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I was just out in my dad's old shop and came across a tool from years ago. It's an electric pitchfork. The obvious question is, "Why do you need an electric pitchfork?" The answer is worms. You let it rain or run the sprinkler for half a day and then the next you take that bad boy out there; slam it into the ground and turn on the power. The worms come up wiggling out of the ground and then you can pull them out and throw them into the big box of dirt you put together. It has a lightbulb to regulate the amperage. The tines are fully energized through with wiring connections, with an extension cord running back to the house. Having a dad who loved weird rear end science stuff and the opportunity for his young kids to make a few bucks he got us set-up. We put up signs around the neighborhood saying we had worms for sale. Fishermen and even gardeners would stop in and buy a dozen at a time. I and my siblings would make some decent cash every summer. Feel free to post any weird-rear end contraptions you have around your home. Internetjack fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Nov 16, 2025 |
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Nov 16, 2025 22:48
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Hired a friendly junk company to haul away a truckload, and for a few extra bucks they made a stop at a relative’s house to haul away a mangler made before 1930. I only knew what it was from an old Stephen King story, the junk guy noted he had been in the business for decades & never heard of one & had googled ahead of time to make sure it wasn’t full of fuel oil or something.
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Nov 16, 2025 22:56
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I live in the "new house" on my property, circa 1950. The "old house" is used for storage and there's a forge in it that I don't know how to use.
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Nov 16, 2025 23:12
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I bet if you put some of that blue stuff in there it'd be totally cool!
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Nov 16, 2025 23:27
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I've got this weird metal box in my house. It doesn't have a touchscreen or wifi so I'm not really sure what it does. Anyone else know?
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Nov 16, 2025 23:38
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Grey Cat posted:I've got this weird metal box in my house. It doesn't have a touchscreen or wifi so I'm not really sure what it does. Home euthanasia device, just add water
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Nov 16, 2025 23:40
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Grey Cat posted:I've got this weird metal box in my house. It doesn't have a touchscreen or wifi so I'm not really sure what it does. The last bath toy you'll ever need to buy
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Nov 17, 2025 00:21
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for more.
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Internetjack posted:I bet if you put some of that blue stuff in there it'd be totally cool! Childhood taught us all that blue stuff is the coolest stuff, so you're absolutely correct!
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Nov 17, 2025 00:21
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Grey Cat posted:I've got this weird metal box in my house. It doesn't have a touchscreen or wifi so I'm not really sure what it does. Dick warmer for two
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Nov 17, 2025 00:46
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Pretty boring, but the weirdest contraption I have is a hook attached to my desk. I can flip it up or down and hang my headphones on it.
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Nov 17, 2025 00:48
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Das Boo posted:I live in the "new house" on my property, circa 1950. The "old house" is used for storage and there's a forge in it that I don't know how to use. I think all the blue things on the right are glass insulators, for telephone poles and the like?
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Nov 17, 2025 00:49
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Das Boo posted:I live in the "new house" on my property, circa 1950. The "old house" is used for storage and there's a forge in it that I don't know how to use. HOLY poo poo LOOKIT ALL THEM GLASS INSULATORS
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Nov 17, 2025 00:51
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Also das boo this is your chance to pioneer a new medium of animation: wrought iron
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Nov 17, 2025 00:54
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This was years ago, but I had a house with 2 indoor/outdoor cats and a neighborhood with some ballsy raccoons. At first I would leave the garage door open a bit and leave the the door into the house open a crack, but the raccoons figured out they could come in and eat cat food at will. I chased them out (I think most of my neighbors were afraid of them, and I had to demonstrate to them that was not case in my house) but it wasn't a lasting solution. What I ended up doing was installing a normal cat door into a piece of plywood cut to fit one of the windows in the living room, then constructed a shelf outside that window that the cats could jump to but the raccoons couldn't reach. Worked well until an underlying drainage problem got worse and I had to deal with little muddy cat footprints getting tracked across the room, but it was still better than having raccoons getting in.
