What's the most useless waste of time thing you've ever broken down for scrap? - Page 3

Id go with an upright piano. The only thing that made it worth it was the silver dime I found inside the piano. Not worth much but, it made my day.

I also found a gold bracelet in a treadmill one time, I guess I get lucky sometimes.

Printers.

For me it was a soda can vending machine. It's heavy so you can get good weight for shred, but taking it apart was a disappointment. There just wasn't much copper line at all. Most of the refrigerant lines and condenser were steel. All the moving parts I saw were steel. Did I mention the beast was heavy? The thin wires going to the tiny motors didn't add up to much. It just wasn't worth the effort required. I know I could have pulled the compressor, but it wasn't very big and by that time I was pretty well frustrated so I just shoved it off in the shred pile.

These >

Sanken power amp modules from home stereos.
I got 30 cents worth of Silver from the connections. Took ages.

But now I know & somehow I must profit from that knowledge.

I hate printers, fax machines, scanners and copiers. I shouldn't complain because everything I get is given to me. The last load consisted of about 6 PC's, 1 server, severel battery backups and about 10 printers. I opened the side panels on the printers and removed the circuit boards. I will keep the boards but I have about 400 pounds of printers that I'm going to give to my neighbor in exchange for something he has that I want. He owns a small computer store and scraps also.

For dishwashers, I've found that if you remove the three or four screws on the motor and while it is on its side give a good swift stomp on it and it will break free.

I'm just starting out but, so far squirrel fan from my heat pump. Took like two hours and got a whole $10. that was the first thing i ever scrapped even though it was only $10 the bug bit me now I'm looking for more stuff so I guess it was worth it after all.