Nail Man Strikes Again!

Yesterday as I was removing the transfer case shifters and linkage off the transmission I found still more bent nails instead of cotter pins in all the joints for the linkage. It seems like every old truck I've ever brought home has had some quirk to it from a previous owner. I now think of whoever this guy is or was as "Nail Man". All the steering components that should have had cotter pins had bent nails and my favorite was the tie rod end that had a bent aluminum roofing nail in it. Fortunately the truck as a whole is not cobbled up with a lot of bailing wire and barnyard repairs but Nail Man was not about to buy any of those fancy store bought cotter pins as long as he had coffee cans full of nails out in his shed.

I've scrapped out several boxes of used nails Grandpa kept around the barn, and have found a few bent over in castle nuts, etc. I always wonder why when there are at least two multi-pin packages in the shop, with a couple hundred new ones just waiting!

Talk to someone old enough to have lived and worked thru the depression and you'll have your answer. It isn't about the cost, it is about not having what you needed to live, Once you lived thru something like that, you will never throw out something that has value to you, or you needed but couldn't get. My grandfather was like that, and I have had the privilege to know a few others. Go into their basement and you'll find a months worth of everything, Toilet paper? yep a case of that. Nails, bent or straight, in old coffee or soup cans.
It is not about practicality, it is almost a metal illness, but having survived, they are never going to have to go thru it again, and it never seams to fade.

CB, This is true. The other thing to consider: sometimes, you have the "nail" on hand, right then, and it works, so you tend to forget to "put the right thing in" because it is working. Shoot, my grandpa showed me how to make a flat tip screw driver from a nail and a piece of wood.

yep, My grandpa must of had 1000 salt packets from restaurants, and ketchup packets, and mustard packets,

Every doorknob in his house had so many rubber bands saved on them, some rotting off from age,

he had probably 50 carpet remnants too, not sure what those were about, but he had cans and jars full of screws, washers, nails, etc.

I DO have 2 buckets full of nearly every nut, screw, fitting, and bolt for K, KB, L, R, S, trucks,,,,,so guess I better not talk,,,,

BRJ, back then it was "don't have cash? what have you got?" everything and anything was saved for barter purpose. Doctors and vet's were paid in food, people traded everything they could lay there hands on.

The cotter pin was invented around 1912. There is evidence of a patent being applied for a machine to make cotter pins. There was no evidence of a Mister Cotter.
I have some vintage machines from 1883 and 1897. The castle style nuts were secured with a straight pin, like a nail body. One end was bent left and the other bent right.
My Dad had my brother and I straighten nails a few times.
How many persons know there are incorrect ways to install, bend and trim a cotter pin?

I DO have 2 buckets full of nearly every nut, screw, fitting, and bolt for K, KB, L, R, S, trucks,,,,,so guess I better not talk,,,,

I'll admit to having two "hell buckets". They are two 5 gallon plastic dry wall buckets that over the years I've thrown all manner of used and new nuts and bolts, screws, you name it in. For at least a couple of decades now I have told myself one of these days I'll sort them into bins. It hasn't happened yet. Every time I get in a jamb and need a bolt or washer to finish up a project that I don't have in my regular bins I have to dump a bucket on the floor of my shop and start pawing through it. On a really bad day I might have to dump both. The buckets from hell have saved my bacon more than once when the hardware store was closed so I keep them around.

Boneyards. When I was a kid, where the closest anything was at least a 20 minute drive, everyone had a boneyard where everything went except rotting trash. Cars, tables, tin cans, old rope, anything. I keep a jar of bacon grease in the fridge. Got that from my grandmother who never tossed anything in the bin, especially if it was edible. Hunger was always just a day away. And hell, anything fried in bacon grease is going to be tasty!

My parents lived thru the depression, so lots of their habits got passed on to me and my five siblings. As a young girl, my Mom stood on the street corners in downtown Pittsburgh, Pa., selling apples for 5 cents each-----the grocer would sell them to her for 3 cents each. As a young boy, my Dad carried water to the miners in the West Virginia coal mines, for a lunchtime meal. Plenty of truck owners would consider themselves lucky to have a nail to take the place of a cotter pin when the chips were down.