Waste not, want not

I dislike waste. Having been in a position where I had no spare money to spend on hobbies, and have struggled to put food on the table, I know the value of things.
I only throw things away when I believe they are of absolutely no use to anyone else. This is why I have 2 double glazed wooden windows on my patio almost a year after they were replaced. The windows are made from a red hardwood, most likely a mahogany type, so no matter what happens it will not go to landfill, even if the glazing units do.

We had a log stove installed last year, so far the only job in the house I have not done myself. Our firewood is delivered in crates, made from pallet timber. I have no idea what species this is, but some of it is fairly hard and orange in colour.
I have used this timber for a few projects, rather than simply discard or burn it. It does make exceptionally good kindling. 😉
Over the last week or so, I have biscuit jointed, planed, thicknessed, laminated and turned several pieces of this timber.
First project was the really simple stool project I posted about earlier. If you don’t have a planer/thicknesser and don’t fancy hand planing timber boards this project can still be done if you have an electric sander. Just sand everything before you assemble.
The second project is a whirligig. Woodturning magazine from May 2019 has an article by Colwin Way on building one of these gizmos. It’s a fun project, and reasonably easy to do. The only thing in the project that isn’t scrap/salvage is the silver-steel rod used as the axle.
The upright parts of the lathe were scrap from the fireplace mantle. The lathe bed bars were old lollipop sticks. The little bloke was a mix of holly and pallet, the hub was holly, and the rest was all pallet.

In hindsight, I would probably use a heavier rod if I was going to do it again.

The bowl is off-set on the spindle so the little bloke’s arm moves up and down as it turns.
The project should appear in a future edition of Woodturning magazine in the reader’s letters section.
From a frugality perspective, the entire project cost less than £5
The flip side of course is the many thousands of pounds spent on tools to enable me to make the project.

Keep all of your chins up, and together we will come out of lock-down intact.