fittings etc, a good source of stock. A lot of water fittings are made of brass just another way of looking at boot fares

peter

[SaxalbyParticipant @saxalby]

At a car boot sale a few years ago, I was lucky enough to find a Gerstner solid oak tool chest for just £10. A bit dirty it may have been but cleaned up nicely and is totally undamaged in any way. Even had the keys in one of the little draws.

[RJWParticipant @rjw]

At the annual ‘Lions’ event last summer, a very nice virtually unused digital rev counter in a good fitted case for a fiver ………. and big old style, (alloy framed) almost unused Black and Decker Workmate ….. ditto, a fiver!

Roll on the next event this summer

John

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

I have found numerous good quality tools at car boots.

Last month at a local autojumble amongst a pile of rusting machine reamers I found two boring and facing heads.

Narex VHU36 the other a Wohlhaupter UPA3 £18 purchased the pair.

The Narex had a siezed locking pin and required some new gib screws.

A complete dismantling revealed hardly any wear.

The Wohlhaupter UPA3 had an integral plane shank that had been bodged to fit a large taper to.

On strip down very little wear was evident.

A pair of new gib nuts were made and a new taper grafted on the shank.

The Internet has provided me with diagrams of the parts.

If you are prepared to do a bit of reclamation its amazing whats available at reasonable prices.   

           Windy

Edited By Windy on 05/03/2011 23:34:52

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I just wish we had more boot fairs and auto jumbles round this part of the world. Nobody throws anything out in Aberdeenshire ,except rhubarb they say. At the last one got a good variable speed mini-drill with transformer ,a £5er, and 2 lbs. of haddock.

[Colin Jacobs 1Participant @colinjacobs1]

Just bought two moore and wright micrometers and a set of moore and wright calipers jenny callipers and square all for a tenner the lot boxed too.

[GoCreateParticipant @gocreate]

Gordon, I am a fellow sufferer, since moving to Aberdeenshire I have not been able to find any car boot sale bargains, because I haven’t found any car boot sales. There is the annual Alford transport museum auto jumble but to date not found any bargains.

 

Nigel

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Colin, I’ve bought several tools from car boots, but not for a while, but back in 2003 I did by a hand operated bench drill with an inertia wheel to apply a regulated feed to the twist drill. The machine was in a bit of a sorry state with failing paint work, rust and a broken operating handle, the wooden hand grip, which stops you getting blisters was missing. It cost me £3:00.

 

I set about refubishing it by successfully welding the handle back together first. and then stipping and repainting it. While it it needed a new piece of 1″ BMS for the column and a new wooden hand grip, nothing else needed to be replaced.

 

These drills were common in the 1930/40’s and were notorious for breaking small twist drills apparently, because even with the adjusment backed right off the inertia was too much for them. In The Model Engineer of 20th April 1939, one E.J. Szlumper addressed this with a design of a mechanism which in his words was “a cross between a motorcycle damper and a car clutch”.

 

I made and fitted his design very closely to what he had written, and it worked exactly as he said. I drilled and hole with a 1/16th twist drill, (taking no prisoners) and no breakage.

 

I entered it into the loan section of 73rd Model Engineers exhibition 2003 and a picture can be seen in issue 4219 vol 192 page 428 photo 4, with a little write up, which can be view in the digital archives if you have access.

 

I don’t actually use it, but I do have an identical one which was my late farthers, which I didn’t what to alter, so this £3:00 one was used to try out Mr. Szlumpers design that I had read about and wondered upon.

 

Regards Nick.

[JonParticipant @jon]

Not really only some 60 grit alum oxide paper on a roll i am still using 12 years on, good stuff.

Sold a fair bit though up to 9 years ago.

Reckon should ban car boots blocking the roads.

[Author]

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