10 Things To Do With Your Old Fax Machine

If you're thinking of doing away with your old fax machine and are making the switch to on line fax services you're taking one step in the right direction. You will probably be saving yourself time and money with less ink and paper to buy and less trips to the office supply stores. Once you do make the switch you'll be asking yourself "What do I do with my old fax machine?". Before you toss it in the trash consider the environmental impact of the plastics and also the pollutants that may be in any left over ink cartridges. These are items that don't belong in your average city land fill but don't worry about that. We've got a few creative suggestions of what you might do with your old fax machine.

1. As fax machines get older they may become a bit of a business savvy or geek savvy nostalgic collectors item. That said, who wants a decorative fax machine sitting on their mantle or as their center piece? There are better albeit odd ways to reuse your retro fax machine. The first on our list being to build a fish tank or aquarium out of your old fax machine. The way most faxes are put together means the top and bottom pieces of the fax machines outer casing would make a great foundation for such a project. In the old days we built bird houses from wood. In the new century we've moved on to fish tanks from old fax machines. A little Plexiglas and silicone is about all you need to get started. The upper section of the fax with all its buttons and headset still intact will make quite an amusing lid for your new fish tank.

2. Next up, why not turn your fax machine into a retro computer case? The Internet is strewn with thousands of artistic and unusual case mods from model cars to old Nintendo cases or even Lego being used as a computer chassis. It really doesn't matter what a computer looks like so much as what's in it. Pick up a bare bones computer kit (CPU, Motherboard, and RAM) from a local computer dealer and get to work. Plenty of fun can be had wiring the existing fax machine buttons to your computer and wiring the phones ear piece as the PC speaker. If you're really talented with electronics then go the extra mile and try to tie in the fax machines LED display to show hardware data like RAM and CPU temperature.

3. If building a computer is a touch too advanced for you then perhaps you might be interested in a technological art sculpture. Don't just dissect your fax machine. Find some way of incorporating it into some unique artwork if you're doing a piece about technology. A wild imagination can create deeply thought provoking art out of the oddest things. With our society edging ever closer to cybernetic technology becoming a reality it's not hard to imagine an artistic cultural statement being made with a portrait sketch and fax machine innards as part of the piece.

4. For those who are not philosophical artists there are more functional ways of incorporating an old fax machine into your existing hobbies. If one of your children plays War Hammer for instance, all kinds of pieces from your old junk or fax machine can make great War Hammer terrain with a little paint and texturing. Not into War Hammer? How about turning your old fax machine into scenery for your model train set?

5. If you're not artistic enough yourself to try one of the above ways of reusing your old fax machine it may be easy to find someone else who is. Film studios and theaters may have need of an old fax machine for a prop or may have more immediate insight into what an old fax can be turned into for use on the stage or on set. Fax machines may be disappearing from our world but the world of fiction is timeless and will always need items around to match the time periods of the stories we tell.

6. Imagine you need a secret hiding place to keep sensitive items out of site such as your passport or credit cards but you don't have any secret nooks that are reliable enough. Why not hiding things in plane site? In the film Sneakers with Robert Redford the mathematician Dr Guntar Janek hides his top secret experiments in plain site by placing them inside an old answering machine case.

7. Too busy for any of those ideas? Well if you like to stay a bit retro imagine your flat or your office with a retro 'fax machine' for a phone.  

8. If a decorative retro 'fax machine phone' isn't enough incentive for you to reuse your old fax machine then it's time for extreme measures. The size of a fax machines makes it a great platform for putting in wheels and a motor. Firstly with a little electronics hacking turn your fax machine into a portable phone. There are any number of options as to how you would build this.  You might use the bulk of the fax machine as the portable phone base station and might simply attach the headset to a remote control car or it may work better for you to have the whole fax machine driving around. If you forgot to bring the phone in from the other room just grab your remote and drive it over to you! Even better would be to get in touch with some robotics students and the local patent office about building a phone that comes and finds you when the phone rings.

9. It's not possible to write a list like this about old fax machines without recalling one particularly amusing film.  While not necessarily the most responsible suggestion it must be covered.  Whether for stress relief or just for fun you and some friends might want to reenact the printer scene from Office Space. Unlike the movie it is recommended that you wear eye protection and also wear gloves should you choose to strike the fax machine with your fists or palm. This can get a bit messy so if you choose to smash your fax machine into pieces please do so responsibly by cleaning up after yourself. Hold your fax destruction celebration in an empty parking lot where it will be easier to sweep up all the pieces as opposed to an empty field like in Office Space. If mindlessly smashing an old fax just doesn't do it for you perhaps it would make a neat pinata!

10. In most of these suggested ways of reusing your old fax machine there will be some parts left over. Most often the internal parts which may be reusable or may contain chemicals that would be harmful to the environment. If none of these suggestions strike your fancy or you have left over parts from one of the nine projects listed above then the best recommendation is to pay a visit to an electronics recycling depot and drop off the remains of your once noisy fax machine. There are much more functional paperweights out there and electronics recycling depots are popping up in every town thanks to government recycling programs.

Whatever option fits best for you don't be afraid to take pictures of the build process and post them on the Internet for all to see. Someone is always interested in seeing the latest PC case mods and strikingly odd reuse of old electronics. The most important thing is to realize that fax machines are old dinosaurs in this technological age. The job of fax machines has been replaced by software based fax services that are on line and much more flexible. As the digital revolution continues these on line fax services will continue to grow and offer more intricate services that their old physical counterparts would never be capable of. There is nothing modular or flexible about that old hunk of plastic on your desk aside from the phone cord. So be sure to retire your fax machine creatively and take the next step in the on line business revolution. Step into the future with on line fax services and see what new tools this future holds.