Scrounging

[Doc Hickory]

I admit up front I love to scrounge for stuff. The thought of finding a good use for cast-off stuff just does my old heart good. In line with that, I've discovered a new resource, one you guys might also find usable. The new diesel truck engines require the injection of DEF (that's Diesel Exhaust Fluid, for the uninitiated). This substance is a blend of water and urea. It comes in really nifty 2 gallon jugs which have long, flexible filler nozzles and air vent holes to facilitate pouring. They are made of white plastic, not very strong but still good enough to keep what's inside on the inside. These jugs tend to accumulate on the fuel island at the truck stop, and they're free for the picking up. They'd make good jugs for water or lube on band mills, for saw gas, for a ton of uses and they're free! What's not to like about this picture? So, next time you're going near a truck stop, you may want to amble out by the fuel islands and see what's waiting there for free.

[Ironwood]

I am a professional scrounger, AND my lube bottle cap just broke on my Norwood, I think I will keep my eye out, Thanks


Ironwood

[SwampDonkey]

I did scrounge a grease barrel for a boiler for steam bending. ;D

I guess I scrounged the shop stove to. It would probably have been scrapped and sent to China by now. Not if I have anything to do with it. ;D

[pineywoods]

I'm 100% with Doc Hickory  ;D I love scrounging stuff and hearing scrounging stories. I learned at an early age. My brother and I learned early in life to make our own toys out of scrap wood. The real problem was obtaining nails to build our projects. We got into trouble several times for pulling nails out of the wooden siding of the house where we lived. The neighbors houses weren't safe either  :

[paul case]

i cant number the times that i have heard the story that many early settlers would have to leave a claim and would burn down the shack they lived in and gather up the nails so they could build another one wherever they landed again.  pc

[Ironwood]

We started as kids by finding bike parts in the trash, nieghbor kids got the new fancy ones, we built our from parts and out rode them. My brother was the paint man, Testor's Brand small spray cans from the Drug store, he was GOOD! Everyone wanted him to paint their bikes.
Well. my life's been trash ever since. Wifey will call me on her way with the kids to Daycare/ work/ school, on Wenesday letting me know if I need to run up the street to grab something "curbside" :D Her big outing is half off at Salvation Army once a month. : Shop the scrap yards, serve as a volunteer w/ a Non-profit used building material warehouse in Pittsburgh doing 1.3 million a year on others "trash".  ;) Yup, trash ever since. I could go on and on, we like to say "we're resourceful" , or "Daddy is an opportunist" we get ALOT of mileage out it. My grandpa, and  my father-in-law must smile down on us everyday.  

Ironwood

[redpowerd]

windstorm blew in my big 12x16 o.h. door a few years ago and instead of scrapping it, for some reason it ended up in the corner of the shed. well the bent panels made a nice roof system for a lean-to in the woods, the cable got used to suspend a paint curtian in the shop, pipe and cable drum cut up and used in various projects, and finally the track and wheels will be getting used on my flatbed project for two heavy duty full length sliding drawers. now that junk door is completely GONE.
thats not to say i dont throw things out. honestly if i had not built this flatbed for my truck those tracks and wheels would have been in the scrap pile by the end of spring. if i start tripping over things too much their usefulness for keeping wears out quickly.

ill keep my eye out for them jugs, thankfully we havent a need to run that stuff yet. i buy all my oil in bulk and need to keep several gallon jugs of oil handy.

[SwampDonkey]

I used insulated shed doors on the inside wall of my shop. ;D

[redpowerd]

I used insulated shed doors on the inside wall of my shop. ;D

yes these ones are insulated also, kinda a waste for a lean-to that gets used once or so a month.

[Papa1stuff]

This topic is right up my alley ,I have been a dumpster diver all my life ,glad I live on 10 acres need it all for my stuff.

Maybe the strangest thing I have gotten out of a dumpster was a carved(out of styrfoam) 8ft tall Moses ,Yes I said Moses.I was getting 3 in plastic pipe out of a dumpster at a church rebuild and low and behold , there was poor Moses laying in the bottom!

[DanG]

Did ya pick up any bullrushes while you were there, Papa? :D :D

I'm an inveterate scrounger too.  One thing I get a lot of use out of is coffee cans.  The blue Maxwell House ones make great feed scoops, and I use all kinds to store things in.  I even use a Folgers can for a rain guage. :

[ely]

guilty as charged your honor.

