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Flbandit
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
851 Posts |
 Posted - 04/20/2008 : 15:10:02
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So where do ya'll find your scrap? I get most of mine by riding around in my truck on the evenings before trash pick-up. I have several routes I do fairly regular so people get used to seeing my big ugly truck. I frequently have people ask if I want various items. I always have my eyes open for good junk, but my regular routes seem to produce pretty well. I haul all manner of junk home, then strip out the parts I want. The rest gets put to the curb and the trash guys haul it off. Sometimes the yard looks a bit rough, but it's money in the bank!
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Are you throwing that out? |
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NotABigDeal
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
3890 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 15:28:20
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I get all mine from work.
Deal |
Live free or die.
Plain and simple.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your council or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams |
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Robarons
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
522 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 16:47:11
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I get what I call "Premium Scrap".
For example I bought a 6ft. Alum. ladder for $5, 2 pairs of brass candle sticks for $2, and a Alum. Angel food cake pan for 5 cents at garage sales. I wonder if its worth buying small scrap at these prices only to drive home and see the big boys hauling scrap from the curb the day before trash day.
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Robber Baron= Robarons |
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Flbandit
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
851 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 18:08:46
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| Yard sales are great! I went to a church yard sale a few weeks ago. Just before they shut down they did a "stuff a bag for a dollar". I went around and filled two big bags of all the brass, aluminum cookware, and any copper items I could find! I bet I had over 40 lbs. of SS, aluminum, brass, and copper mixed together! |
Are you throwing that out? |
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tyoon21
Penny Sorter Member
52 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 19:56:58
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Craigslist and freecycle are great ways to pick up stuff.
I put an ad on craigslist once and picked up 3 box fulls of computer stuff for scrapping. I am still getting replies to my ads a month later.... |
Take this job and shove it. I don't want to work here no more... |
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deleted
91 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 20:07:37
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| I get a little from work a little along the road and with trash but i cant afford to drive and hope to find. Most of mine i get from computer shops, apartment complexs, farmers, ads from craigslist and so forth. Most i buy but usually at least triple my money and i usually require at least a truckfull unless they are relativiley close. I usually randomly mail out 10-12 letters per week to businesses offering to purchase scrap and i usually target small to medium places. |
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deleted
110 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 21:33:27
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I get mine from anywhere and everywhere. Friends, family, neighbors, etc are a good source. I've used craigslist alot also. I drive/walk around a little too. I check the barracks dumpsters on base a few times a week also. All those young sailors are here for training before going to the fleet, they accumulate while in school, then when they get their orders they throw alot of stuff away.
College dorms would be good too when school gets out for the summer. |
24 Empty Missile Tubes, A Giant Mushroom Cloud....It's Miller Time!!! |
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Flbandit
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
851 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2008 : 18:05:10
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| Another good place is rental apartments. I find places where it seems like the whole house was just set out to the road. |
Are you throwing that out? |
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deleted
12 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2008 : 18:53:18
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| I also get mine from what people set out by the curb and by picking things up along several roads that are near by. Also once people find out that you take scrap metal they seem to more than glad enough to give you their scrap metal. |
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Delawhere Jack
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1680 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2008 : 20:01:17
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Scrap is everywhere Used to do some dumpster diving, haven't recently though, had a falling out with my DD lady friend. Check the dumpsters/trash cans etc. at colleges when the students leave for the year. My friend used to make hundreds of $'s each year getting text books that were tossed and selling them to a bookstore that specialized in text books at U of D.
I got a perfectly good mulching lawn mower that was put out for trash because the carb needed a $10 rebuild kit and 20 minutes work. I've been using it for 3 year, and it runs like new. |
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." Thomas Jefferson
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fiatboy
Administrator
912 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2008 : 20:51:37
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quote:
Check the dumpsters/trash cans etc. at colleges when the students leave for the year.
Great advice! Those end-of-the-semester finds can be incredible. I've made hundreds of dollars from small appliances and textbooks. |
"Bart, it's not about how many stocks you have, it's about how much copper wire you can get out of the building." --- Homer Simpson |
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Saul Mine
Penny Collector Member
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2008 : 23:54:13
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You can find a lot of fairly good stuff in the dumpster at a self storage place. When people move out they realize they have no interest in this or that and pop it into the dumpster. Even better is if you can find where welfare puts divorced women. The women often have everything their hubbies left behind and they throw it all out. Then when they find a new arrangement they throw out everything that duplicates what the new S.O. has. I have seen sets of dishes, sheets (clean and folded), whole beds, every sort of furniture, camping equipment, and once a small motorcycle.