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Nov 17, 2025 01:15
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Das Boo posted:I live in the "new house" on my property, circa 1950. The "old house" is used for storage and there's a forge in it that I don't know how to use. I'm kinda jealous, that vent hood could be really useful to me. Even if I didn't learn blacksmithing, it's a cool setup. Especially if the old house is climate controlled. You would think art is a nice safe job, but the chemicals I use for manufacturing my dice, charms and textile goods are pretty rough. I use heavy duty gasmasks and have a Rosenthal-Corsi box for extra safety, which gets changed out of the reg, plus a vent closet rigged up from inline fans and an old TV hutch. I guess two weird contraptions I have are my pressure pot, which is a pot that you... well, you pressurize, and also my vacuum pot, which is its eternal opposite lol. The pressure pot is for dice and charms. You stick your resin pour in the pot, and pressurize it to 30 psi so all the bubbles are squished down to nothing. Technically the air is still there, but so small and uniform as to be invisible. Some people leave them hooked to air compressors, but I just use a bike pump to fill mine. It's really toned my arms! One day, when I die, they'll find a weird pot with a gauge on it and a sticker of several d4s that says "waiting for feet" in the attic and probably assume grampy Dick was a real freak. They're right, but not that kind. Now, as to my succ pot, it's for degassing. It can be used on resins, but its real utility is in degassing silicone molds. I have one set of molds I forgot to degass, and it makes spikey dice because of the bubble pits. I learned the hard way about that! It has a little vacuum motor for the big succ, and isn't as dangerous as the pressure pot, which can go very wrong if you don't give it respect. You can even watch all the bubbles come up through a window in the top, which is cool. All my other gadgets are pretty normal. 3d printer, regular printers (one photo, one dye sub, for the charms and textiles) a cutter/plotter thing, shirt press and a couple sewing machines. Nothing I could really term a "contraption", just what you'd expect a career artist to have. The plotter is cool. I only recently learned that it is a pretty venerable technology, but only really recently popular to mass produce. Uh... I didn't expect this post to be so long. But if you like dice, I guess enjoy hearing how the sausage is made a bit, lol. 
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Nov 17, 2025 01:24
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free hubcaps posted:HOLY poo poo LOOKIT ALL THEM GLASS INSULATORS I only have one   I do have this ww2 Japanese bomb fuse that says “military secret” 
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Nov 21, 2025 22:18
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Don't post that! A guy living alone on an island who still thinks the war is on will get you!
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Nov 21, 2025 22:42
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Snowy posted:I only have one Actually it says “Honor. Wind. Steel Battalion Xbox Ichiban.” Looks like early aughts Americanized tattoo kanji
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Nov 21, 2025 22:55
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Das Boo posted:I live in the "new house" on my property, circa 1950. The "old house" is used for storage and there's a forge in it that I don't know how to use. ITT we learn user Das Boo is actually a Doobie parachute account
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Nov 21, 2025 23:26
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Grey Cat posted:I've got this weird metal box in my house. It doesn't have a touchscreen or wifi so I'm not really sure what it does. dis GUSTING
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Nov 22, 2025 00:25
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paging genesplicer he's got all kinds of weird poo poo
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Nov 22, 2025 00:28
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R.L. Stine posted:paging genesplicer he's got all kinds of weird poo poo yeah, pre-industrial flint and chalcedony tech
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Nov 22, 2025 01:43
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I have an insanely radioactive water crock. It was deliberately made that way. Regular ceramic crock for holding your drinking water, but it is lined with uranium ore. The idea was to fill it with water when you went to bed, then drink the water throughout the next day. This was made back when they thought that radioactivity was not only not dangerous, but could be healthy. It is called the "Revigator" and they sold thousands of these things from the 1900s to the 1930s.Buce posted:yeah, pre-industrial flint and chalcedony tech Well, I do have a stone hand axe that is about 800,000 years old. (I think it was made by Og, but I don't remember for sure.)
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Dec 4, 2025 22:38
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Genesplicer posted:I have an insanely radioactive water crock. It was deliberately made that way. Regular ceramic crock for holding your drinking water, but it is lined with uranium ore. The idea was to fill it with water when you went to bed, then drink the water throughout the next day. This was made back when they thought that radioactivity was not only not dangerous, but could be healthy. It is called the "Revigator" and they sold thousands of these things from the 1900s to the 1930s. I had to make a replica Caloosa shell axe in archaeology class and cutting down a small tree with that thing was a bitch. No wonder the conquistadors killed them off so easily.
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Dec 4, 2025 22:46
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Das Boo posted:I live in the "new house" on my property, circa 1950. The "old house" is used for storage and there's a forge in it that I don't know how to use. Das Boo beats 3O with three routers.