[SwampDonkey]

Mom's uncle smoked pipe and had cans the tobacco came in used for nails, screws, odd and ends on shelves he made in one end of his shop.  ;D I keep some plastic containers that ice cream or yogurt comes in, handy for cleaning brushes and mixing stuff.  8)

[sandhills]

Can't say I've ever "dumpster dived" but around here we have blowouts that the older generation dumped their stuff in to try and heal them up.  I can't say how many hours I've spent digging through them.  My neighbor owns a pasture with a large one in it and someone else had come a long and dumped out a load of old clothes so he starts digging through them and ends up leaving the shirt he was wearing there and wearing one he found, it actually was a nice shirt. :D :D

[ErikC]

 I am always on the lookout. It drives Sarah crazy sometimes, but she is as cheap as me, so usually she points things out I missed. :D

[Coon]

Guilty as charged, I dumpster dive too.  More so than that I go out to Seagull Mall, as we call it, and I have been known to bring back as much as I took out in the first place.  I seem to scrounge anything I that I can see myself using in the near future.  Heck, my log trailer that I am building is built out of steel and parts that I have scrounged up.  Going  out to the seagull mall sometime this this week..... will report what I find.  :D

[fuzzybear]

  We have no garbage collection here so we have to take everything to the dump ourselves. We are lucky that our land fill is very organized. We have a free store where every one brings stuff they no longer need. It is all good stuff.
  All metal goes into a separate area, as does all construction material. We go to the "mall" at least once a week and do some "shopping".  We have a neighbor that built his entire addition over one summer from the "junk" at the dump. 
   Parks Canada and the Yukon Government are the worst for waste. I have pulled at least 10 bails of new insulation from the construction pile. The only thing wrong was the bag was torn and got wet. I open it up and let it dry out and it's ready to use.  I got 45 sheets of 3/4" t&g ply wood all brand new, only thing wrong was they came as the top sheet and the edges were crushed slightly from the banding. The roof tin for my mill shed I collected over one summer one brand new piece at a time.
   Our highway department had a 7kw gen set on the back of a pickup and it fell off. they threw it out. The hour meter read 120hrs. A friend of mine happened to be there when they were going to dump it and just had it loaded into his truck. Only cost him $12 to replace the oil pressure sending unit that broke off.
   You got to love government waste. If your fast enough and at the dump at the right time you could build your entire house from the waste.  They cut 2' off of a 12'  2x6 and throw the rest out.
 

[ErikC]

 You have it too easy.  :D They stopped letting people go through the transfer stations here several years ago. Something about liability for people getting hurt I'm sure. But there are still things to scrounge all over the place, if you keep an eye out.

[Texas Ranger]

Another good source is school dumpsters at the end of the year, I pulled out a complete usable telephone system from our local dumpster.  Electronics and unopened boxes of copy paper.  Easier to throw it away than use it or sell it.

[Ironwood]

Leather office chair from local dormitory dumpster at he end of the year. NICE! and wAAYYY to much other stuff to mention :D

[SPIKER]

ya been there dived in that (eewwh whats on my shirt?  )  :

I scored 3 or 4 hundred 1/2" S.S. (316) round bars about 24" long.  & left a bunch in the dumpster.   (Was driving the car to work that day and figured I had hundred plus pounds of them.   I been using them things for about 3 or 4 years to hold stone patio blocks and for grade stakes ect.  hehehe.   I also scored several good PCs that ran when I hooked them up.   I also used to scrounge the junk bins at work, lots of good brass & copper wire/valves, AC motors ect tossed into the scrap hoppers at the factory.   These scrap hoppers we had were provided free by the big local scrap yard for the scrap just call when it was full or if ya were tearing out some stuff and they would happily bring ya all the empty hoppers ya wanted.   (Sawsall battery powered would take care of a brass ball valve pretty quick out of 1" or so old water lines. ;)

[Papa1stuff]

Like I said ,I have 10 acres to fill ,need something to leave to my kids! ;D ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Doesn't sound like the economy is hurting too bad.  :D Throw away and buy new. Recycle it the old way in our throw away societies. :D

[Coon]

If I didn't have all this junk I wouldn't have nothing at all.   ;D  :D

[sprucebunny]

Like Fuzzybear, we have a 'dumpstore'. I haven't bought new clothes in 20 years. Recently they installed containers that ship the clothes somewhere. It's OK; I have enough  :D

I've also been saving doors and windows for my next house.

Get furniture, metal things like roofing and fans and books.

