I love scrap yards.

Salem Straub

Salem Straub

Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
5,547
We have a good one down the road... negotiating with scrap guys can be a bit of an art though, on old machines. I had my eye on an old power hacksaw in decent shape for about a year now. The yard owner came into the cafe for breakfast today... the upshot being that tomorrow I'm hauling a couple cars down there, which makes my property look better, and getting that power hack and some big bandsaw blade in trade.

I hope it goes smoothly, I'll be posting pix of that machine if it does. Let this be a reminder to those of you who can, to get your scrap on! That is all.
 
Scrap yards are great. There is a good one down the road from me a bit. I bought my 6" leg vise at one. It wasn't cheap at $160 but it was like new.

I also bought a 107# pear shaped 1-1/4" thick plate that is my baseplate that my 300# Fisher sits on.

My next purchase from there will be a 6" 52100 round about 3' long. I am making a dedicated post anvil for forging tsuba and other fittings.

They have gears for ladder dies in twenty variations of tooth size and spacing as well as hydraulic rams of every size, 1070 plowshare blades? 1000# of them?

I pulled my leg vise from a bin with fifteen more in various stages of disrepair.

I can't wait to see the power hacksaw!

I get 1/4" and 3/16" sheet copper for $4 a pound there too. I am making several bowls from copper now.

Gears, bronze boat propellers, wrought iron wagon wheels, structural steel, scrap stainless restaurant equipment, trailer parts, and more!!!

My name is Brian, and I'm glad to be here. I'm a metal hoarder, and I (don't) have a problem. It's been 3 hours since I last scrapped, and to be honest I'm looking for my next score right now...
 
Must be nice, the only decent one around here doesn't want to sell you anything, and if it's a machine it's not long before it shredded or torched to oblivion.
 
I honestly think that people who would torch up a perfectly good machine for the scrap price should be drug into the street and whipped. Unless all avenues to find it a home had been exhausted, and the machine was not historically relevant, and all reusable parts were removed.

Brian, I am happy for you! Sounds like a good yard. Will, I grieve for you, sounds like a torment to have that kind of yard near you.
 
If having an income was not an issue,
I would enjoy being a sculptor making things with a steam punk theme.
Then I could spend lots of time searching out all the cast off treasures in the scrap yards and give them a new life.
 
Do scrap yards typically let you "wander" around and look? Seems like that how the best "treasures" would be found.
 
Chicago pretty much sucks for scrap yards...........

They really don't wanna let you in to wander around amidst all those sharp edges and heavy, tippy piles

I gotta work on my rap with these guys. When Tim Wright was here he had it down to a science. He had them all wrapped up. He'd give them a knife and own them for life.

H'mmmmm

Syn
 
Langadune said:
Do scrap yards typically let you "wander" around and look? Seems like that how the best "treasures" would be found.
Click to expand...

It's not typical anymore, but it used to be I think.


We're lucky that we've got a big scrappy in my area that'll let you buy anything you can find by the lb. Although to them, it's all *scrap* and just "business" no matter how useful a machine it might be. I've seen more than a few casualties get slammed off a truck or trailer by the cranes with little regard to how useful the machine might still be.

What kills me are the a-holes that'll list a machine on craigslist for 5-10x scrap value, won't negotiate on price, and then get P-O'd that nobody thinks it's as valuable as them, and end up hauling it to the scrappy. I think they all must be delusional about what scrap is going for these days, they sure seem to think a rode hard and left out to dry bridgeport or old lathe is worth gold, that's for sure.
 
I grew up in a Salvage Yard in North East PA, you would have been in heaven, not only cats and heavy equipment but buildings and all kinds of salvaged material.

My mother was so anal that she drained and recycled/reused all the fluids the yard was so clean it was filled with wild flowers and wild strawberries, she had deer, bear, coyote, bobcat, raccoons, rabbits, every kind of wild animal indigenous to our area.

Her yard sat on top of of mountain up a 1/4 mile private road overlooking the Delaware River.

We had a Harley Davidson Golf Cart for a yard car, we put oxy/acetylene torches where the golf bags went and a toolbox mounted in between.

We had some old diners in the yard, fire trucks and every piece of heavy equipment you could imagine, we built cars, trucks, bikes and when winter came, temporary workshops out of 40ft trailers so we could play/work when it was crappy out.

Yea junk/salvage yards are fun.
 
We don't have any close... I have gone nuts in the couple I've ever been to.

Javan- I know exactly what you mean. I'm pretty sure the big 'ol lathe, shaper, bandsaw, drill, etc that were in the same shop where I got 1 of my mills and lathe ended up going to China to be made into bumpers.

Kind of like this... :(

[video=youtube;x3RgyZRgshA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3RgyZRgshA[/video]
 
local scrap yard not set up for browsing. i go thru scrap bin at work and machine shop across the street. latest find is 10 pounds of 1/4" 304ss round stock, 9 to 12 inches long.
scott
 
Ive gotten saw blades and two anvils from one of our local yards.Plenty of building stock too.Not too much equipment comes thru though..Appalachia isnt an industrial area..Ours are pretty good at letting buy/trade for what you want..
 
I did get that power hacksaw. It's cool, a Marvel #2 machine. I've been oiling it and running it, just needs a blade and should be good to go! Pix soon. Thanks for contributing to this thread, fellow scrappas.
 
Aaargh! I just watched it too! What kind of sick monkey would videotape something like that, and worse, post it to the webz? God, it's like that pic of a guy wrapped in a lathe, something I never wanted to see.

I guess I did click on it.
 
I've been to auctions where guys would run the bid over the usable value of machines for the scrap value. Makes you sick.
 
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