What can I do with metal washers?

I found four or five of them on the street. They’re a bit larger around than quarters and made of some kind of yellowish metal? I could just toss them in the recycling, but is there a better use?

Take a few seconds to count them. It matters. If it’s four make an Audi badge. If it’s five, violate the IOC trademark.

Yellow zinc plating?

Do what I do: put them in a jar or old food tub (like what margarine used to come in) and park it on your workbench. Then every few months, look at them and wonder what in the hell they came from, and will I ever need them? Then put them in another place on the workbench. Rinse and repeat until you die. (I haven’t died yet, but I learned this procedure from my father, and I still haven’t cleared off his workbench, and he’s been gone for years.)

It’s Christmas Eve. Someone must have use for five gold rings.

Anyone have any ideas what to do with four crawling birds?

Yes, but not nearly as shiny.

How funny.

My granddaughter and her preteen girlfriends made charm bracelets with ball chain from hardware aisle and washers. Smaller than yours. It was a fun craft for them.

I’ve seen people weld them to other metal and make a loop or closure.

I pick stuff up like that. I have many cans of crap I’ve picked up.

Latest a wrench. Looks broken…maybe a tool wind chime?

Hey a washer wind chime..they tinkle like crazy. Trust me.

Do you know any farmers, mechanics, or people with home workshops?

If I found some washers, I’d add them to the collection; they’d get used eventually. It’s not worth your mailing them to me; but you may know somebody suitable to give them to.

Make earrings for two or two-and-a-half of your friends.

Nice, I found out what washers are, thanks for the picture. But why are they called that? What are they for?

Washers help spread the load when a bolt is attached through a pice of metal.

Washers “wash away” (divert) friction.

You call an Unterlegscheibe a washer? :astonished:

I work on cars all the time, which means I accumulate a lot of scrap metal. Every couple of years I’ll take it to the scrap yard. For the small stuff (bolts, nuts, washers, etc.) I keep them in Zip Lock bags, and include them when I go to the scrap yard. I don’t get much money for the small stuff, but I would feel bad throwing “good” steel in the garbage.

Yep.

If you have Google translate that page, Unterlegscheibe translates as “washer."

Or wood. The ones you found sound like a good size to use with lag bolts fastening two pieces of lumber together. I have horizontal boards in my pole barn attached to the heavy poles, and a workbench top sitting on those horizontal boards.

EVERYBODY knows that you use bigger washers when you need to make a plumb bob. Get a piece of string and you’ll be able to line things up just right! That’s how I center the wall shelves over my TV, for example.

TIL that there are people who do not know what washers are, and who wouldn’t just toss them in whatever container they have for possible future projects.

Not meant insultingly. Just sometimes something makes clear what different lives we live.

Put them in a jar or other suitable container; you never know when you’ll find a use for them.

I inherited my dad’s collection of assorted fasteners, all neatly organized in containers with little plastic drawers. I found myself in need of a jam nut a few weeks ago, and guess what I found in the little drawer with the odd-looking nuts? :smiley: Saved me the hassle of going to the hardware store.