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Dec 4, 2025 22:51
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pineapple corer
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Dec 4, 2025 22:56
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We just used a stick stuck into the ground and rubbed a rock on the top, worms came up all the same. I'd be curious if an electric pitchfork was any more successful tbh because the stick was pretty drat successful.
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Dec 4, 2025 23:11
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ball scratching stick
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Dec 4, 2025 23:15
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I have this weird thing that sits in my hand and lets me post bad on the internet. A cellphone telephone of sorts. The other weird contraptions I have are instruments. You ever sit down and look at how most instruments work mechanically? They're loving weird. Relying on gravity and friction and cogworking gizmos and whatnot.
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Dec 4, 2025 23:19
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i have this bizarre contraption that you sit on and it will propel you to 250 kph if you so desire and provided you have a clear enough run up
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Dec 4, 2025 23:20
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Genesplicer posted:I have an insanely radioactive water crock. It was deliberately made that way. Regular ceramic crock for holding your drinking water, but it is lined with uranium ore. The idea was to fill it with water when you went to bed, then drink the water throughout the next day. This was made back when they thought that radioactivity was not only not dangerous, but could be healthy. It is called the "Revigator" and they sold thousands of these things from the 1900s to the 1930s. Is it not dangerous even just to own? And, did we have much less cancer before such innovations?
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Dec 4, 2025 23:53
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I have this thing that plays sounds: Sound on: https://i.imgur.com/2bLzEUy.mp4
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Dec 5, 2025 00:10
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I have this thing I don't have the talent to actually use: 
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Dec 5, 2025 01:16
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Animal-Mother posted:I have this thing I don't have the talent to actually use: all your bass belong to us preset?
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Dec 5, 2025 01:22
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Das Boo posted:I live in the "new house" on my property, circa 1950. The "old house" is used for storage and there's a forge in it that I don't know how to use. That is a sweet forge! It still has the last coal load that was burned in it, too! It appears that the blower is hand-cranked, so it's probably an older model. And I like the bunch of insulators down to the right. Elburroman posted:Is it not dangerous even just to own? And, did we have much less cancer before such innovations? Well, of course there is a danger with any radioactive material, but I take precautions with my all of my radioactive stuff (I do have quite a bit). The one thing that I had to do was make sure that the bathroom on the other side of the wall was not affected. It would be a problem to get cancer simply because of sitting on the pot near this thing. So, I have lead shielding behind it, to cut down on the gamma radiation. The other risk in this case comes from radon gas, which is a decay product of uranium. luckily, my house has a great ventilation system (It was built in the 1950's and therefore leaks like a sieve). I also have monitors in the area to keep track of how much radiation is released into the area. It would be a problem if you sat near it for hours each day, but it's on a shelf, so you don't have to get near it unless you intend to. Animal-Mother posted:I have this thing I don't have the talent to actually use: I'd give someone's left testicle for one of those!
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Dec 5, 2025 10:47
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Genesplicer posted:I'd give someone's left testicle for one of those!
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Dec 5, 2025 10:58
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Animal-Mother posted:I have this thing I don't have the talent to actually use: I've got one of those. I thought my cats would have a better time with it but they're mostly uninterested :\
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Dec 5, 2025 12:20
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I have a thing that kinda looks like a hole-punch, but it just pushes out the little pins that hold watch-straps on. I think I even used it once.
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Dec 5, 2025 14:27
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Genesplicer posted:That is a sweet forge! It still has the last coal load that was burned in it, too! It appears that the blower is hand-cranked, so it's probably an older model. Would you tell me more about collecting irradiated objects? How you got into it, what draws you to it, how long you've been doing it, what types of research and prep went into being able to store them. If you've already done that in a different thread and remember the name or topic I can probably go find it  and no pressure if you don't want to, this is just a very interesting and slightly alien topic to me
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Dec 5, 2025 14:30
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At my uncle's dairy farm they have this long barn with stalls on each side where the moo cows could sit and relax on nice clean sand. There were three stalls connected to the silo with feed in it. Originally, the feed would just pour out via gravity and be there for whichever cow showed up. This caused a waste where feed would sit in the tub and get lovely. This was back when each cow had a chain around their neck with a number on it for identification purposes. My uncles made up a contraption where they placed a metal sheet in front of the feed tub. When a cow came up to get some delicious feed, the chain would make magnetic contact with the metal, that would activate the auger which would send feed through the chute. When the cow had enough, they backed out, released the magnetic connection, and the auger would stop. I always thought that was pretty neat.
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Dec 5, 2025 14:35
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