Regrets

[gwaithcoed]

Have you ever sold something, a tool or something you have made and then immediately regretted it ?
I had a Gravograph IM3 engraver that I purchased from the colliery that I worked at when staying on as an electrical engineer after it closed.
I used it for making signs for our golf club, and the names of competition winners which sat on a tobelerone block of wood beside the trophy.
As there were no competitions during lockdown it was left in the garage where it was gathering rust.
I had just brought it in to my workshop and gave it an overhaul when a friend of mine came to ask me to do something for him.
As soon as he saw the engraver he said " I've been looking looking for one of those for ages." He makes garden furniture and benches and often gets requests for a memorial bench that can be engraved with the deceased name on it and because he hadn't got that facility he lost the sale.
He asked if I would sell it to him. As I hadn't used it for a while I agreed and off he went as pleased as punch.
I went in to the house and waved the cheque under my wife's nose and said I've just sold the engraver. She just looked at me and said "WHY, are you short of money, you'll regret it, it wasn't taking up any room and you'll soon be asked to do something and wished you still had it."
She was right of course and within a few days a golfer mate came and said he had just had a hole in one and would I make him a trophy and engrave it as I had done in the past with other golfers.
I hadn't seen my mate until I asked him to come and give me a quote to replace my workshop roof which had started to leak in a few places.
As we talked I asked him if he had found the engraver useful. He looked at me and said " Do you know since I bought the thing I've had no enquires for any memorial benches"
"Any chance I could buy it back" I said . No problem "I haven't touched it since I took it"
I went in to the house and asked the wife " where's the cheque book I've just bought the engraver back" I won't tell you what she said. And now I'm as pleased as a dog with two thingies.

Alan

 

[bourbon]

you were lucky that you had the chance to buy it back. When I have got rid of stuff, Mostly to the tip. There is no going back

 

[TeeCee]

A Record compass plane.......I only used it for one job, then sold it 'cos I was broke. It was immaculate. I wished I'd kept it just for the sake of having it but really it was almost literally useless!

I know where there is a rusty beat up one for £125.....but I'm not tempted by that.

 

[fezman]

My woodworking mojo has been suppressed of late. I've done a bit of turning (it's quick), but little else as my job has swamped my time. As a result I have a few tools that hardly ever see the light of day. But... I am in the very engineered / fortunate position that I don't need to recoup the money. Unless that changes, I will be keeping everything I have.

Regarding tool sales, i typically only sell a tool on when i have bought a better / superior option. e.g. Bandsaw, Dust Extractor, Sander (used the lathe with a stick on sanding disc etc. ) . Some stuff I doubt I will ever sell e.g. router planes. Might be upgrading the wood lathe in the near future though.

Hopefully when I retire +/- 5 years (if i can afford the wood!!!) I will have all the tools I need to do / make whatever I please. Just need to find somewhere to house a metal lathe ;-)

 

[TRITON]

This.
I found it in a cash converters during a wander about the city center. They wanted £250 for it. I left rapid style, went straight to the bank and than back to the shop. Being a true Scotsman, i even managed to haggle another 30 quid off the price.

Even on an initial glance i could see this was pretty much as new,and at that time i quite obsessed with older 'retro' bikes. In fact I've been on RetroBike(forum) since 2008

Its a 1997 Marin Quake 9.0 Top of the range at that time. Retailed at about £2000

Entire kit was immaculate. even down to the tyres and rims i could see it had never been outside for more than a hundred meters, if that. Not a mark anywhere. I tell a lie, there was a scratch on the box section of the frame, but it looked like that had happened maybe from CC storage.

I didn't have a great deal of spare funds back then, and was quite the prolific buyer and seller of retro bike stuff on the different bike forums and ebay. 3000+ sales I'd think
Every part of this immaculate bike was seriously sought after and i ended up splitting it, made a ton more cash that it cost, which i supposed paid for other bike stuff at the time.

I regret selling it off because it is a rare thing to see in original shop quality condition, and these type of things you just do not find, especially in a city center cash converters at a fraction of its original cost

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Regrets? I've had a few ...

 

[Sideways]

But then again ...

 

[MikeJhn]

Too few to mention...

 

[spiritburner]

yes my Garmin Oregon 650T handheld GPS,it was brilliant but shortly after buying it less than a year, I was no longer able to use it because both my knees failed and I wasn't able to walk where I was going to use it so I thought well I'm never gonna use this again because they told me I would not be able to do this sort of walking I like doing and I decided to sell it and then a couple of years further on I bought a quad/ATV and I need to use the GPS all the time on that because the topographical map on it is brilliant anyway I went to buy another one now €700 so I'm holding off now until I can find either a good secondhand one or see if there's anyway I can use my iPhone to download some topographical maps which don't require me to have cellular connection in the mountains because the quad bike can pretty much go anywhere now

 

[spiritburner]

My woodworking mojo has been suppressed of late. I've done a bit of turning (it's quick), but little else as my job has swamped my time. As a result I have a few tools that hardly ever see the light of day. But... I am in the very engineered / fortunate position that I don't need to recoup the money. Unless that changes, I will be keeping everything I have.

Regarding tool sales, i typically only sell a tool on when i have bought a better / superior option. e.g. Bandsaw, Dust Extractor, Sander (used the lathe with a stick on sanding disc etc. ) . Some stuff I doubt I will ever sell e.g. router planes. Might be upgrading the wood lathe in the near future though.

