In Linlithgow, there’s a small electronics business closing due to retirement of the owner. A few of us went to look at their workshop and no surprise but there’s lots of stock, tools, components, etc. all looking for a new home. Some very niche and specialist and unlikely of use to any repair shops but there’s also Just about every kind of wire, solder, reels of capacitors, resistors, hand tools, specialist tools. Way more than we can take on and it would be a shame to see it all scrapped which is a possibility as the kitchen fitters will be in soon.
during our visit today we though of the wider repair network in Scotland and wondered if we can redistribute some of it to other repair cafe/shops.
I know this forum is still small but can we gauge interest?
We could take all relevant stock and then folks could decide. Some of it is very niche. 4-20+ core cables of different specs, specialist tools that pre bend legs of resistors for speeding up production and then there’s simple wire cutters, and lots more. A mixed bag.
Perhaps we need an admin to catalogue what we have then we could become a supplier of some parts at min cost. Lots to consider.
For now. Just gauging interest.
What things specifically do you need or want stock of?
Cool. Well one of our bloke is involved in the local Men’s Shed and I’m on a forum for arcade machine aficionados, so somehow it should be possible to find homes for this stuff.
Perhaps he could do an inventory, however rudimentary.
Good morning Alan. There is a repair cafe in Glasgow run by Lauren who might be interested in this. I have CCd the Share and Repair Community into this email. It’s a shame to let such tools go to waste so hope you find them a good home.
Great to hear of interest and we will avoid things going to waste where we can practically but we also have limited capacity to store, organise and redistribute as that would be a job for a dedicated volunteer.
The best way for us to share resources and knowledge is to be on this forum. This may be an illustration of the type of messaging that can show benefit of the private network of repairers. So if folks are interested, ask them to sign up and get involved.
Some items are perhaps specialist and if we can get help to itemise on a shared spreadsheet or database then if a niche repair turned up and a group needed a specific component or cable, we might be able to check our inventory first and share within the network. Ideally if all Repair Cafe/Shops recorded what they have in surplus inventory of parts, then we could leverage off each other instead of suffering large handling charges from Farnell, RS components or delays getting items shipped from China!
Just been notified that skip is arriving tomorrow so our volunteers will do what we can to salvage tools, cable, components, etc. and will photograph as much as we can to see what we can share across the network. The process will be messy initially as we don’t have a lot of time to sort out things. Priority is to relocate it to a safe place and then plan what to do next.
Some progress. Managed to get 1206 surface mount components, heat shrnk, some pin through hole components and single core wire of different guises and colours. We will sift through them over the next few weeks. Hand tools they are going to try and sell first bit of no takers we will be able to get them.
