There’s a tendency in the shop to scrounge and save almost everything. You never know when something might come in handy, and experience has shown, over and over, that there’s value in all but the junkiest junk. And even that, if sufficiently large/heavy/whatever, can be an effective doorstop, or spray paint shield, or otherwise helpful bit of plain old physical mass. When a piece of equipment breaks and is just irreparable, you dig out the good bits and set ’em aside.
It’s important to keep track of which boxes contain the useful bits and which the junk. Sometimes the difference isn’t immediately obvious.
There’s a drawer in one of our storage rooms labeled “Radio Knobs.” Indeed, that’s what’s inside. Collected by our predecessors from an array of broken equipment, calmly waiting their turn to be useful once more.
And, yes, they have been useful.
