"Ignoramus689" wrote in message
...
What was the most ill-conceived, unsuccessful, and worthless/expensive
DIY style project that you undertook (I would say without counting any
injuries as they could outweigh everything else)?

My biggest one is a shed that I built. Not counting my shoulder sprain
due to a posthole digger, the shed is way too narrow to be truly
useful. It is attached to the deck along its longer side, so it is
inconspicuous, but if it was 3-4 feet wider, it would have been a lot
more useful. The shed stands, is dry, and functions as designed, but
it was poorly designed.

i

Mine was a dredge. At the time, I was interested in gold mining, and had
built a very efficient trailer mounted sluice. 5 hp Honda 2" pump, and
first class quick connects and components. We did okay with that, and found
five ounces of gold in one day one time. We did not do that good on every
trip, but in all, the trailer was profitable. We were doing dry placer
deposits.

Then I got interested in dredging some local swimming holes for Indian
artifacts. No gold, but interesting stuff and potentially profitable. I
had experience with air lifts from my commercial diving days. I built three
prototypes before arriving at a final design that worked slick as can be.
The tanks were designed so that when the top of the dredge became full of
lithic debitage, it would tilt 90 degrees in the water, and the debitage
would simply fall off. Simple. Efficient.

What I had failed to investigate was the legality of it all, and the federal
Antiquities laws put the kibash on the project. My best location was a
privately owned spring, and we had the permission to dredge. We had tested
the dredge three times, and it worked great. It even brought up tin cans
and broken glass, which made the owners happy. Right when we got ready to
do some serious dredging in the areas where we thought the artifacts were,
it went into bankruptcy, and I couldn't even get the bank to return phone
calls. I took what I could off in the way of reusable fittings, but the
rest went to the landfill.

Loss of about $3,000.

Steve