I went to the recycler today to drop off a few things. Our city recycler don't really mind if no one complains if we "re-use" before we recycle. Found in the metal bin most of a six ton hydraulic press and beside it three WW G78/15 bias plies. I needed one for a spare and all three are in great shape. The press needs a couple of small things done to it and a hydraulic jack but I have that.
Good for you! We lost our "Free Table" at our Transfer Station, lots of people put cast offs from others to good use furniture, mechanical things, out grown kids toys. Now they go directly to trash, such a waist. Bob
The recycle drop off at the Lopez Island transfer station in the San Juans used to be that way before someone figured out they could make a buck off it. A friend was visiting a relative over there and the barbecue had a failure. In the car and off down to the recycle station to find a similar barbecue with a usable part, pull the part, go home fix the barbecue and start grilling.
Well in their self perceived wisdom the city is closing down our recycling depot in 2020. We will now have to travel farther and share with two other cities and there will NO PILFERING!!! The guys that work there are great about the re-using thing. I've got about sixteen ten foot lengths of 1/4" wall steel tubing, a brand new 3 or 5 hp engine that was just missing its gas cap, various tools, a spare 2 hp portable air compressor, vintage tools, and the list goes on. The citizens will be voting the knotheads out next election since so many are really pissed. But what I find as usable treasures others have seen as junk but you know the old saying... Even saw a Model A frame in th emerald bin once!
I have made a couple of scores at the local transfer station. -Late 20's early 30's Chevrolet gas tank -A set of 34 Ford wishbones -Front and Rear 63-67 Corvette bumpers When I was scraping I was finding all kinds of early Ford parts. -Axles -Spindles -Wishbones On of my scraping scores were three Flatheads, two were 8ba but one had a old Mallory dual point and coil. The third was EGA (255 Mercury) the block was cracked but the crank was good.
They don't do that around here. We have once a week trash pickup, if it fits in the can, it goes, they won't even hardly pick up a closed and tied bag. About every six months or so they bring around a container dumpster for household items like old couches and stuff. I don't think the county dump will even let you in anymore, haven't heard of anybody going there in years. If you live in town they have a truck that comes around and sucks up leafs and small branches, out here in the country we just burn'em.
My wife and I cruise the neighborhoods during "Tidy Town" weekends, which is a once a year deal where people can set out large items for pick-up by the trash company. Scrappers love these weekends because there is so much reuseable stuff set by the curbs. We have picked up a lot of stuff to repair and sell, but our primary targets are leather couches and chairs. With a sharp carpet knife (remember to carry spare blades, they dull quickly) you can strip the leather off a couch in just a couple of minutes, and usually 80% to 90% of the leather is not worn or damaged. Last spring we "harvested" nearly 600 square feet of leather on a couple Saturday mornings. Those big sectional couches easily have enough leather to re-upholster an entire car.
I too am guilty of going during the spring cleanup and getting the good stuff. they announced on the radio anyone taking from the curbside would be ticketed. Trouble is it has already made its way to the supreme court. A drug dealer was convicted by evidence collected from his curbside trash can. He clamed warrantless search. The court ruled anything left for the garbage /Trash pickup was fair game. I called the radio station and city hall and told them I was gonna scavenge and feel free to ticket me. I would beat them in court. We used to have this real character Who was the local TV weatherman and TV personality. Got in a fist fight at the TV station and was fired. Went to work at the Jonesboro Radio Station. He did the morning show. One morning during spring cleanup week He told he was out at daylight with his truck and trailer getting the good stuff. told about new full sheets of plywood and lawnmowers and all the good plunder he didn't have room for. He also mentioned the supreme court ruling. Once I got 50 feet of 1/2 inch diameter welding lead. and a real nice 56 chevy front bumper. Last spring I got a good lawnmower, several nice little girls bikes. good lumber, unused cement blocks, Chain link fence, tires & wheels and a lot of scrap metal of various types. There are a couple guys on U tube that scavenge . Mustie 1 and Taco Stacks & scrap farm. Make a big part of their living recycling.
I don't rake or burn leaves. I leave them alone. they are called LEAVES. One time some mean kids raked a big pile of leaves out into the road. Vehicles would come by and drive really slow thru them. They piled the leaves up again. After a few days the vehicles would just drive thru at high speed. So then they placed a rail road tie inside that pile.
Every time we go to the transfer station. i always take a look in the metal dumpster .About a month ago i got a SBC Edelbrock intake and a couple of early 70's point distributors.
