My yard was a small 2 person operation myself and my partner who happens to be a woman, I would pick up the cars, she would stuff them with bits to add weight.
When Pat had free time she would busy herself, stripping coper wire, removing screws from aluminum doors and window frames, peel aluminum bits off the cars maybe some emblems or a hubcap to sell on ebay. Pick out any tools, beer and pop cans the previous owner left for us.
As the cars came in we would stuff em, then I had an old Michigan loader to stack them, some of the newer stuff I would pull the engine for the core guy from Vancouver Core that came once a month, copper rads would get yanked, then the wiring harness would get hooked onto the Atlas crane aka Hiab then I would yank what wiring would come free.
Heavy equipment would get torch cut, I would order in a bottle of liquid oxygen, this is a large thermos filled with liquid oxygen the equivalent of 18 compressed gas bottles but a third the cost at $150.00.
Once the heavy scrap was cut into pieces no larger than 2 ft x 2 ft x 4 ft, I would call Richmond steel to spot me a trailer, the next day a tridome would be sitting in my yard. With an old GSW excavator with a thumb I could load this trailer in a day the following day Richmond Steel would bring another empty if needed then grab the full one and head back to Richmond.
Once a year the guy with the car crusher would come and clean up my yard, they did the crushing, loading and hauling.
I did not sell anything to the local public, other than some sales on ebay the odd 8V-71 or 6-71 blower that some hot rodder had dreams of polishing then installing on his rod. The blowers just make the post office limit at 66 lbs.
After a hard days work and dinner, Pat and I would jump into the truck and hit the campgrounds and bins for beer cans and liquor bottles, on a good weekend we could do $400.00. The bottle depot we dealt with gave us the bags and trusted our count. Our route included the Fraser Canyon up to Boston Bar, back to Hope then up the Hope Princeton to Sunshine Valley then the scales at the Haig and Flood were always good spots to pick.
Now that we live in Manitoba we have a milk run of the local landfills, someday I will post pictures of some of our treasures.
We received lots of goods from the public wanting to dispose of junk, fisheries brought in stuff on a regular basis.
With my back I have L1 and L2 damaged with some vertebrae in my neck that recently reared it;s horns. After 5 years of not working scrap I find myself back at it even with my handicaps.
I manage to keep myself busy refining a bit a e-scrap and doing some woodwork projects I have a small metal lathe with hopes of buying a milling machine someday. Eventually I would like to make working steam engine models, which would compliment my metal casting hobby.
Then a couple of weeks ago built the car trailer and it's been busy since. I'm doing 3 loads a week averaging $550.00 a run. Good thing winter is around the corner, then I can start working on some of my inside shop projects.
Inside projects, Hydra Mac skid steer with a seized engine, doing an engine transplant it getting a Kubota diesel, then I have a Massey 35 tractor with a 3 cylinder Perkins diesel that I'm overhauling.
The I hope to get some platinotype photography started, this is an alternative photography using platinum instead of silver the prints are done by placing a large negative over sensitized paper then exposing to UV light artificial or natural.
Hope the story has enough flow to it for you to make sense of it, but it has been very difficult to do a condensed Readers Digest version of the past 10 years.
On a side note, if your doing a large off site demo, once you have the scrap prepared some yards - most will spot a bin or trailer for you and some even have self loaders trucks equipped with cranes and magnets. No need to have a lot of your money tied into equipment.
Regards
Gustavus
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Originally Posted by Kris Kringle
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