Eureka Boss Pro vacuum cleaner

This is one of the rare upright vacuums that I ocassionally grab. Most of them are either too heavy, or lack an adequate handle to carry by bike back to the apartment. This one was light and had a folding handle, so I took it. Though, had there been something better, I wouldn't have bothered with the Eureka.

This seems like a fairly sturdy vacuum cleaner, though for some reason the all-silver color scheme sort of makes it look cheap. I took one of these apart not long before I began documenting my junk, so I knew what to expect from it, which wasn't really that much, partswise.

Not a lot of complicated mechanisms here. That motor is really small, compared to some I've seen. I would have kept it had I thought I could get it out without messing it up. Not that I have any idea what I'd use it for.

The upright part, with even less parts.

Most of what I saved, I'd classify as 'plastic stock,' or basic flat or curved shapes I can cut down for other purposes. Also, I now have two of those handle pieces, which might be nice if I can think of what to do with them.

Panasonic VCR

I found this on a bench outside a restaurant, of all places. It was the night before trash pickup, and I was on my way to Wal-Mart when I saw it and a small TV just sitting there. Were these items actually garbage? Did the restaurant owners set them there, but forgot to move them to the curb on the other side of the sidewalk? I made a mental note, then continued on to Wal-Mart. On the way back, they were still there and I stopped and deliberated for a couple of minutes. They looked like trash (i.e. old and a little beat up), but I don't want to grab something that isn't actually being thrown away. Since I'm doing a write-up about it, I assume you can figure out my final decision. I did leave the TV, but more because I don't mess with TVs anyway.

This looks to be a basic low-end model, sort of like the JVC a few entries back. My guess is that the restaurant had it and the TV mounted up on the wall, though playing videos instead of jsut having the TV running in the background seems sort of unusual.

The front panel was sort of a letdown. The buttons were asymmetrical and did not mirror each other, so they weren't worth me saving from a design standpoint. On the plus side, those little black switches popped out easily, and might make nice little detail pieces.

The chassis, removed from the circuit board. Most of the little gears came out.

The trophy pile, which I somehow managed to photograph with simlutaneously too much shadow and too much light. That little group of black things in the lower right corner are the button switches I mentioned earlier.

Brother 1034D overlocking machine

I'm doing two sewing machine entries in a row, despite having a few other things to write about. I picked this one up at the same time as the Speedy Lock int he last entry, so I have the two associated in my mind as a set, not unlike the Juki overlocking machines I wrote about last year. However, these two were different enough, and had enough salvagable parts to justify two entries.

Also, like the previous overlocking machine, this one is clearly marked as 'trash.' This just adds to my lumping it and the Speedy Lock together. The design of the case (and lack of yellowing of the plastic) makes me think this machine is probably no older than mid-nineties, which is pretty new compared to most of the others that get thrown out. I don't know if that says anything about the quality of Brother sewing machines or not. Incidentally, I didn't know Brother made sewing machines; I thought they just made typewriters and labeling machines.

It looks pretty scrawny outside of its plastic shell, sort of like how a bird looks without its feathers. Like many sewing machines, I can't dissect out most of the internal parts. I'm half tempted to not even mention that anymore since it's so common, and only focus on the times I can remove some of the mechanisms.

The thread control knobs were a nice surprise. While I couldn't think of what to do with most of the parts, I like the fact that each one had its own submechanism that I could take apart.

A decent parts haul for an overlocking machine.

White Speedy Lock S34 overlocking machine

It's been a few weeks, so here's another sewing machine. More specifically, it's another overlocking machine. Since I've switched to a once-weekly update schedule, I've managed to keep a decent backlog of stuff, many of which are not sewing machines. That basically means that I can intersperse the sewing machine entries with other, more varied entries. Granted, I'm the only person I know actually reads this, but even I like a little variety.
The sew/vac place decided to label this (and the other one that I grabbed that day) definitively as 'trash.' This is the first time I've seen them do that. It makes me wonder if maybe at one point they accidentally tossed a machine that was still good. Which would mean that, since I've grabbed the vast majority of the sewing machines they've thrown out, I likely would have taken it apart. Which would suck, because as much as I like taking junk apart, I would like selling something on Craigslist for a quick buck even more.
I got the knobs off, I got the plastic housing off, then I ran into a wall. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with sewing machines.
Another paltry trophy assortment. It's not very apparent from the camera angle, but those round pieces on the bottom row have three prongs sticking out of them. I don't know if that makes them more useful or less useful.

Electrolux LE vacuum cleaner

This is another one of those "I'm here already, so I might as well snag it" kind of finds. As I've said before, vacuum cleaners usually don't have many parts, especially the little parts I like to collect, but, as I also have said before, I'd rather take something lame apart than nothing at all.

What I got was pretty much a body. The motor and the hoses had been cannibalized. Just as well, since I can't think of anything I can use a motor like that right now.

This Electrolux is an update of the type I wrote about a few months ago. The older one had a metal body, while this 'upgrade' has a plastic body, albeit a fairly tough one.

I'm not sure where the settings control is on this vacuum. Maybe it was on a part that was salvaged by the sew/vac shop. The innards of this piece are much less complicated than the analog on the older Electrolux.

I can't tell if this is elegantly simple or a cheap cop-out. The two halves of the body are held together (sans adhesive or fasteners, I might add) by those plastic strips. When you slide them out, the body halves fall away. Also note the lack of hubcaps on the wheels.

Not a big parts haul out of this one, but it's a vacuum cleaner, so I didn't expect one.

JVC VCR

I found this a couple of days before I left for the holidays, so it was there waiting for me when I got back. I actually snagged it from a junk pile on the way back from the beach, so it was out of my usual search area. It was housed in some sort of bulky plastic housing that I assume was to let you mount it under a shelf, or from a wall-mounted TV. Either way, I had to get it off before I could carry it back to the apartment. This took a couple of minutes, which irritated me since I like my trashpicking to be as stealthy as possible.

This is very much a no-frills VCR. I don't see any evidence of any features beyond the basics; if this VCR had any, they could only be controlled from the remote, which I didn't find.

Here it is with the top of the case removed.

A somewhat blurry pic of the mechanism that takes the tape in (the actual name of which escapes me). Maybe I should invest in a tripod or something. This is where most of the parts that I can remove (without a hammer or soldering gun) came from.

My new organized trophy pile method looks more impressive here than in the last entry.

Dressmaker sewing machine

I don't feel like writing a long entry tonight, so here's another underwhelming sewing machine teardown.

The only remarkable thing about this sewing maching, to me anyway, is that it is painted blue. I didn't even notice that until I got home with it, as the mercury vapor streetlights tend to wash out and obscure pastel colors. Why blue? I have no idea. I'm not familiar with the Dressmaker brand, and a cursory Google search (The lack of a model number or name didn't help in that regard) didn't come up with any particularly interesting information, other than they have made other blue models. If it was one of a series of color options, like KitchenAid does with their stand mixers, that would make sense, but I couldn't find any other colored Dressmaker sewing machines. Then I got bored and quit looking.

The top knobs came off, and the plastic faceplate came off, but that's about it. Everything else was fastened too tight.

I've decided to photograph my trophy piles in a more organized manner. Since the whole raison d'être for this blog is to document what I've taken apart, and what parts came from where, it makes more sense to spread everything out where I can see it. Not that there's much to see in this pile.