Our county convenience centers allow no scavenging, they believe its better to throw it away as opposed to re-using it. What a shame to no longer have a town dump where people could put potentially usable stuff out for others.
I don't burn them anymore either. I just chop them up with the lawnmower in the spring, I figure they're natural fertilizer. I do burn fallen limbs though. You wouldn't have happened to be the mean kid who put the railroad tie in the leaf pile were you Old Wolf? Or the poor fellow that found it there with the front tires of his car?
Well those tires I found looked good but had some stubborn stains. So what to do; back to the recycler? No way... got out my favourite cleaners but the stains remain! So I tried 220 grit then 100 grit sandpaper for the stubborn stains and used semi(e) course sanding foam block I get at Princess auto... SUCCESS!!!! They may be rollers but they are in as good shape as the ones destined for my ‘56 Rideau Victoria. And I don’t put a lot of credence in the Phoenix AZ report on degradation of tires considering where I live!
Actually it was my Father and his brothers who done that stunt. when he got old he told my children about all the meaness he done when he was a kid.
This is kinda like gamblers, only hearing the "wins", around here scrappers were thick as thieves and more often than not were thieves, always hated to get caught with the garage door open while they passed by. Once while putting some scrap rotors out, guy swoops in to snatch them, then immediately goes right to my open garage door looking, salivating, asking for more, what about that, what about this, I strongly let him know if it wasn't at the f'n curb then it wasn't scrap, get the f off my property. The town had put out a notice that if it was at the curb then it was town property at that point, because they had their own scrap system in effect, plus they started ticketing the vehicles for equipment violations. So you may see one lone straggler now and then, but nothing like it was before. Leaves, we have big sucky truck.
I work across the street from a metal recycler everyday I look for something interesting going by Sent from my moto z4 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Swade41, I had a couple, that I had seen in the neighbourhood and looking rather sketchy, open the service entrance of my shop. They feigned they were looking for “Mike” that used to live there, apparently earlier this than the twenty years I had lived there and before I built the shop. As I was torch cutting some material at that moment I told them to fuck off and if they ever returned they’d be fried as I blipped the cutting torch. For some reason they never retuned...?
Our local metal recycler used to let us in to scrounge one hour a day during the week after the cranes shut down for the day. 4 o'clock till 5 o'clock during the week and 12 o'clock till 1 o'clock on Saturday. Untill some dumb ass snuck in early and got bumped by one of the cranes. That shut it down for everyone. But we had 30 plus good years of scrounging. My brother made out pretty well buying 4 speed transmissions and rebuilding them. Some of the factory's in town would retool and scrap all there old tooling . One of my buddies would buy 5 gallon buckets full of tool steel for scrap price. I had bought a lot of steel plate out of there through the years. Was in there one Saturday and a guy was rummaging through a bunch of old car licence plates that went from 1948 to 1972. I think 1973 they started using the stickers on the plates. There were two sets for each year. We discussed the fact that they were starting to let you use year of manufacturer plates in Ohio and I told him you could get about $20 a set for them at the time. He was there first so they were his. So I am there looking for other treasurer's. When he comes back with all the lincence plates and drops them. I say what's up? He says the guy at the scale says there's a $5 minimum on Saturday. There's no way there's $5 worth of scarp metal here ? So I scooped them up and took them to the scale. The scale operator must have thought I was the same guy and tells me it's still going to cost you $5 I said no problem here's your $5 . Good times back then.
Back a few years (around 2001 and a couple years after) I spent a lot of time hitting the local recyclers. Found a couple 428 CJ intake manifolds and lots of other FE and Ford parts. Got at least one Merc flathead crankshaft and a early V8 33-34 front axle assembly. Had to pay like 2x what they paid a pound but it was worth what I paid. I remember I got a 428 shortblock with one cracked cylinder for under $100. It was .030 and had the TRW numbers on the pistons. I went home and researched the numbers (before smart phones - for me anyway) and went back to buy it. They don't let anyone do it anymore - insurance reasons they said.
I became friendly with our town dump employees when you could still pick the dump. it's amazing what a six pack could get you. They got to know me, and put stuff aside for me to look at first, before putting it in the pile. Those days are gone now, but I know a guy that works at a salvage yard, so I got to wander around. The guy that was in charge of the metal area also knew what I liked, and he put stuff aside for me to buy at a very reasonable price. It ws a good deal while it lasted, but the bozo got into drugs and lost his job. I used to bring a large pizza for the yard people, and a medium pizza for the guys up front. They always treated me right, and the boss knew that I took care of his people, and he made sure that they treated me right, too.
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