Repurposing Stuff

Bobby O - very creative repurposing of the crane car and piers!  Nice idea for a thread too!  

I really like the piers for the crane. That looks awesome!

Not exactly hi-rail but, for a temp layout when my daughter was 3 I used an old busted upside down styrofoam cooler painted green with a tunnel portal in front of it for a "mountain" (left top).  Also by the controls, I placed an old broken water pressure gauge to go with the steam loco controls.

@Bobby Ogage posted:

@Bobby Ogage posted:

Bobby:

Please take the following as, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". I may have to adopt your crane idea for a second location on my layout that needs a gantry crane. Bravo on a GREAT idea!!!!

This is one of the fun things with trains, being able to reuse things on the layout, or being clever. I used to use cat litter sprayed with this gloss black spray paint to use as coal with the coal loader I had, it ended up looking like real coal, irregular pieces where the litter clumped together, and it worked fine in the feeder itself.

We had old car parts lying around, and for example the condensers from old car distributors made for pretty good industrial transformers, other bits and pieces came in handy, either as junk yard pieces, or for other things (a thing, I will add, gratefully of the past unless someone is running contact points for nostalgia sake in an old car). An old boxcar and caboose was turned into a unique MOW vehicle. An old smoke unit from a steam engine made for an interesting focus point on a tall smokestack I had made, looked like a scrubber or some sort.

Probably my craziest repurposing was using a miniature United Nations Building from a cheap New York City souvenir as an outdoor AC/ventilation unit for a building flat which itself is one wall from an MTH bank building.

A reason to never throw anything away!  

Jim

Homemade turntable rotates on a 6 inch diameter lazy Susan ball bearing unit and driven by a used clothes dryer drum belt.

This is double repurposing and been in use for 40 years.  Details on how I built it on post 9 in below OGR link and it cost only $10.

https://ogrforum.com/...ra-027-layout?page=1

Disk crank with red knob drives turntable with used cloths dryer belt.

Charlie

I have a Proto-1 diesel that had a bad board, that donated one of its trucks to repair a diesel for one of the AGHR Kids. The locomotive is going to become a load for a heavy duty flat car.

I call it my Popsicle Stick Yankee Stadium because of these bleacher seats:

I love doing this stuff.

Most all of this hot dog stand is repurposed stuff.

Trailer frame -  One of my Son's old 1/64 John Deere trailers.

Trash can - valve stem air cap.

Soda cups - old model sprue.

Hot dogs - wire insulation and shrink wrap.

Propane tanks - old model sprue.

Awning - Old dress shirt.

Frame of awning - RC model airplane pushrods.

Counter - Cemetery sign from K-line fence.  If you turn it over it says cemetery.

Roof vent fan - spare plastic piece from toilet tank repair kit.

Decals - Home made.  Named after my Father in law who loves trains and Italian Hot Dogs.

Trailer window - Left over from an MTH bank kitbash.

Even had to modify the Police Officer.  Had to cut his arm off and reposition to hold hot dog.  Also cut his head off to reposition to look at the mustard he just got on his shirt.

Good thread.

Ron

On the roof of Sam's building is a small box and a SPAM can.

John

Great stuff so far. I love scratch building stuff as well. Here is one of my latest -

Awning is made from repurposed plastic facial cleanser bottle with copper wire and fishing line for the frame, all heavily over sprayed with white primer.

Fire hydrant, other plumbing, and security siren made from leftover model sprues.

window security gate and front panels below window made from leftover balsa wood, speckled and painted

All decals and signage copied from internet and printed on decal paper.

The AC unit?

It was the hotel from Milton Bradley’s the “Game of Life”.....

The air vent and stack?

A rubber foot from a PowerMaster.....and the nut holding an old toilet seat in place......

Peter

Wasn't there a fellow from MR magazine named Art Curran that was pretty good at repurposing various materials?

I see to recall that he showed something in every issue that made you say "Why didn't I think of that?"

When I needed a way to blend my elevation   did not want to use the old plaster  sloping hills so I used old ceiling  tiles and just broke them with my hands to look like slabs of rocks  stacked  on top of each other and painted them with a rattle  spray can ..daniel

Small cardboard box painted with a Santa Fe logo glued to it.  Simple to make, could be a maintenance of way structure any where on a layout.  Variations abound.  John

Speaking of Drugs, I used the plastic desiccants spray painted gray and used as Telephone Pole Transformers.   

@Sitka posted:

Speaking of Drugs, I used the plastic desiccants spray painted gray and used as Telephone Pole Transformers.   

What's the line?  Great minds...

This is a great thread. I'll bet it will go on for some time.

These make my repurposed ping pong table sound mild. I know I'm not the only one using a 5x9 ping pong table for the base of a layout.

Here I repurposed a railroad control tower as a forest fire lookout tower.

@Sean007 posted:

Wasn't there a fellow from MR magazine named Art Curran that was pretty good at repurposing various materials?

I see to recall that he showed something in every issue that made you say "Why didn't I think of that?"

He was a master kit-basher and repurposed lots of kits in other ways....I was a big fan. Sadly, he passed in the early 2000s at a relatively young age.

Peter

Highlighter caps make great  vent fans for restaurants