Freecycle [Gloat Alert!]

[OPJ]

Anyone use Freecycle for bits of wood and sheet material? I signed up on Sunday and filled my car up with a LOAD of MDF "offcuts" the next day!

I reckon there's a good three sheets-worth of 18mm stuff here and few lengths of 25mm to go with it. Apparently, they'd had some shelving made and fitted recently and this is what the workers left behind - I didn't get to look at the finished work, but it seems like an awful lot of waste to me! :shock:

As I wasn't paying for any of it, I was more than happy to take these thin strips off her hands - I may just bin them or, I could cut them up in to clamping cauls! :wink:

After a 25 minute journey home again and lots of sliding around and banging in the back of my car :roll: , I was really struggling to find somewhere to put it all... So, I decided to stick it all behind my sliding mitre saw - at least the space created behind from the long rails doesn't look wasted anymore!

...And I was only looking out for an oil filled radiator!! 8)

If you haven't signed up already, I reckon it's definitely worth a look in your local area. You may even be able to offload some of your own offcuts - I see plenty of listings for "firewood" about and you're bound to come across old items of furniture with perfectly usable hardwood! :wink:

 

[wizer]

I knew I should never have put freecycle on my blocked senders list!

I got some goodies off there when I had my allotment. It's a great scheme.

 

[OllyK]

Had loads of stuff off there, sink for the workshop, scaffolding poles and fastenings. A few good deals off eBay as well - double garage door for 99p, delivered down from Sheffield for £10 all in.

 

[BradNaylor]

Anyone use Freecycle for bits of wood and sheet material? I signed up on Sunday and filled my car up with a LOAD of MDF "offcuts" the next day!

Bloody hell!

I take more than that to the tip in my trailer every week. Are you telling me that there are actually people out there who would want a few MDF scraps?

I shall have to look at this freecycle.

Cheers
Dan

 

[MikeG.]

Is this a national scheme, Olly? Do you have a link?

 

[Oryxdesign]

Anyone use Freecycle for bits of wood and sheet material? I signed up on Sunday and filled my car up with a LOAD of MDF "offcuts" the next day!

Bloody hell!

I take more than that to the tip in my trailer every week. Are you telling me that there are actually people out there who would want a few MDF scraps?

I shall have to look at this freecycle.

Cheers
Dan

Me too!

 

[Woodmagnet]

http://uk.freecycle.org/ :wink:

 

[Raggy]

Yeah its a brilliant scheme, we have had loads of stuff off there, and got rid of loads as well

 

[Steve Maskery]

Great idea, but it doesn't actually work! At least, not for me. I've created an account and can't login. Yes, I am being case-sensitive. Yes ,I have used Copy&Paste for the username and password.

How very frustrating.
S

 

[Digit]

None near me though. Noticed they were bragging about how much they had saved from being dumped into land fill sites.
Can't help wondering what we are gonna do with all the holes we are still digging though.

Roy.

 

[TheTiddles]

What you have to balance it with is the one hundred plus emails a day offering 'one free turd, freshly laid' type of thing.

I gave away two things recently and the guy who turned up looked like he belonged in prison and the only thing I wanted to ask him was... "which website did you get your wife from?"

I left the group after two weeks

Aidan

 

[Doug B]

Thanks for putting the other side Aidan.
I`d looked at the site, & can see what a good idea it was, but then started wondering about who would be coming round looking my place over.
These things often seem a good idea until you weigh up the pros & cons.

 

[OPJ]

Steve, I'm actually experiencing the same problem, not being able to log in directly from the site. I think I had an e-mail warning about this but, I think I deleted it... I normally "log in" by clicking on one of the links in the many e-mails I get and opening it in a new tab - it logs me in automatically.

The e-mails are a pain and I'm sure I only selected for them to send me "Daily updates" - not five or so times a day! :x

If you're concerned about the wrong people nosing around the workshop, you could always bring the MDF offcuts indoors and tell them you've had some work done upstairs (where they can't go! :wink and tell 'em this is what was left over...! :wink:

 

[Davon]

I joined ( for a day ) I got boat loads of e-mails every five minutes, when I un-joined they told me there was somewhere during registration where you can opt not to receive e-mails, : but by then I was in a state of shock :shock: and have not returned to the madhouse.

 

[Oryxdesign]

Hey maybe we should start ukw freecycle, I'm sure I chuck stuff away others would like. I do offer off cuts to other members when I see they are looking for something but perhaps we could be more organised about it and help each other.
Simon

 

[Mr T]

Hi

Freecycle is a wonderful thing, we gave away some unwanted rhubarb roots last week!

Chris

 

[wizer]

You can opt to have one email a day collating the days offers. But even that annoyed me, so I stopped it.

I like the idea of our own FreeCycle, the only problem would be locations. It would be easy to setup, just one thread (sticky if the mods allowed) where people posted the various bits of rubbish they want to palm off and people can reply or PM.

Another way to do it is either swapsies or a credit system. I haven't thought the cedit system through yet, but I have heard it work on other forums.

 

[dickm]

Have used Freecycle in two places - Milton Keynes and Aberdeen, and it's been incredibly useful. You don't have to have any email notification, but just log in to the site as and when. BUT, of course, this means that you may miss that wonderful bargain (the 3 metre solid walnut worktop that was posted at 5:30pm yesterday and had gone at 5:31 )
By and large, the folk I've dealt with on F'cycle have been fine - helpful and often very grateful for stuff received. But there are some who probably use it as a source for things to sell on, or turn up for the free fridge in their nearly new Range Rover and don't even say "thanks".
Not much timber on it up here, but there was a Startrite circular saw a few months back. Went surprisingly quickly, but sadly, not to me

 

[OllyK]

If you are going to use freecycle, it's worth doing a few things

1) Set a specific email account for it, ideally one that you can still collect via POP3
2) Set a mail rule to put all the mail from that account in it's own folder
3) Set to a rule to delete messages with "WANTED" in the subject, that's 60% of them gone.
4) Set up a keywords rule to flag messages that contain things you may be interested in "wood, mdf, tools" etc (be careful in Notts with all the locations with wood in them, there's bloody loads)
5) Sort by flagged items and kill anything that isn't flagged.

You should have about a dozen or so mails left a day to look at, that generally contain stuff you're interested in. A lot depends on the group(s) you're on. I'm on about 6 covering Notts, Leics and Derby, but I also have my own mail server that does a lot of the pre-sorting before it gets to outlook otherwise I'd average 1500+ mails a day.

 

[toolsntat]

SUB GLOAT.......
Yep it really does pay off to have a good trawl through sometimes and often pays to read the whole message and not just the first couple of lines :wink:

This is what I read first....

OFFER - various stuff -
Autumn clearout! 2 pine stools (leg bars need glueing/repair) 2 chrome ball & claw roll-top bath feet (!) Turned wood chunky newel post Very heavy hardwood...

Which was this....

Autumn clearout!
2 pine stools (leg bars need glueing/repair)
2 chrome ball & claw roll-top bath feet (!)
Turned wood chunky newel post
Very heavy hardwood "butchers block" (needs sanding)
Old hand plane for woodworkers
Fluorescent light tube approx 2m long
Desmo paraffin mini-heater (for frost protection in a garage?)
York 110 weight bench with bars & weights

Well the newel post was a table leg but we hit the jackpot with the handplane.....
As she opened the shed door there sitting on the bench was a Norris smoother :shock: :shock:
A bit rusty but who`s complaining :roll: :roll: