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[pmsmechanic]

We just watched an episode of 20/20 about two guys that escaped a prison in Mississippi. While evading the police, they stole a van and then went to Walmart and bought a bunch of blue cans of spray paint. They painted the van blue, and where able to evade the police for quite awhile.

A friend of mine would buy plates for a car he owned. When that car was done he would steal a similar car the same color and just put his plates on it. Cops look for stolen plates. Not as much for cars.

 

[chim]

We had a purchasing agent who bought everything as cheap as possible. One day I saw a "new" stake body truck in front of the tool shop and went for a look. At 50 yards it looked surprisingly nice. The closer I got the worse it looked. The wood bed was in rough shape, and the new shiny paint over the rusty frame looked like they painted over soda crackers. I asked where he found this prize, and was told "somewhere in Delaware". My next question was "did they pull it out of the bay?"

Another time a VP who was always critical of that PA's buying habits went on a buying spree at an equipment auction in Middletown PA and bought three trailers (as in tractor trailer trailers) One was so bad we resold it as soon as it showed up. One was a reefer. We had no need for a cold trailer, and the floor wasn't very friendly for our use. The third was in very used condition. But the were CHEAP!

 

[paulsharvey]

I shop used stuff continuously. Freshly painted stuff is a strong pass. I don't buy from crack heads.

Oh come on, crackheads often are the best deals. I have absolutely bought from them.

 

[scootr]

Oh come on, crackheads often are the best deals. I have absolutely bought from them.

Crackheads stole that stuff from their neighbor and spray painted it like the OP showed. You buy it and the Popo show up at your door to arrest you.
50 yrs ago 2 kids showed up at my place pushing a minibike, said it quit. Stupid me gave a few dollars for it and got it running. I'm riding it around the neighborhood when the police show up and confiscate the stolen bike. Said I kept riding past the house where it was stolen. I had to go to court and convince a Judge I didn't steal it. Lesson learned.

 

[paulsharvey]

Probably 16 years ago, I was building some condos, and the electricians foreman had left a 5x10 landscape trailer on the job. We work around it for a few months, but gets down to the time to clean everything up and leave. An other guy on the site was friends with the owner, who went back to Tex (this was in FLa). I tell the friend, call him, and tell him I'll give $200 for it. The friend calls him, and say I would give him $300 (which pissed me off, but whatever), he agrees. I give personal check to the friend to mail to the owner, and I take the trailer. About 6 months go by, and the friend gets a call from the 'owner' bank won't touch the check, it's over 6 months old (the friend had forgot to mail it foe like 3 months). Now, I've always been able to cash any check for upto 12 months. I tell the guy, fine, rip it up and drive the 1900 miles to get it. Needless to say he doesn't. I never got any paperwork, and the sticker name on the trailer said "xxx portable welding" so I don't know if this guy actually owned it or not. So I "clean" it up, get it reregisterd as homemade, after replacing a lot of stuff, wheels/tires, deck, tongue, springs, and actually widening the trailer by 4 inches to fit a SxS.

 

[paulsharvey]

Funny thing with this trailer, when we sold it again, the buyer didn't want a bill of sale, or a copy of the registration; so in theory, I could always reuse those numbers and registration if I find another crackhead 5x10 landscape trailer

 

[paulsharvey]

Last year, maybe 2 years ago, was inspecting a gast food place being built, and one morning they find an old JD skid steer was stolen. Now, my son had worked in that town, Late the night before, so I call him to make sure him and his dumb ass friends didn't take it for a joy ride or someone stupid. They didn't. Anyways, no leads, they make police report, and that's it.

6 months later, I'm inspecting another commercial job, that has same contractor, and while we are looking over some plans, she gets a call, John Deere just got the skid steer that was stolen. Someone had taken it upto JD as a trade in....

Edit: When I called my son, I did tell him, I'm 90% joking, OK, but you and your friends really didn't, did you. I know when I was a teenager, we took a JD-544 front end loader on a joy ride once, but returned it unharmed a few hours later. Not endorsing that kinda behavior, just kids do dumb stuff

 

[scootr]

I bought a gooseneck trailer cheap once, no paperwork, no ID markings. Owner claimed paper work burned up in a house fire 20 yrs ago, okay.
Fixed it up and registered it as homemade. Built a small trailer and registered it as homemade too. Pretty easy process really.

 

[bcp]

Homemade trailes are not so easy to register in WA.

https://www.wsp.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/homemade_unidentifiable_trailer.pdf

Bruce

 

[paulsharvey]

We just need a certified scale ticket, and sign the papers, and pay the money. Used to be easy with the scale ticket, cause the dump used to do them. Now, you need to go else where. I took mine to a sandmine down the road and they did it for $10 (I paid in cash, and I asulsume scale house guy pocketed it)

 

[oosik]

About twelve years ago I built a farm wagon. Brand new ten ton Horst running gear. I've never registered it but I never take it off the property.

I do have the sales receipt for the purchase of the running gear.

 

[5030]

Around here we call that the '5 gallon finish'....lol People selling older JD's like to do it, they don't even bother to pressure wash off the old dried on grease, they just paint over it. Guess they figure it gives character. Overspray kills grass I believe and I bet his lungs are loaded with it as well.

 

[Sportsman762]

How did they find it? The thief left the original numbers on it?

I do not know the details. I think it had a stamped serial number.

 

[JeepHead]

My new ditch and bank flail mower is green and orange-yellow with black accents. It doesn't go with Ford blue but who cares. It's one of the best flails on the market at a great price. It's supposed to be delivered tomorrow.

View attachment 883116

The mfg must been trying to appeal to both Kubota and JD and couldn't make up their mind....

 

[newbury]

Edit: When I called my son, I did tell him, I'm 90% joking, OK, but you and your friends really didn't, did you. I know when I was a teenager, we took a JD-544 front end loader on a joy ride once, but returned it unharmed a few hours later. Not endorsing that kinda behavior, just kids do dumb stuff

Back about 1962 (on a Halloween night) some of my older cohorts late at night,
borrowed a tank from the Vermont National Guard range in Under Hill Center, Vt., drove it to Underhill Flats (aka Underhill) and parked it in front of the school principals door with the muzzle pointing at the door.
Since the "leader" of the group was the eldest son of the lumbermill owner he only got his pp slapped and it was kept out of the papers IIRC.
Kids do dumb stuff.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

My father in law had that same bucket of red paint. I chuckled because he did the same thing, slowly all of his junk started turning red, a piece at a time. He ran out before he got to the tractors though.

 

[Tinhack]

The mfg must been trying to appeal to both Kubota and JD and couldn't make up their mind....

I suspect they didn't care one way or the other and powder coated it to stand-out from the run of the mill trash. It's not sold on the color. It's sold on what it can do.

They didn't cheap-out on the flails either--The flails don't break in half if you hit a rock like others.

 

[paulsharvey]

My father in law had that same bucket of red paint. I chuckled because he did the same thing, slowly all of his junk started turning red, a piece at a time. He ran out before he got to the tractors though.

When I was a kid, dad had a bucket of safety orange oil based paint, that he called "big bad orange", that he dipped virtually every tool handle in. Main reason was to find it, when his cracked headed children ran off with them, and left them laying somewhere they shouldn't have been

 

[stucknutz]

I would never purchase crap like that!

 

[paulsharvey]

I would never purchase crap like that!

I'm definitely not above purchasing crap bordering on scrap, But I'm not paying a premium for the crap paint job. I would probably pay less, cause you know 20% of the red probably will stick, and then we end up with over spray, rust, red, and probably some Ford blue, alone with painted on bolts/bearings/tires