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I think it would be safe to say most of us are hoarders to some degree, so, what do you do with your left over scratched and rusted hardware?

Do you save all of it, throw it all away, or pick out the salvagable bits and turf the rest?


Personally I pick through and keep what is salvagable, I used to throw away rusty parts but have since learned that oxalic acid eats rust and leaves you with a clean part. I should have hung onto them in that case but didn't, how many turnbuckles, screws, axles and ball ends went in the bin that could have been given new life. Scratched screws on the other hand, pretty difficult to save. I guess you could recondition the heads and replate them, plus I've found that early AE hardware was much better than later.

What do you do?

Although I have some barkeepers friend here, and thats the main ingredient. might have to see how it handles rust. Just add water? Hmmm

i used to throw all mine away. I kind of regret it, because i could use a lot of what i had thrown away. What I've been doing is buying screw kits off Ebay or Tower Hobbies for certain rebuilds, and save the old screws and hardware. The old screws and hardware are real handy for them basher builds.

I rarely throw anything like that away. I use all my old rusty hardware to plug threads when powdercoating parts.

If it's stripped out--screw heads and plastic/alloy parts with threads damaged--I make sure to throw it out, because I don't want to use one of those in the future, and I wouldn't want to sell them to someone, either. I keep anything else as long as it's not rusted out or obviously damaged, because I know I won't use those items in any of my builds. I find that I'm always finding uses for old parts, and often it's not the intended use.