Pokemonprime's Scrapping Finds - Page 2

Whoops! Sorry. Learning curve required on how to delete a post.

I always do the scratch test before i cut out windings. Even tho i can tell its copper, some times an alum wound motor will sneak its way past the eye test.

Sorry to revive an old thread but I'd rather not start a new one. Not too much has been happening, went on vacation for a bit. Scrapped 3 vacuum cleaners (well, one was some steam vac thing), motors and cords on those are nice. The worst was this beat up Hoover one, such a pain to tear apart, and it had the dinkiest little motor! The steam vac was more fruitful, as was the Biswell which came apart really quick. Now the curb is filled with even more junk, because the trash company still hasn't picked up the CRT and boxes that have been there for 2 weeks when they're supposed to take bulk every 3 days.... . Also on the block was a ceiling fan (minus the blades) which is gonna require some elbow grease to get apart because one of the screws is a security bit of some description. (The rest are phillips! Only this one screw is a security bit). That's it aside from the lid of a dryer that got added to the steel pile. (Just the lid, you think I can lug an entire dryer back to my house without pissing off the neighbors? :P . Maybe I could have rigged something but I like not to stand in people's yards too long. Guy with a trailer came yesterday and hauled the rest of it off).

A couple of week old thread is not old. Stay around, you'll see "old" threads pop up, sometimes on purpose, sometimes the poster thinks they're current. That can be a funny situation sometimes.

Do you sell anything on ebay?? Steamvacs in good condition are always a decent find, much better than a typical regular vac unless the regular vac is an old big name one. Many times a good steamvac can be sold on CL if its in great shape. If not, part it out. The two "tanks" on board almost always sell on ebay, although perhaps not at your first listing. Attachments can sell as well. Old vintage big name vacs like Hoover and Kirby often sell well on ebay, either whole if not too big or parted out. There are two groups of people who seem to want these; collectors and people who still use them!! You might be surprised at what some of that stuff goes for. If it doesn't sell after a couple of rounds, you can always scrap it. Good luck!!

A decent bit's been happening for me, found a lawn mower, even came with the manuals! (They were taped to it in a plastic folder along with the "FREE" sign). It doesn't start (pulling the cord produces an odd noise) but I'm sure it can be fixed because it's in good shape otherwise. I picked up a dishwasher which was fairly fruitful, plastic enclosure but the dish racks were steel, and I still pulled a decent amount off of it. On the same trip I picked up a Craftsman edger (tested today, "works" in the sense that the motor makes a noise something awful. Maybe I'll fix it but it feels like a motor problem and at that point I consider it fairly far gone). Finally, a garbage disposal thing, I may or may not just throw this in the steel (motor?) pile and call it a day. I think I lack the proper hazmat gear to see what's inside a thrown out garbage disposal unit.

I don't really have the means to cut off copper windings, and I'll most likely knock the shell off and add it in as motors. I was just being a bit silly.

Man has it really been over a year since I've touched this thread? Really am reviving a dead one now. Not too much has been happening, just same old same old. Lots of cans. One of the neighbors has started putting out trash bags full of cans regularly, so I can add those to the pile. One day I loaded up the truck with cans, nearly the whole bed. Walked out with about $21 with cans at $0.45/pound, expected a bit more. Got a good lesson in density that day. Gutted a few flat screen TVs, good boards in them not sure what they'd class as, probably medium grade. Having a hell of a time removing all the heatsinks. Those TVs got a lot of steel in them. Most recently I picked up the metal frame of what I believe was a small gazebo style thing, that's good steel, packs away easy on the side of the house. The guy came out and gave me a few more poles he hadn't brought out yet, as well as a computer case with two small batteries in there, about the sort of size you see in those Power Wheels cars. Nice guy.

Will throw up some pictures when I get home, still got the gazebo steel sitting there, only new additions have been the house's old VHS player that finally died and a pair of fluorescent light fixtures. Waiting to accumulate a bunch of stuff before I spend a day to tear it all down at once. Construction further down my street has provided me with a supply of 5 gallon painters buckets for sorting, that dumpster hasn't produced much else but it's been producing bits and pieces of scribble scrabble every now and then. Found a pair of bluetooth headphones, they charge but make no noise except an occasional hum so they're get torn down once I have the time.

Keep on with your various metal adventures. Never know what will show up next!!

The gazebo steel stacked up against the house. The grey garbage ban is cans, the white/red bins are old cat litter containers that I used before I had access to more convenient 5-gallon buckets.



The light fixtures, batteries, and VHS player.

Took in all my bulky steel yesterday, dad wanted it off the side of the house. Remnants of a hot water heater, back of a plasma TV, remains of a vaccum cleaner I took the motor out of (old Hoover, I wasn't chucking plastic into the steel pile). Also brought in a heavy, real small generator, a bathtub, small water tank, and a self-propelled push lawnmower. Totaled 340 pounds, unless I'm reading the receipt wrong. Steel was 0.035/lb, ended up with $11.90 in steel. 33 pounds of electric motors, a pool pump motor, a vacuum cleaner motor, and a few misc small motors out of electronics. Only 0.10/lb, that seems low to me, but I don't really know. Finally, took in my cans at 0.35/lb, not amazing but I'm perfectly happy with that price.

Since it was a Friday, I decided to try out a second local yard that's only open Mon-Fri, called Space Coast Recycling. All I had was a tub full of circuit boards- the guy actually separated out the few mid grade I had instead of just penciling in the whole bin as low-grade like I expected. Now that I know roughly what mid grade is, I can separate it next time. I ended up trading the like $1 in scrap I had to walk out with a Denon cassette deck and a TEAC equalizer from their pile of stereo equipment- they let me take the deck and the equalizer was in "trade" for the bit of circuit boards I had. Denon needs a new cord spliced on the back, but looks intact inside. Equalizer works perfectly. Really nice people there, gonna try and get to that yard more often. The other yard I go to is gonna be relegated to a steel yard, and I'll take copper and aluminum and escrap to this place.

I'm glad you got some cash and new stuff out of your work! There must be a demand for scrap steel in FL, either end user or export and 3.5 cents a pound isn't great but it doeasn't suck either. I just found out that light steel is down to a penny a pound here. That does suck. Take care!

About all I've found notably, scrap-wise on the curb. XP-era computer, chilling in a construction dumpster, this one's been used a lot by local people to dump whatever. Aside from that, little bit of cords and some other stuff off the curb. The truck this is sitting on, well, hopefully I'll be able to drive it soon. So I can go out and actually pick up more scrap, and ain't limited to what I can carry, or what I can convince my parents to help me come back for.

This thread, is ancient by my standards.. starting to get so that I cringe a little at what I've written in the past. Such is life.