Showing posts with label oops sander but great day at the neighborhood garage sale anyway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oops sander but great day at the neighborhood garage sale anyway. Show all posts

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Yard sales are not Thrift stores

I went to a neighborhood garage sale today in a nearby town with one of my friends. I was looking for a power orbital sander. I found one, and a lot more: The cabinet, couldn't help it...it had the prettiest details. Here is a picture of the top: And yes, that is a staple gun... What can I say, I like powerful tools. And you never know when I will feel like reupholstering the pieces of furniture that I find!

About the power sander that I found...It was a steal at $5. The only problem is that its power cord was worn, a tiny detail I failed to notice in my excitement. I thought I would try to salvage it, so I went to Home Depot...

I pride myself on having a decent collection of tools. However, one of the tool sets that I don't have is a star hex key set. Figures - that happened to be the tool that I needed to unscrew the body of the sander. A new set would have set me back about $9. Then I needed to purchase a replacement power cord, which would have set me back another $9. Then, in order to use the tool, I would have to buy a replacement sanding pad and sand paper. Together, these would probably cost between $10-$15 (This is a guess; I actually stopped checking prices when I realized that it would be more cost-effective for me to get a brand new sander). Aside from the purchases, I would have to do the work of fixing it- taking out all of the screws, which were rusted a little, and figuring out how to properly connect the new power cord. I actually could have gotten a less expensive replacement cord but more work would have been involved...wow, that's a lot more than I bargained for.

Practicality won out over frugality. The way I look at it, I actually made up for the five bucks I spent on a lemon sander with the really cool power stapler and wooden cabinet.