Best scavenged items

[RitchElbe]

I thought this the best place to start a new thread about getting the best deal on used parts. Today I raked in 2 3way spools, work lights and a beacon. Bonus 10hp Wisconsin.
Total invested $21. leaving the scrap yard..they toss an old battery in the trailer since I was going to the recycle..which bought it of me for $12. Now I have only invested $9. Enjoy the pics

 

[bmaverick]

I just got a few wooden crate pallets for free today from a neighbor who is having tile laid in the kitchen. The base is solid thick boards and strong. All looking new. Going to take the sides off for the platform. Then use outdoor porch epoxy paint to them. These will do well for keeping the 3pt hay spear nice off the ground in the barn.

Nice thread starter. Hope others post some recent findings and what the plans are for the find.

 

[RitchElbe]

Awesome Buddy... have you seen this Awesome Pallet House Built For $500

 

[BHD]

the Best Scavenged items ARE the things you end up using,

Other wise it is normally scrap iron or junk, probably my best score on scavenging things is my welding truck,

a before or soon after I got it, the pick up was freebie, originally my son was looking for a dully axel and one guy in town had this truck setting kind of behind his shop, so I asked if he would part it or sell it, and he said it is your if you want it, I said ok, when we have a trailer in town I will pick it up, he said why it runs, and still has plates and insurance on it, for a few weeks, so I got in it and it starts and I drove it home, and decided my son could fine axles else where, (it would not be a good truck for a 50 mile drive ever day, but great for around the farm and a once in a while trip to town.


after clean up

I found the Lincoln welder for $500 and works well, a lot of hours on it but it seems to have been well cared for,

I have since added an air compressor on it, the compressor was made out of used parts the tank was off a compressor the head went bad on, the pump off one that the tank had rotted out, the motor and the controls were mostly new, I have since added hose reel on the truck as well, and 50 of hose, for the fencing of the farm I have some air powered post drivers for rod posts and T posts, as well as keeping tires up and it will run other air tools, I added a go cart clutch to the compressor so when starting and when it is running but full the pump is not running, it has a unloaded valve and throttle control,



I salvage a lot of things but I also went threw a few years ago and let a scrap man take a lot, that was old and obsolete, (If I can not find parts for it any more why would I want to build any thing out of it?) as if some thing does break it back to a total rebuild,

 

[Travelover]

Awesome finds, you guys. I try to stop by my local metal recycler once a week. I recently got some nice extruded aluminum bars with T slots to make a worthy two canoe roof rack - twice as strong as a Thule or Yakima for about ten bucks.

I also buy electrical wire there. The (new) ends off long rolls are sold as scrap, so if you only need a 25 foot, 8 gauge wire, for instance, you can buy it for a small fraction of Home Depot's price.

Being in the Metro Detroit area, I see a lot of small shops still being scrapped out - pallet dollies, jacks, metal storage racks, etc just sold for scrap. Last visit, there were dozens of stainless steel dog cages sold as scrap - probably a vet clinic.

 

[Zebrafive]

Unfortunately the scrap yards here will not sell anything that comes into the yard. I have tried to buy empty barrels for burn barrels....no go.

 

[Travelover]

Unfortunately the scrap yards here will not sell anything that comes into the yard. I have tried to buy empty barrels for burn barrels....no go.

The policies seem to vary with the yard. I've noticed that any cash coming from me tends to go straight into the pocket - no receipt.

 

[RitchElbe]

where R u located at Zebrafive

 

[RitchElbe]

This welder..is so envious right now!

 

[STROIL]

Don't have any pics, but I have scored many great scavenged items simply from peoples trash in my suburban neighborhood. If I see something that has promise, I'll stop and pitch it in the back of my pickup after only a few seconds of inspection, and quickly be on my way. Once I get a chance to look at it, I can determine if it can be easily fixed, or has any other value to it (parts, etc.). If not... it goes right in my trash the next week or sometimes the same day. I got a very high quality pancake compressor that I was able to source new reed valves for $20 which fixed it perfectly and it has been performing under lots of use for years for me. I got a $500 dayton commercial 6v/12v battery charger out of someones trash. I replaced diodes in it for $50 and it's good as new. I've gotten two very nice quality shop vacs out of peoples trash (with hoses, but no attachments). One had a bad cord, and we all know how hard that is to fix. The other was just gunked up from a particularly messy wet-vac procedure. I guess the owner just thought it was too big a mess to bother with. I cleaned it up and with a new filter, was exceptionally good vacuum. There are many more examples, but I won't bore you with them. I also stop to pickup used and unwanted lumber. I can always eventually use whatever lengths of 2x material that people pitch. I guess they figure they will never have a future need for it, and don't want to store it.

