A trip to the scrap yard

I never went to a scrap yard before but last week I decided to check if there is something interesting there. There is a small one close to me. After visiting it I quickly concluded that I will never have the old problem of buying only 6m long tubes/bars.

Next day feeling more enthusiastic I went to a larger scrap yard that is 6km away. This time it was far more exciting. The day before the mechanical engineering college decided to dump many of their old Romanian made machines. The yard was full of huge lathes, different mils and all sort of more specialized machines. They even bring a few trucks while I was there. It was a little painful to see how they were unloading them. The ground trembles when a 2 ton machine is dropped from 3 meters. And then they were smashing the machines into pieces. Some of them looked quite good in my opinion. They were not used to much since they were not from a factory. This is a small milling machine:

But the biggest surprise was when I found an FUS 250 milling machine. This is exactly the type of mill I bought a few weeks ago! And it is a rare type. Mine was missing a hook. The hook is like a big screw. On the milling machine table I found a similar hook already unscrewed!!! This is extreme luck!

Next day I went again with almost all my tools ready to disassemble all kind of interesting parts. There was one machine so large that you could walk inside it. This one is a FU 32. It is very heavy. I think you can see a clutch inside:

This one is a smaller mill. A friend of mine wanted to buy it but they overturned it by mistake and broke it. The milling head fell apart.

This one is a machine for making grooves. They were 3 of them:

So many interesting things! I was jumping from one machine to another and I couldn't decide what parts to remove.

I was never been so full of oil and dirt. The were many cranes in the yard and you had to be careful with heavy items moving above you. They didn't seems to care about safety. They were melting coper from motors and transformers with torches. The smell and fumes were horrible, I don't know how they can work in that place. I saw a large electric panel with many mechanical timing relays. The ones that have a synchronous motor and are usually in transparent enclosures. They burned everything hoping to recover some coper. I think this is stupid.

First I wanted to take a few slides like this one:

Then I realized that it is very unlikely to use them. And they are very heavy. So I started to remove all kind of small parts. I even found something that ca be used as a dog. This is part of the "prey":

The most important thing that I bought was the head of the FUS250 milling machine. Now I have a spare one. I measured it and it had a runout of 20µm.

But it has a different collet type. It looks like Schaublin B32. Unfortunately they cost as much as cocaine. When available.

Watching the insides of these machined increased a few times my limited knowledge of mechanics. Half a day flew without notice. This is Disneland for adults!

Looks like a good day out, I used to love a good rummage in a scrapyard, but not so easy to get access these days.

..too easy to collect 500Kg of 'useful' things, and then the pain of what to keep, what to abandon..

Some interesting stuff there, I remember scrap yards decades ago where we used to look for parts for our cars, some had 6 or more scrappers piled on top of each other and we used to have to climb up to get at the bits we wanted, Sometimes the whole stack used to keep shifting and creaking.

My son went to a big scrap yard to be told that no members of the public were allowed on the wrecks anymore due to health and safety and you had to tell them what you wanted which was hopeless.

Hi Sonic Escape, no good feeling sorry for the machines, as when it gets to a scrapy, it's just scrap to them. Just get what they allow you to have before they ruin it.

Regards Nick.

In my younger days I worked in a steel works we had three large scrap yards each served by two overhead cranes when we went to repair a crane I always had a nose around No3 yard was a pile of cars which were crushed so rich picking the other two yards had smaller stuff I would be on the lookout for starter motors or dynamos which I would refurbish and make some extra money

H

A very interesting day, it doesn't look like those machines were used much either

If you get another chance look for add-on-bits, which are always sought after after market parts

It looks like you had a good day or two there. It's a shame you didn't get to the mechanical engineering college just before they sent their machinery for scrap.

Can I take it that someone with your interests is a bit of an oddity in Romania? People on this forum obviously all think it's pretty normal to have lathes and other large machinery in their homes, but how many Romanian people are there like you who have this sort of machinery in or attached to their homes just for the hell of it?

Those TOS machines are Czech-made, and the machine for 'making grooves' is a gear hobber for making straight and bevel gears.

Shame to see three such hobbers go to scrap, you probably would not be able to replace those today.

Edited By Pete Rimmer on 17/07/2023 23:57:11

Around here, there is no way you would ever be allowed to wander around a scrapyard !

Not that there would be much of any use there anyway.

Those happy days are long gone.

I take it that Health inspectors are thin on the ground around there .

As Pete says, hobbing machines. It's a shame, but it looks like they were left to deteriorate and pirated for parts before they were dumped. A shocking lack of oil inside the main casting - as dry as a bone. I couldn't quite read the cyrillic on the nameplate, as it is in cursive form, s-i-d-?-ya perhaps.

Bill

The hobbing machines were made at Cugir. That is a Romanian factory.

Now they are making only small arms and are making a fortune with the war in Ukraine.

Before being sent to scrap yard the key components were cut with a torch. I think this is a stupid regulation or something to make sure you don't resell them.

I saw this method also for old military communication equipment. I collect old vacuum tube military radios and in the late 90's and early 2000's they got rid of a lot of old equipment. The radios were old but unused and were stored in their original wooden boxes for decades waiting for the next war. Just covered with a thin layer of grease. They would open the box and smash everything with hammers...

Today I went again for a few hours to the scrap yard. The machines were already broken and stored in a large pile. It was not easy to climb since everything is greasy. And some heavy parts could easily detach and trap you. I took only e few things. Mainly a rack and the matching gears. Rest of the time I remove various panels just to see what is inside. I saw some interesting trapezoidal screws but it was too difficult to remove them. And the one that was easy to remove was 3m long

Here even if the place is very unsafe nobody bothers you. The manager told me that I can stay as much as I want and I can disassemble anything. Just look at these pipes. To the right there was a milling machine and I was a little stressed while staying there.

It is a pity to don't be allowed to search in a scrap yard. Fortunately here we are a little behind with EU regulations. After all we are still allowed to kill pigs before Christmas

Edited By Sonic Escape on 18/07/2023 17:39:16

I wonder if the taxi driver levied a cleaning charge

Thanks, Sonic, my assumption, regarding the brand of hobbing machine, but in defence the letter 'u' certainly looks likes the Cyrillic backward N, pronounced as an 'I'. Repair, recycle, reuse ! But if the scrap helps end the war, it's a benefit.

Bill

I went to my local scrapyard and they were more than happy for me to take a rummage as long as the big trucks weren't around. I picked up some hopefully mild steel plate ;1" , 1/2" & 1/4" plus steel some bar offcut. Paid £5 for approx 20kg of industrial scrap. So not all Scrapyard's are h&s mad in the southwest. I would have asked for brass but was already weighed down and I parked the car a fare walk away. Next time I'll go for brass. Incidently does anyone know how to identify cast bar stock... just in case they have them? I should imagine its bad scrappy etiquette to ask where they get their metal from.

Edited By jon hill 3 on 21/07/2023 17:29:37

That is half the price I pay here in Romania for scrap steel! This is not fair ...