[Don_Papenburg]

When I was sophmore  in HS the new ind.arts teacher threw out all of the very good old stanley Baily planes and hand tools because they had paint on them .  They were painted to match the cabinet that they belonged to.  I only got a few planes and acouple of turning chisels.

[mrcaptainbob]

My neighbor/friend, now pushing 71 years, raised his family junkin'. Bought and refurbished his house, bought vehicles, sometimes new...always good clothes and great food. Quite a guy....

[Bandmill Bandit]

Scrounging is a hereditary trait in my family. I learned it very young cause Great Gram-pa left his 87 years (thats when he moved to town) of scrounging behind on the farm. I was just a tyke then, and Gran-dad had already added about 50 years to the collection and my dad had started by then too. By the time I was 15 i was welding better then my dad and Gran-dad had taught me a lot of the black smith skills.
Got so people would come over to our place when they couldn't fix stuff or the part wasn't available any more. I would almost always come up with something from a combination of scrounge inventory and with a bit of new and old and little to a lot of ingenuity I fixed things that the shops in town said couldn't be fixed.

Have a good friend that I worked with when I was on the farm and between the 2 of us we fixed engineering issues and just plain PIA  inconvenience issues on farm equipment that would have made us rich if we hadn't been so young and dumb at the time.

All combines built to day have 2 systems that we built the the first of on a TR70 and IH 1460 combines the first years they were available.

The electric header auger reverse system was the first. It was just a ring gear/flywheel off an 455 Olds that fit the starter gear off an old MF super 90 propane. We may have had to Jimmy rig that starter drive to get the fit but I don't remember. It worked so good that the next year IH had em available as an add on option.

The other one was the stone door "closer" on the bottom of the feeder house on the TR70. (it got installed on the 1460 a bit later too.) Every time that thing tripped to kick out a rock you had to get out of the cab and crawl in behind the right front driver to close it and when you are bigger guy it was a real PIA. We took a piece of cable and cable pulley off a NH 1033 bale wagon and a bale tension spring off  an old MF 12 baler and set it up so that when you raised the header to full height it would close the stone door.

EVERY PIECE that went into these mods was scrounged from old equipment. Wasn't  5 years and every combine made had both of them on as standard equipment.

There probably were a few other guys around that had similar ideas but the NH block man for Western Canada was a "friend" of ours and I know for a fact he took pictures of our "improvements" back to the engineers in R&D more than once.      

That is just a couple of the mods we made. A few other things we made ended up in New Hollands short line hay conditioning equipment line ups too.  one being the swath/lifter/fluff-er/mover overer. :D The only thing new about that thing was the Hydraulic drive. the rest came from about 5 or 6 different pieces of vintage farm equipment from binders, balers, combines, swathers, 2 different hay rakes etc.
I still say the one we built worked better then the one NH put on the market 2 years later.

[thecfarm]

I have some junk,well that's what my wife calls it.If you come to visit me you would have no idea the items I have.But take a walk down back and it's any man's paradise.I still have 159 acres to fill up.  :D  My stepson brought his FIL over for Thanksgiving and we went for a walk.My wife had a fit because he was going to see all my junk. He had a ball. Our 'dump" had a over haul a few years back.Use to have all the metal just thrown into a pile.Well the small time junkers would go through it and take what they wanted.The town got paid by the ton for the metal.I guess they was putting quite a dent in it and I suppose liability came into too.Now we have a roll way and "NO PICKING" rule.Once it gets into the dumpster it belongs to the town. I have reached into it a few times when nobody but the old guy and me was there.And I have uploaded a few items from a truck right into mine.They will set aside items too that they feel someone will want.I have got many big metal coffee cans too.Getting harder and harder to find now,it's all plastic now.

[flibob]

One guy's stuff is probably some wife's junk.

[Raider Bill]

My friends the driver on a fire engine. He will stop and look through junk piles and has been known to carry it back to his car on the top of the engine. ;D

[redpowerd]

thinking about this thread made me go and fill the truck up with things to take to the burn pit. now i have room for better junk.

[Bandmill Bandit]

thinking about this thread made me go and fill the truck up with things to take to the burn pit. now i have room for better junk.

Thats the tough part! How to part with not so good junk to make room for better junk?

Think maybe we could come up with guide lines (no more then 10) on this Forum??

