Stroke of luck : selling all my new old stock parts with obsolete standards that I'll never use. I had a box full of various things that I kept moving around and this spring seemed like the time to unload it.
Stroke of badluck : A good friend of mine wanted a bike and I had an old '96 Rocky Mtn Hammer Race frame with old high-end Mavic/XT wheels, an 01 marzocchi and the original Quadra 21R fork. He told me "I'll give you 400$ for the parts and whatever you need to make it rideable for cyclepaths and gravel roads". It needed around 200$ of parts so that was a good deal.
After cleaning everything, I built it up, install the fork, cycle it a few times and see that the seals are leaking. It worked very well without leaks 5-6 years ago, but was not anymore. Okay no big deal, I bought new seals and dust wipers and rebuild the fork. While rebuilding it, after having cleaned it so well and installed the new SKF seals and Enduro wipers, the internal damper shaft cracked at the threads. Damn! I looked around and couldn't find parts at all for that '01 MCR. Okay, no big deal, I wanted to keep the Q21R as a souvenir of my early years, but for the price it was worth using it. Open it up, the elastomers are still feeling fresh (!) and the threads are all good everywhere. It cycles well, but with a few miles in it should be smooth as back in the days. I Loctite the fork brace bolts and bolt it on the bike to discover that it has so much bushing play and cycles in steps. What the hell! I shoved a few spoons of WPL oil in the bushing area under the stanchion protectors, cycled it and left it for a day. To no surprise, it didn't work any better.
I was 275$ in for new parts bought for the damn old bike and it still didn't have a fork. Anyone has tried to find a cheap 26" fork with v-brake posts lately? Nothing. Left. Anywhere. There was a cheap RockShox 28 for 200$, but that would bring the bike to 475$ without including the labor.
Stroke of luck #2 : One of my friends had an old Giant Yukon with disc brake wheels and a Suntour fork that was working well. He said " It needs a few repairs and I don't want to deal with that so just come pick it up and I'll give it to you!". I ran to grab it! It was dirty as sin but after an hour of cleaning everything, I discovered that the fork was usable and the wheels were true and turning nicely.
Spent probably 30-40 hours of cleaning, installing, shopping parts, picking up parts, unbuilding and rebuilding forks and parts, but it is now built and ready to ride. This wasn't my first frankenbike build but I swore I'd never do another build like that ever!