The Unknown Rust Collection

On this page of Rust In Peace you will find things that may have reason or may not, that have been made from patching ideas together to make something for fun or something out of necessity for the end user. I always have said if you watch the man making something from numerous pieces that in the end gave him a tool or a form of transportation, all you would have to do is perfect it and make it cosmetically an item that could be sold and bingo, you are in business. I have taken great pride in finding some pretty crazy things like that over the years that I will be adding to this page as time goes on.

Homemade High Back Bucket Seat

Every once in a while you see an invention that was made to work for the one person that needed it. 
I have always said, on every farmyard there was at least one thing that the farmer made to work for his operation that if he would taken it one step further and perfected it, found someone to market it for him, he maybe as rich as this guy could have been if he would have introduced the original bucket seat that this 50 gallon barrel and iron plow seat was made out of long before it would have been possible to purchase such a high back bucket for a car. 
Thinking outside the box is not something that happened just since cardboard was invented. RIP

Ice Cutter from Broken Bow, Nebraska

I found this old ice cutter in Broken Bow Nebraska about 15 years ago on a mans farmyard. He told me the ice house in town used it to cut ice off of ponds in the early years. He told me the engine and driveline was from a 1911 Cadillac.

Unbroken Mason Jar

As I sit here in august, when it is usually hotter than any 4th of July, I like to go back to a day like this one, when it was around 10 degrees out and I had no choice but to inrustigate this old dumping grounds that was full of parts and pieces just screaming for someone to stop, buy or claim any or all of the parts to take them home and save them before they would eventually get fed to the ever hungry jaws of the hydraulic iron baler and eventually become the hood of that new truck you might buy in a few months. 
To me there is nothing more fun than digging around at a spot like this after you get permission to be there. It just amazes me how you can almost log the years and the upgrades as they dumped the same era items in the same spot as the iron pile grew over the years as they upgraded their life with new and tossed the old. 
I have found some awesome things in places like this that I really have to ask myself why anyone would have thrown it out? I have found things like the green mason jar that never got broken over the years with people throwing things all around it. But, I guess that is what makes these places such a treasure trove when you find one. 
With that being said, it is getting harder every year to find these old piles and when we do, we really need to respect not only the people that put them there and may still own them, but also the fact that this site really can be the diary of someone's life if you just take time to flip through the pages with an open mind and try to salvage any memories possible before it is too late. RIP

Call it what you want

On a trip through Arizona recently, I found this interesting homemade, one man, very early ATV.
Now, I find it amazing what people made out of the model T Ford back in the day. They could not just go down to the local Yamaha or Honda dealer and pick up the ATV that worked best for them, they got creative and threw together pieces and parts, along with some wood, like the frame on this rig.
I think this was actually used in some kind of mine operation or something like that. 
I really believe the same guy or guys that would have built this back in the day, could also be the kind of person we see on the cable tv shows that build the great cars and trucks they do today. 
They just did not have the equipment or the after market parts to work with like we do today. They for sure had the vision.
I wonder what would happen if you told a guy today, you build it, and if it makes your job easier, good for you. Otherwise forget it, like you would have done in the 30's when this was made, instead of ordering it and having the perfect piece of machinery delivered to you in a few days.
There really is a lot of engineering in this rig if you could see it up close. 
What was this mans name and who used it? Could he have been way before his time without any marketing skills or desire to develop as years went on, or did he just build this one off rig for himself? 
The hills of Arizona with its stifling heat and blowing sand, may be the only to know the answer, to that question. RIP

The Limb Elimonater

Sitting in a pasture in western Nebraska a few winters ago was this gas powered portable buzz saw. 
When I find something like this I think about the men that ran this that obviously had no concern for safety and just needed to get the job done. 
Not only does the blade have no shielding what so ever, neither does the drive belt coming off the motor. 
In today's world could you see a crew of men working around this thing cutting up logs to make into posts or lumber or whatever they needed when your insurance man shows up to talk about renewing your insurance for next year? 
I am not saying, I believe we should throw away all our safety shields across America, but I do believe if we had to build some of the great structures, bridges and unbelievable projects that were accomplished before OSHA and every other safety program that has saved the world today, they would in no way be done. 
Think of the tallest buildings back east that were built without one safety strap. The bridges thousands of cars cross everyday to take people to their destinations that were built by hundreds of men without one benefit or concern of, what if I fall? 
These were the days when tough was proven by actions and endurance, not by how you dress or what you drive, like we see so much of today. 
I have great respect for those men and women that went to work hungry, worked long days and asked for nothing but to have a job to come back to tomorrow. 
I am sure many of them were told, if you fall, you are fired on the way down, when you hit the ground, you are trespassing, but that did not stop them from taking crazy chances daily for pay we could find in change laying around on the ground today by a gas pump. 
Next time you are driving across one of those huge old bridges or looking up at those buildings in the big cities, take time to think about endless amounts of energy and risk it took to bring that masterpiece into existence. 
Take time to think about all the men and women that go to work everyday as I write this to make all our lives better, that work endless, thankless jobs, without one ounce of recognition or the smallest gesture that may resemble a thank you. 
The long and the short of it is, if you put your energy into the people around you first and worry about yourself last, you will become first to so many people, the last thing you will ever need to worry about is yourself. RIP