Hopefully when I retire +/- 5 years (if i can afford the wood!!!) I will have all the tools I need to do / make whatever I please. Just need to find somewhere to house a metal lathe ;-)

Yes, I am in agreement with you. 100% on this. I cannot believe the price of wood. It is absolutely astronomical. I'm based in Spain now and have been for 25 years and is not actually used very much in Spanish houses apart from the doors and even then most of those are pre-moulded things with a veneer on top and even the frames aren't real wood.

They look nice, but as soon as the Chicas start cleaning the house on a regular basis with a mop and bucket the doors and the frames start to swell up and you can see it. The water literally travels up over a period of time in the frame and turn it black at the bottom. Luckily when I had my house built, I wanted solid wood so I don't get that trouble but a lot of my friends have serious problems to the point that their doors won't shut at the bottom and they've had to have the door planed off because you cannot take anything off the frame because it is literally chipboard or MDF covered in some sort of wood like veneer.

Plywood and timber is so expensive here, a crappy sheet of 8 x 4 x12 mm plywood will cost you about €75 ,birch on the other hand you're talking about150 in Barcelona,

one thing I do is wood turning myself and each year I get through about 3000 kg of lovely oak and olive wood so what I do is when it gets dumped on the roadside outside my garage as I stack it I pick out the nicer pieces and put them to one side on another pallet at the back of the workshop where they can dry out to their hearts content so I have plenty of wood up to 45 cm long to turn on my lathe, also if I want larger diameters than all I need to do is go to the local woodyard who supply the firewood and ask for wood that hasn't quartered and I can get some really nice rounds for next to nothing and they even cut them for me which is quite nice because well I've got a good bandsaw but it won't cut 50 cm rounds!!

I have to admit, I have no idea why wood has gone through the roof like this. It seems to have crept up over the last five years to the point where it is more expensive to buy wood than it is to buy bricks and mortar now.....

 

[Jameshow]

This.
I found it in a cash converters during a wander about the city center. They wanted £250 for it. I left rapid style, went straight to the bank and than back to the shop. Being a true Scotsman, i even managed to haggle another 30 quid off the price.

Even on an initial glance i could see this was pretty much as new,and at that time i quite obsessed with older 'retro' bikes. In fact I've been on RetroBike(forum) since 2008

Its a 1997 Marin Quake 9.0 Top of the range at that time. Retailed at about £2000

Entire kit was immaculate. even down to the tyres and rims i could see it had never been outside for more than a hundred meters, if that. Not a mark anywhere. I tell a lie, there was a scratch on the box section of the frame, but it looked like that had happened maybe from CC storage.

I didn't have a great deal of spare funds back then, and was quite the prolific buyer and seller of retro bike stuff on the different bike forums and ebay. 3000+ sales I'd think
Every part of this immaculate bike was seriously sought after and i ended up splitting it, made a ton more cash that it cost, which i supposed paid for other bike stuff at the time.

I regret selling it off because it is a rare thing to see in original shop quality condition, and these type of things you just do not find, especially in a city center cash converters at a fraction of its original cost
View attachment 181461

Nice I have a spdu Raleigh bike I should sell but cannot bring myself to sell. And I doubt I'd get much for it!

 

[JSW]

I'm holding off now until I can find either a good secondhand one or see if there's anyway I can use my iPhone to download some topographical maps which don't require me to have cellular connection in the mountains because the quad bike can pretty much go anywhere now

This may or may not meet your needs, but worth checking out either way

Download areas and navigate offline

 

[TRITON]

I have a spdu Raleigh bike I should sell but cannot bring myself to sell. And I doubt I'd get much for it!

Seems to be some interest at least. But its going to depend on if its just a frame, frameset or complete bike.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_...eigh&_sacat=0&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1&_sop=16

 

[MikeJhn]

In the days that I was into cycling Raleigh bikes where known as clunkers, have the times changed values that much?

What would my Litespeed Appalachian be worth I wonder?

 

[okeydokey]

To me, Butler Bikes of South Croydon were the bees knees in the day and an aspirational bike to try and get - but they were always out of my pocket

 

[Adam W.]

I also have an SBDU

And other stuff of course My PBP bike.....I also rode the HBKH and the Cambrian 6A on it if you know anything about audax.

Anna pantographed OLMO....

 

[Jacob]

Ooo-er! Some posh bikes!
Mine are a Spa Audax titanium and a Dawes Galaxy Tour (which I did LEJOG on 20 years ago, just before my 60th birthday). Also Audax 100km circuit from Buis les Baronnies and back, via Mont Ventoux. So there! Actually a nice day out at audax speeds, with a spectacular descent.

 

[Adam W.]

Lovely, I like Buis les Baronnies.

I used to do lots of miles on my pushbike until I got deliberately rammed and went through the window headfirst.

 

[HamsterJam]

I have an old Raleigh Corsa I bought of a mate in the mid 80’s. 501 frame/forks and Golden Arrow group set. I have done many miles on it although it doesn’t go out much now. I never considered it particularly special but it often draws admiring comments from other cyclists.

 

[glenfield2]

I also have an SBDU

View attachment 181528


And other stuff of course My PBP bike.....I also rode the HBKH and the Cambrian 6A on it if you know anything about audax.

View attachment 181529



Anna pantographed OLMO....


View attachment 181530

Chapeau! I know of PBP but I had to look up HBKH. I’ve done easy paced LEJOG and East-West tours but my introduction to Audax at a ‘mere’ 200km was tough enough.
The solution of course is ‘new bike time’.