Maybe call it the "Scroungers 10 Commandments"

[ely]

#1. if it is consumable by a fire or prone to rot dont pick it up. ;D

[sandhills]

If it is froze tight and rusted beyond reading any sort of casting names or numbers it HAS to be a treasure (of some sort). :D

[Papa1stuff]

If it's free , pick it up ,Might be able to use it somewhere sometime! ;D

[Ianab]

#1. if it is consumable by a fire or prone to rot dont pick it up. ;D

What about free firewood?   ;) :D

Ian

[Troublermaker]

25 years ago or so a buddy of mine and I decided to build a wood splitter. We didn't have the money to buy a store bought one. That Saturday we went scrounging around checking out our neighbors junks piles. When we got home we had a truck load of steel, wheels and axle .  One neighbor even gave me a 18 hp Wisconsin motor to power it.  Another neighbor who was a mechanic had a cylinder off of a John Deer loader,a small hydraulic plumb, control valves and 5 gal of hydraulic fluid that he had change out of something. When we got thru all that I had to buy was the hydraulic hoses and a use battery that I paid $5.00 for from a junk yard. Later I did change the plumb out for a 2 stage and repack the cylinder.

Someone said that one man junk was someone gold mine.

[SwampDonkey]

That's funny. The neighbors around here wouldn't want anyone touching their "gold". Most the farmers around here of my father's generation, as I'm sure down that way, fix all their own stuff and modify a whole bunch of factory made stuff. ;D My father rebuilt two potato harvesters, a couple rock pickers, a potato bin piler....just to name a few. Actually dad had some schooling back in the day to weld, fabricate and so one in grade school. It was that era just after the war, then the Korean war. I've seen a bunch of his study books. It's stuff you'd have to go to CC now a days to learn, then apprentice. My brother has his books now I think.

[SPIKER]

We used to buy garbage bags of rags for cleaning metal prior to painting more than once I swapped shirts at work too :D  Heck I think I ended up buying a few bags  my self just for the t shirts.   2 bucks a paper bag from local salvation army store.   goodwill was 5 bucks for a garbage bag full of cotton shirts & 7 bucks for cotton jean pants. ;)   Lot of them were almost new sold for rags if they were dirty soiled and or stained ripped ect.'
Ya I let my nephew clean up some of my junk piles that were left on the place when I bought it for the scrap...   He took out 4 or 5 pickup full of alum, steel & copper that had been tossed for years (generations)

Mark

[Coon]

Around here if you want scrap iron and such all you have to do is drive around the countryside and talk to the older farmers.  They tend to have old cultivators and swather and combines and such.  Most times they will give them to you if you tell them that you are building such and such out of recycled materials.  In the last month I have gotten three cultivators (a 21 ft, a 24 ft and 36 ft) two complete swathers (one with a running slant six chrysler industrial) and any parts I want off of two partially dismantled combines.  There is so much old metal around these parts due to the steel plant in Regina, Sask. is quite a distance away and fuel prices are high.  The snow has to melt before I can start dismantling.  :'(  

[ely]

tip for all the scroungers who like the metal coffee cans, if you can get with someone involved in the school lunch rooms you can get all the one gallon cans you can use.

and if you are really nice they will cut both ends out of some of them so you can use them around your tomato and pepper plants.

[DanG]

The plastic cans work as well or better for anything not involving heat. ;)

[Hanson]

My last "dive" yielded 5 tire chains in great shape that came off of a semi, a little resizing and I'll be in good shape.

[ibseeker]

One man's junk is another man's treasure. I've left more than a few garage sales with more than I started with. I don't do garage sales anymore. I've reduced my gathering to old tools. I call them wall hangers for my barn but my wife looks at me a little funny...I know what she's thinking..."You don't have a barn! You big dummy!" but I do have 20 acres and one day I will have a barn! Even if it's just to hang my wall hangers on.

[Doc Hickory]

Went down to visit my brother this past Saturday. He is a scrounger too. He's the only person I know who has TWO knuckle boom loaders. I don't know if he's a shopaholic or his goal is to have one awesome estate sale when he goes toes up. Anyway, he had acquired a used small boat trailer. We did a little horse trading, and I'm now the owner. It is going to become a logging arch. I'll have to cut down the tongue, remove some other parts and rig my arch up, but I believe this has possibilities. It has a hand winch and jack stand already so I won't have to find those parts. Will keep you guys posted on progress and try to get some before/after pictures up as well.

[Woodchuck53]

Right place at the right time. Saw these two things outside. Fork lift driver backed up onto 2 of those carousel nail holders at a local store. I asked the owner what they were going to do with them and 20.00 and 2 hours of elbow grease later I have a pair of great bolt bins. Full of scrounged and picked up bolts of course.

