THINK SCROUNGE !!!

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

My second favorite scrounging grounds are the advertising display houses here in Pittsburgh. These companies build booths and signs for trade shows and fairs and permanent exhibits which are installed in airports, hotels, and convention halls. The firms are listed in the Yellow Pages under "Advertising, Display" and I find them to be good sources of new plywood, fiberglass, plastics, and other such materials.

There's one thing for sure about the type of advertising exhibits, signs, etc., that these companies put together: They're all made from absolutely first class, brand new materials. Which means that the leftovers and scraps from such work are likewise new and of superior grade. On my last junket to a display shop I came home with pieces of birch and mahogany plywood, several 1 X 2's and 2 X 2's, assorted clear pine boards and two 8 X 3 foot pieces of 5/8 inch Homosite (which made fine bulletin boards).

In addition, I scrounged several plastic signs and painted sections of hardboard from old and junked booths on that same trip.

No, most of what I toted back to the apartment from the display shop wasn't in what you'd call "large pieces" but they were plenty big enough for framing pictures, making small desk cubicles, and turning into cat doors and planter boxes.

Best of all, my advertising "outlets" never bother me with a hunting fee. Disposal of the odds and ends 1 want from these shops is generally handled by a janitor who's only too happy to get them off his hands. One of these guys even told me to call him in advance the next time I expected to be around and he'd have enough stuff ready for me to fill a truck!.

Yet another dividend offered by these display shops is the sizable amounts of sawdust they produce along with their scraps. The dust makes excellent mulch and compost since it comes almost entirely from hardwoods, instead of resinous pines and other softwoods.

Naturally, a real scrounger like me doesn't just hang around demolition sites and display shops looking for old and new lumber. Nosiree. I long ago learned to cruise the streets immediately ahead of the annual municipal pickup of articles too large for the regular daily or weekly refuse collection.

My, my. What a boggling amount and variety of goods gets thrown out as "junk" during this yearly event! If you're not too proud to search and you look long enough, you can find most anything you want. I recently picked up (at this curb service!) a nice dining room table with leaves that's so good I plan to use it in my own dining room. And it was free! Not to mention the refrigerators (convertible to meat and fish smokers), stoves (burners for home kilns), and washing machines (with their motors and wonderful spare parts) I could have picked and chosen from.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print