If there is a college, check behind the dorms on the day the students have to be moved out at the end of the semester. Anything they can't carry might be out there. And while you're waiting for the end of the semester, ask about the school's surplus sales. You would expect a pile of computer parts and lab instruments of course, but the machine shops also throw out a lot of scrap after projects are completed. One school got a bunch of new pianos and offered the old ones to students and then auctioned what the students didn't take. These things go on at odd moments all the time, so check again occasionally. |
A penny sorted is a penny earned!
Please use tinyurl.com to post links. Long links make posts hard to read. |
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Hirbonzig
Penny Collector Member
USA
451 Posts |
Posted - 05/20/2008 : 22:42:32
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| On trash day I see a lot of alum. cans in the city's recycle bins on the curb. I've always wanted to take them but I'am unshure if that is considered stealing city property once they're in the city recycle bin. |
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NotABigDeal
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
3890 Posts |
Posted - 05/21/2008 : 06:16:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Hirbonzig
On trash day I see a lot of alum. cans in the city's recycle bins on the curb. I've always wanted to take them but I'am unshure if that is considered stealing city property once they're in the city recycle bin.
Good question. Trash set to the curb is fair game....
Deal |
Live free or die.
Plain and simple.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your council or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams |
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n/a
deleted
11 Posts |
Posted - 05/21/2008 : 18:38:24
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| I get most of mine from work. I remodel homes and build new ones. I take all the scrap wire and pipes that I can get my hands on. Job site dumpsters usually have some goodies even if it is not metal. |
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Flbandit
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
851 Posts |
Posted - 05/21/2008 : 19:04:09
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quote:
Originally posted by forsmant
I get most of mine from work. I remodel homes and build new ones. I take all the scrap wire and pipes that I can get my hands on. Job site dumpsters usually have some goodies even if it is not metal.
Yeah i know! Unfortunately I've been tossed out of a few jobsites! Nowdays, with all the copper theft, I stay away from construction sites. |
Are you throwing that out? |
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deleted
18 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2008 : 08:19:11
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| I look for old wires lying around. I find a few small lengths here and there, but I guess everything counts. :) |
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. |
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deleted
110 Posts |
Posted - 05/24/2008 : 19:10:55
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| Heck yes, everything counts. I wish I would have started this 20 years ago, hoarded everything, well, at least the copper, and turned it in in November when I retire from the Navy. I'd have a decent retirement party, that's for sure! |
24 Empty Missile Tubes, A Giant Mushroom Cloud....It's Miller Time!!! |
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double dot
Penny Sorter Member
USA
55 Posts |
Posted - 05/25/2008 : 23:02:51
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Since my family became scrappers, we see what is unseen every day, everywhere. I know where metal is and leave it there for later. Some of it is in out of the way places where ownership is ambiguous. That stuff is a lot of work to determine ownership.
All of what we pickup is completely above board. Today two steel desks outside a rural house with a free sign on it. I don't think the donors visualized that their desks would be disasembled less than an hour after pickup in the back yard while other family members fired up the grill. (The grill had a free sign on it a month ago and really sweet, even the propane was still mostly full.) I also saw but did not act on a dumpster behind a Sears discount store with a steel grill and other pieces steel in it. I thought of checking local school dumpsters as the school year is almost over. The local private college classes end in 3 weeks. Should we check that out. In September, another town has bulk scrap day nearby.
The ambiguous is mostly fantasized about. I saw a pole in a pile of trash next to a building where the owner gave me two transformers 6 weeks ago. Haven't done anything with the pole and may never touch it. But there it is going on 5 weeks. Then there is a convenience store that borders a railroad track. In a drainage ditch between both areas and not easily visable from either is the rear end of a pickup truck so old the bed was wood. Or how about a concrete block with a 4 inch diameter eight foot long pipe yanked out of the ground between one abandoned house and a rental house occupied. I have a pipe cutter and could strip it in ten minutes. Do I offer the renters $2 to remove the pole and concrete? When we walk the dogs next to the erie canal, there is an abandoned old car 1/2 mile up the trail from the real roads but only 30 yards from the paved trail. It is so rusted it would probably easily break into pieces. The roads we routinely drive on have metal on it but mostly small pieces. Today, I saw more metal sticking out of uprooted concrete chunks in a dead zone of a decayed city. Too much work for reality, but available for Walter Mitty scrapper dreams. |
Crouching Teller, Hiding Copper |
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Finding Scrap?
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