A resurrection

In 2004, the son-in-law was working for a lumberyard that was going broke.  When they finally decided to close that particular store, they began selling off things at freakishly low prices.  They might as well have given stuff away.  The item above is a paint shaker, the professional kind you will find at lumber yards and probably big-box stores like Home Depot.  Cliff paid $50 for it.  

Here is a used, reconditioned one for sale right now on Ebay:

So you can imagine Cliff's delight at the chance to have this gem.  We don't do much home-remodeling or painting (can I get an amen?), but Cliff paints a lot of tractors and equipment.  He used this on paint for more projects than you can imagine.  He found out it will make old body putty like new, too.  

And after a couple of years, it stopped working.  He tried his best to fix it, but he knows nothing about electricity.  The thing sat out there, useless, for at least seven years.  

The other day he said, "Take a picture of this paint shaker and put it on Craigslist.  See what the best offer is that we can get."  It weighs a lot, Cliff figures at least 500 pounds, so the worst case scenario was that we could scrap it.    

Funny thing is, although I saved the picture he asked me to take (that's it at the top), we just didn't get around to putting it on Craigslist.  I couldn't do it without Cliff here to tell me how to word the ad, and whenever he was inside, I couldn't seem to think of it.  

The other day I stuck my head in the shop and saw Cliff fiddling with the paint shaker.  "Are you seriously trying to fix that?"  I asked him.  
"Yeah."  

The next day he was still working on it, with no luck.  It's been a long winter, and there aren't that many shop projects he can work on this time of year.  I guess he was just killing time.  

Yesterday he said smugly, "I got that paint shaker working."  

"WHAT?"

"Yep."  

I told him I was going to do a blog entry about this, and he said, "Be sure and tell them I'll take $1,000 for it."