There is a thread here about where you get your metal. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=332516 In that thread, I mentioned the dumpster behind my buddy's work. I thought I would show some dumpster diving pieces we finished yesterday. My buddy's employer builds huge part washing machines.....like 10' wide by 14' feet tall by about 35' feet long.....like I said, big. One of the last things that happens is to test wash parts for customers to make sure the machine does what it is supposed to do. And most of the time, the parts are tossed after the test wash..............DUMPSTER STASH !!! THE PART..... we have no idea what this part does but here it is. Kind of neat looking but still no idea what it does. THE PROBLEM I have one of **** York's ( ****ster27 )very cool fuel rails. It is held in place by the tubing between the fuel rail and the carbs...and the tubes are aluminum. We decided that it needed to be supported but how !!! Enter the part above. I'm not going to bore you with the details but I do want to remind you that we have hand tools and a welder..no machine shop type equipment. I'm still not ready to show all that we have done to my car but I am going to show you how this part ended up. Both parts had to be changed. One has been shortened by a bunch and the one on the front has been bent and lenghtened. So there it is. A little work and planning and even " The Thing From The Dumpster " can be turned into a swan.................well not really a swan but more of a cool part.
Nothing wrong with dumpster diving in my book I have made thousands doing it but dont tell anyone its a secret.
That looks great! I'm familiar with those places and never thought about what a goldmine the dumpster would be. Don't loose that hookup!!!!
My old shop was located in a multi-tenant building. Whenever I needed to fabricate a part the first stop was the dumper out in back. You'd be amazed on the stuff you can find. First, on of the other tenants left a 6'X6'X6' gutted control panel out there. I asked the guy if I could have it before I hauled it into my shop and may a blasting booth. I bought a Flexarm drilling/taping arm. It came with a 4'X4' table. I drill sub panels up to 6'X6' and wanted to make a table to hold a variety of sub-panels. I had planned on buying a couple of lamented bench tops at $300+. A couple of days after getting the flexarm to my shop I went out to the dumpster to dump some trash and what do I find? Two laminated bench tops. The tops surfaces weren't in the best shape but I was planning to drill on top of them so that didn't matter. A day later I had a hinged 8'X7' table top. Another time I needed to make a guard for a machine I was building, again, I found a piece of expanded metal welded on two round pieces of angle. Worked perfect for the application I had. I moved into a building of my own last December, man I'm going to miss that dumpster.
The local machine shop I do electrical work for s****s better stuff than most people can buy! Free for the taking, Ya never know what you can find...
you made a great looking part.... I drag s**** metal **** home all the time... I think it is a sickness.... kinda like old hotrods
Absolutly its a sickness...I work in a landfill...that offers s**** metal recycling....my truck is full of stuff everyday...and you would truly be amazed at the stuff I find and see...I love my job..HAH!
I go out to my local s**** mwetal recycle place in my home town just about everday ,i found a honda 750 chopper built in thr early 70s ,restoring it now ,a ford factory 3 deuce intake ,cad breather ,and all sorts of other cool stuff it pays to scrounge
i work at a fab shop..my brother wanted me to build him an extended swing arm for his zx 9r....I did using all "drops"....most cool brackets and such have been done using the same methods you guys have described...most people just don't admit it..haha
So did my buddy, but it was because he was eating the free food out of there and saving $$$$$$$$. Great use of whatever that thing was.
I work in a small aircraft factory, I snag a lot of the stuff on it's way TO the dumpster. no point in digging it out if you can get it before. We did a m***ive cleanup last year,wouldn't believe the stuff that had been collecting for decades. My favorite score so far was the aurathetic electric motorcycle thats sitting in my garage waiting on restoration eventually. rolled it right out of the dumpster.
A lot of fleet repair shops toss stuff because its faster to replace than repair, the engine in my car came from a dumpster, well s**** bin, just had broken rings didn't even need a re- bore.
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