It followed me home

[Strine]

Quarries are excellent sources of stuff. I visit two to three per day. When I need some particular item I'll take it home otherwise I graciously allow the quarries to store material for me free of charge. Everybody is happy then . I have a ready source of material and the quarries maintain graveyards they can be proud of

[Hillbillysmith]

Yes, yes they are. My dad was layed off of the winter, now, he's back to work again. So, that means... You guessed it!!! More goodies. But I only take the stuff from the scrap bin though.

[Jeff Mack]

My soon to be brother-in-law grabbed 4 sets of semi leaf springs and some axels for me. I need to go wander my the RR tracks near my house, and see what they have discarded. Still on my quest for real wrought iron, and steel cable. Just havn't managed to find a connection for free or cheep quantities of either yet.

Jeff

[Hillbillysmith]

Jeff, those semi leaf springs are a good steel. Where did your "soon to be brother-in-law" get get the leafs? I've been trying to get a set myself.

[JWBIRONWORKS]

Jeff,
A good place to look for wire rope is heavy equipment repair shops and rigging companies. Mines especially strip mines usually have it. We used to give it away but thats been 8-10 years ago. But it doesn't hurt to ask.

JWB

[Archie Zietman]

I just found underneath my porch a good 4 foot length of 4 inch diameter 1/4 inch thick walled steel pipe. The annoying thing is, I just finnished my science project equipment (biomass gasifier eventually for forge gas) by substituting 4 lengths of 2 inch diameter pipe, and I just found the perfect pipe <sigh> oh well. once I'm done I can make another better one with it in my own time.

[rthibeau]

Jeff Mack - where are you? I've got 5/8" WI I'm willing to trade for leaf springs.

[Jeff Mack]

Hillbillysmith,

He works at a trucking company. He has been saving the ones they throw out. He has been a great source for me. I'd bet most small trucking companies woldn't mind getting rid of their scrap.

Rthibeau,

I'm near Omaha, NE

[Ed Thomas]

Truck leaf springs: I got an entire pallet of truck leaf springs for free, some of them never used. Trucks are going more and more to air shocks. Just go wherever large truck maintenance is done and ask. They should be happy to give them to you.

[one_rod]

A few years ago a friend of mine went into a place that repairs fork-lift trucks and asked if they had any old forks that they didn't want.

There was a scrap truck out in the yard, and the foreman said that if he was willing to strip the forks off he could have them. He went back later with some tools and managed to get just one off.

We cut an 18" piece out of it and welded it to a short piece of heavy section "I" beam.

It made an exellent, hornless anvil. Those forks must be made of really tough steel because it stood up to years of use with no problem at all.

We did have to taper the end of the beam to match the taper on the fork so that the top was level. If I were doing the job again I would be tempted to use Low Hydrogen welding rods (7018 or similar) and use a pre-heat /slow cool on account of the alloy content of the fork steel. At the time we didn't bother with either and it still worked fine.


one_rod.