 

[Looking4new]

Unfortunately the scrap yards here will not sell anything that comes into the yard. I have tried to buy empty barrels for burn barrels....no go.

An old wood stove makes a good burn barrel. I burn all my garbage in an old Elmira wood stove. Something to think about if you can't get barrels.

 

[RitchElbe]

awesome finds buddy

 

[DT86]

Unfortunately the scrap yards here will not sell anything that comes into the yard. I have tried to buy empty barrels for burn barrels....no go.

Same here.

We used to be able to pick what they had. There was lots of stuff, from new perfectly good cutoffs, used perfectly good scrap to worthless scrap, available to dig through. They would even help finding what you needed.

The last time I went they said that due to new insurance regs they couldn't sell anything to the public. I asked if they could just bring what I needed to me and that was out of the question too.

Major bummer.

 

[RitchElbe]

That's what I like about our local yard...We know the owner and he knows I am a certed metal worker/welder...from time to time I even help the old guys there take a break and cut scrap for awhile, while they enjoy coffee in the winter or cool water in the summer that I keep in the truck. All in all it pays to be nice..These guys keep eyes out for things I might need or want..all the ask is a lil help with the firewood...which I am real good at finding as well

 

[dieselcrawler]

Buddy of mine has a brother who runs a pipeline yard... some rolls of typar type underlayment need to go away. We show up with the trailer... 9 full rolls @ 300' long, 4 partial @ about 2/3, 2 or 3 shorts... 15' wide... we have about $150 in fuel and a days time for the 2 of us invested.

Enough to sell a few rolls to make a bit of cash and still have enough left for any of our projects in the next few years. Good haul...

 

[muddstopper]

I think just about anything useful around here has already been scraped. I used to be able to go to the scrap yards and find all kinds of stuff, hydraulic cylinders, pumps, valves, hoses. New metal drops, occasional used farm equipment and sometimes even the tractor it was used behind. When metal prices where sky high, you could find tons of useful stuff. Now you go by the scrap yards, and they are just about bare. If someone does bring in something worth a hoot, it gets scarfed up the same day. My last hual was some stainless, a 55gal barrel, a tea holder like found in restaruants and some copper tube. Took it all to a buddy and he now provides me with liquid refreshments to the tune of about 10gal a pop. I keep the local grocery stores free of all the overripe fruit I can hual and let nature convert it into a useful product.

 

[davedj1]

I have a couple of junk yards around here that allow some looking over, they sell by the pound, about double of what they pay for junk. I have gotten some nice pieces of 2x2x1/4 angle iron, some 1/4" sheet pieces and a 5 x 30 cylinder that has never been used for scrap prices. I love scrounging another mans junk and make it my treasure.
dave

 

[Looking4new]

I am constantly in the scrap pile at the local dump. I also go over to the used building material pile and wander through there. Got a couple of good shelf units for my shop.

 

[PHPaul]

Not strictly "scavenged", but I used to work for the cannery here in town. They're gone now, but they'd been here since the 1890's under the same family ownership. Needless to say, they'd amassed a HUGE collection of stuff. A lot of it was stored in a garage/barn on the property. It was literally wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling, including the lofts.

By the time I started working there, it had changed hands 2 or 3 times, and the folks that owned it when I worked there wanted that barn cleaned out. However, being tighter than bark on a tree, they didn't want to pay anybody to do it. As a maintenance guy, I'd been through every nook and cranny of that barn looking for spare parts, so I knew with a fair degree of precision what was in there.

I made the Plant Manager an offer: I'll go through it on my own time without pay and separate the contents into three piles: Obvious junk that we should toss or recycle, stuff we ought to keep, and stuff that I was going to lug off for myself.

Somewhat to my surprise, they took the deal. Long story short, I lugged off two working welders (a Hobart AC/DC and a Miller DialArc 250 AC/DC/TIG complete with all the TIG accessories) a battery powered electric forklift, a humungous Hossfeld bender and a couple of truckloads of usable steel cutoffs. There was also a bunch of little stuff that went into my stash of parts/junk.

I sold the forklift and the Hobart for a pretty decent chunk of change, and made a really stupid mistake on the Hossfeld. I didn't research what they were going for and sold it for about 1/10th of the going price. Some guy drove 500 miles round trip to get it, which should have been a hint...

 

[RitchElbe]

Sweetness right there!