[5quarter]

   One day I was on my way to the industrial salvage (no kidding) when I saw that one of the run down buildings nearby was being gutted and refurbished. They had a huge pile of junk out front, so I went inside, asked if i could look through it. guys says I'm welcome to what ever was out there. Among the goodies was a large blue drum over 1/2 full of nuts and bolts. There was no way I could move it, but there were a bunch of desk drawers in the pile, so after tipping this drum over, i literally began shovelling the hardware into the drawers. It was all I could do to lift just one of those drawers full of nuts and bolts onto the truck bed. These weren't the cheap nickel-steel either...all grade 5 and better. matching lock nuts, washers etc, etc...I wound up with 11 drawers full,  plus a bunch of other stuff. never did make it to the salvage yard.  ;D ;D

[SwampDonkey]

I'm always searching for a bolt and matching washer and nut. :D

[Taylortractornut]

Not to brag or nothin but I mthe manager and  head operator at  a private landfill  lol.     I  learned to hull out the bigg narrow pallets they chunk for  2by4's  I get  4 to8   pine 2by4's from each one.   Also   end cuts off   chiop board s used i nthe  plant. 


Scrappers here had  killed the scroungers like us here.   No more combines or cotton pickers.   I did save an MF 200  combine the otherday.   FOlks here would rather drw a disability check and haul scrap than to use some thing to work with.    A man carried a  small F 700 with a behind cab mounted   Prentice boom and grpple along with a  factor  single axle 5th wheel log trailer   to the scrappes wouldnt even price it.       Banjo Picker    knows one of these types  that  hauled off 40 years worth  of  neat equipment for a crack rock.     This guys dad  had a construction company  and  bought tons of  Military surplus and   other machines.    and trucks.   He scrapped a trailer truck load of  Wisconsin eninged that never had been  used rather than sell them to the public.    They acted like they  ddnt want to see a person use them.

[SwampDonkey]

Scrappers here had  killed the scroungers like us here.

Most farmers guard their scrap piles, "bone yards", and when they sell out they will hire a scrapper to come in and torch everything to haul off. The thing is a scrounger only takes this and that, while the scrapper takes it all and cleans it up. ;)

[Al_Smith]

I used insulated shed doors on the inside wall of my shop. ;D

My shop which is 60 by 70 is all made of insulated garage door panals .Of course so are the doors .The main 40 by 60 portion which is 10" I beam colums set me back a thou ,used structure .
I bought part of the door hardware at an auction and the rest through a door company .The 3 ,14 high 16 wide doors they wanted 2100 bucks a pop .I had 1800 in those 3,a 10 by 10 and a 7 by 18 .

The 3/4" rebar in the concrete floor set me back 40 bucks for around 7 tons more or less .The 30- by 60 shed roof is made of 3" ridgid conduit with 24" bar joists on four feet centers .The joists were 50 a pop .The roofing is 22 gauge decking .Unfortunately that and the concrete had to be purchased new .All , told 22 grand including the stone for the driveway ,appraised at 90 thou .--and they laughed at Fred Sanford --- :D

[Taylortractornut]

I usually buy the  whole lot too.     Combines are a   super store of  chains bearings  pulleys and  hydraulics lol.   

I usually pay scrap price to.   What really  made me sick was the   man that  gas axed a Wood Mizer mill.   Had a tree fall on it broke the bolt  tat  holds the bearing mount  in it off and he swore the frame was warped.  Te motor was  using a littl oil  and  he  wouldnt sell it  just drug it out back and  put it in 3 foot pieces.      I did manage to get the  log loader cylinders and part of the turner. 

[Woodchuck53]

Who's laughing now. Between the trailer house frames and scrap 2 7/8" prod. tubing, 1 16" I-beam I split for the lower cord ( 2 traveling 3 ton hoist) on the trusses I made I have a total of $6200 in my 80x 40x 14' tall shop. Including an 8' apron. Built as a lean to so that I can add an additional 8' ( 16' alley way) apron and then 40x80 x14'  equipment/ lumber shed that will make it a true 80x 96' gabled roof  covered area. All told I should be looking at less than $8000.00 I'll scrounge and hustle any day. Oh and the new mill shed is a recycled barn I wasn't storing animals in any longer. Keep it in our pockets instead of Uncle Tom's Have a safe one.