Free sources of materials.?

We all love "free" or "cheap", that's why we hoard so much [well I do!!],following naughtyboys post, I was stripping down some of my old cycle wheels mainly for the alloy for the foundry & I wondered what the spokes were made from,I did a quick heat to red & quenched in water & did the "file test" & it was hard as rock so I assume they were a carbon steel.

My wife gets annoyed with me because every time we buy new white goods I have to strip the old item for switches, connectors, motors and even the flat sheets of metal. Off of freecycle this morning I've just collected a 3ft roll of double fold plastic sheet which will add protection to my bigger engines which are stored outside under tarpaulines

Martin P

I am the same Martin, I used to love twin tubs, if it could be removed I'd have it, I have just had to clear an outside store and it seems I have stuff I didn't realise I had

Mick

It's your "duty" to salvage anything that's being scrapped,& also repair anything in the house that's broken/damaged, does anyone remember the 1/4 hp induction motors from the old washing machines? you could pick them up from the scrapyards for a quid or two,[not now they fetch ££££s, unless you've got a little stash of them!! .

I enjoy repairing things and getting more life out of an item, to much stuff goes for scrap that could easily be repaired.

Martin P

Where abouts are you?

Got loads of ali rims you can have

Well gents, that's a relief. Its not just me then. My family are trained to run everything by me before they throw it out. They think I'm weird, they just don't get it.

Steve

I'm a Service Engineer of very large industrial washing machines, if we get wind of a customer scrapping an old machine we survey it and then if its worth it we buy it and strip for usable parts to keep other older machines going for customers, then I go home and do it as a hobby

Martin P

Making Woodward's Gearless Clock. Pin wheel is being machined from a disc from an old hard drive, lovely bit of 95mm dia x 1.75mm thick hard aluminium. Backplate will use a rectangle of a material called Valchromat, a high spec version of MDF using a different type of resin and much more of an ekgineering material. I was able to scrounge an 18" x 6 foot sheet of 8mm thick which had been gathering dust and sun bleaching in a stockist's showroom, which will keep me going for years.

The auminium disk in hard disk drives can be cut up to make small mirrors with no ghosting from a layer of glass over them. I know welders who cut them up and mount them on a piece of welding wire for weld inspection down small holes and in pipes.

Martin

Here's what I got after a two-hour, very messy battle to strip an old HP printer:

• Several lengths of silver steel down from 10 mm to 2.5 mm
• A hank of cable
• A small handful of springs of all shapes and sizes
• Ditto of small machine screws
• One big and three small electric motors
• A tiny toothed drive belt
• Some strange metal bushes that are only slightly magnetic
• A huge amount of plastic that went into the recycling bin

Well worth the struggle!

Regards,

John.

Martin You are a very fortunate man to have that job.

Empty fire extinguishers may find uses in the workshop. the base and central portion of an alloy pone provided an end cap and dew shield for along telephoto lens. A single layer of duck tape fortuitously gave an easy push fit on the lens. Naturally the inside needed to be matt-blacked.

A suitably sized one could also be used to make scale tanker wagons.

They are usually marked with their proof pressure which is typically far higher than you would wish to use, so treated conservatively an undamaged extinguisher should be safe enough. I have one rated about 300PSI I use as a reservoir for 30psi air for a small compressor. The pre-fitted threaded end plug should have plenty of metal in it allowing the easy fitting of bespoke connections.

Obviously the extinguisher should be exhausted to normal pressure before opening it up, and treated and tested like any other pressure vessel.

They often come with small pressure gauges. Usually these read very high pressures, with some designs you can remove a ring that limits the movement of a metal disc to make the gauge more sensitive and recalibrate it.

Neil

If you measure the rods with a micrometer it seems that they have been quite accurately ground and so can be used as a poor man's 'test bar' to check chucks and collets.

Most of the ones that I have salvaged are good to a tenth of a thou. Also, they machine sweetly.

* Danny M *

Not silver steel, but stainless. But super quality.

I'm off this morning to collect a old steel fire extinguisher which will be cut down to make a cooling tank for one of my engines.

When my daughter was smaller she used to have an inflatable bed when we camped at rally's, I bought a truck compressed air tank which I would charge up and take with us and then inflate her bed, it saved on buying another pump and I still use it when I need a greater volume of air than the compressor tank can hold.

Martin P

Edited By martin perman on 24/01/2016 08:49:06

jct 27 m62 is near me.

shame you didn't see post last week was in gateshead could have met up.

as far as i know they are still at my old place along with loads of bits of ali. if they are you can have it all

Cheap rather than free:

Some UK coins [i.e. those which are not made of this material] probably have more intrinsic value than monetary value; especially the 10p.

... 'though of course we would never dream of defacing them.

MichaelG.

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Edit: Bronze enthusiasts might find this page useful.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 25/01/2016 13:09:34

Reference my previous Post [too late to edit] :

This page appears to date back to 2012, but is still interesting.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 25/01/2016 13:25:08