Do you keep parts that you will never use?

axisus

I was trawling through drawers of guitar parts looking for something yesterday, and I noticed that I have tons of used pots. Pretty much every one that has come out of something gets kept, a few have tape on them saying 'rubbish!' or 'scratchy' or 'not working'.

I literally never use old ones. any project that comes along I buy new ones. Why am I hoarding all the old ones!?!

Kittyfrisk

Dunno. You're a hoarder?

ICBM

I used to keep a lot of broken parts where the 'parts of parts' can be useful for repairs - eg old CTS pots, because you can strip them down to repair vintage originals with the ever-so-crucial date codes so the guitar is kept 'original'. But since I'm not really doing repair work now I have tried to have a big clear out and dump a lot of that sort of stuff...

Unless you're also doing that kind of thing, I would definitely bin any parts you wouldn't want to re-use because they're already not working properly.

Neilybob

I may or may not have several setup of pickups and valves in my spares chest at the bottom of the garden. 

enjo

Of course.
I'll have to dig through and offer them up on here at some point for price of postage or something.
Then immediately need something I gave away.

Kittyfrisk

enjo said:

Of course.
I'll have to dig through and offer them up on here at some point for price of postage or something.
Then immediately need something I gave away.

Yup 

bobacco

100%, it’ll come in handy…never. But still…

TTony

axisus said:

Do you keep parts that you will never use?

Never is a long time.

And I have a large cupboard.

Andyjr1515

What I find equally shocking is that I sometimes find something that I have never had the need for.  Take classical guitar tuners - in 10+ years of building I've never made a classical and never had a thought to do so.

But when I started looking for stuff I could use for the recent mini guitar for the grandchildren, came across these!


Worse than that...I had TWO sets!!!   

Kittyfrisk

Andyjr1515 said:

What I find equally shocking is that I sometimes find something that I have never had the need for.  Take classical guitar tuners - in 10+ years of building I've never made a classical and never had a thought to do so.

But when I started looking for stuff I could use for the recent mini guitar for the grandchildren, came across these!


Worse than that...I had TWO sets!!!   

Two sets of grandchildren or tuners? 
I sense a greater cosmic symmetry in play 

Penn

Yes I do keep crap bits but if someone had an old EKO with something missing… @Bellycaster might not be a bad thing. 

Penn

If you don’t use crap someone else might need it. 

Bellycaster

Penn said:

Yes I do keep crap bits but if someone had an old EKO with something missing… @Bellycaster might not be a bad thing. 

This is true. What might have been called "someone else's junk" helped to make an old Guitar more periodically correct.

#keepyourjunk 

Supportact

I probably do, but I don't know I will definitely never use them which is why I keep them. I have some bits which I'd have to admit are very unlikely to be used.

Sometimes I throw out a broken item, but harvest the 'useful' parts first, which makes me feel better about throwing the thing away (which is a feeling I don't like for some reason). I can't honestly tell whether this is totally practical or a waste of time. Probably a bit of both. 

Dave_Mc

Of course. Just in case I have to put any guitar back to stock. 

Needless to say, I haven't labelled anything I've taken out so quite how I'm going to remember what I've taken out and from where is another thing...

Roland

Repair, re-use, recycle. There are a lot of spare parts in my workshop. Sometimes it’s left overs from a pack. For example, when I needed a spare classical tuner head I bought a set of six. The other five are in store somewhere. 

There is also a lifetime harvest of nuts and bolts. I know that most won’t get used. Yet when I want something obsolete like a BSF bolt the chances are that I’ve got one. Just this week I was making a batch of wooden candle holders in preparation for Christmas, and used leftover copper plumbing end caps as inserts to seat the candles, and reduce the risk of the wood catching fire if a candle burns right down.

lovestrat74

You need some contact cleaner so you can reuse those scratchy pots on your next project. Recycle the rest

prowla

Yes, and I buy more!

For some time I've had a Hipshot drop-D eXtender missing its lever which I'd forgotten about; I grabbed a load of things off the Allparts stand at Kempton the weekend before last and was sorting them out, so discover they included a broken one of the same model including the missing lever - result!

I don't have a use for the thing though, so it'll sit in my parts box long with the other things I may never use...

ICBM

Roland said:

There is also a lifetime harvest of nuts and bolts. I know that most won’t get used. Yet when I want something obsolete like a BSF bolt the chances are that I’ve got one.

This. I have a box containing (at a very rough guess!) about ten thousand random nuts, bolts and washers. If I need one for anything, I can tip them out onto an old towel and find something that will do the job in usually a matter of seconds. If I need an exact match to something, maybe a few minutes of carefully raking through them. Pick up the towel by the corners and back into the box they go... an enormously useful resource.

Kittyfrisk

Roland said:

Repair, re-use, recycle. There are a lot of spare parts in my workshop. Sometimes it’s left overs from a pack. For example, when I needed a spare classical tuner head I bought a set of six. The other five are in store somewhere. 

There is also a lifetime harvest of nuts and bolts. I know that most won’t get used. Yet when I want something obsolete like a BSF bolt the chances are that I’ve got one. Just this week I was making a batch of wooden candle holders in preparation for Christmas, and used leftover copper plumbing end caps as inserts to seat the candles, and reduce the risk of the wood catching fire if a candle burns right down.

This, but I use 'rehome' too  I regard having to recycle something, as a failure.

Funkfingers

Penn said:

If you don’t use crap someone else might need it. 

This is my excuse. Some cheapskate might need a budget guitar fixed for next to no outlay.

ICBM said:
I would definitely bin any parts you wouldn't want to re-use because they're already not working properly.

I try to operate by this credo but, by rights, I would have to bin myself.