what do yall do with your scrap pieces ,  ? you keep ,scrap or just chunk them?

I part exchange mine for new metal

Oh PLEASE let me beg you, as a newbie, to pass on your "scrap" to us poor metal-starving newbs!   I was at one of my instructors shop a couple weeks back, he let me raid his "scrap" bin, I couldn't BELIEVE what he was scrapping.  Example - 8 perfectly fine pieces of 3/8 round about 8" long each.  He makes very specific items, those are truly scrap to him, to me they are PRACTICE making perfectly good hooks.   Somewhere a fledgling blacksmith near you is pounding a hammer forlornly against an anvil or piece of rail, dreaming of your scrap.  Throw us a bone, guys!!    :o

you are welcome to raid my scrap bin, it is a 2 gallon bucket and it takes months to fill up ( I dont throw away much over 1/4" long )

I'm thinking a trip across the Pond to raid a scrap bucket might not be cost effective.   But thanks anyway!   :D

if you are here I would find some tool steel, spring steel and even some WI, but still may be a long swim for you

Don't have much scrap myself.  Especially scrap wrought iron, that gets saved and welded up into a bigger billet.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure; but Terry's trash is NOBODY'S treasure"   

 

my scrap tends to be plated, burned, rusted till it's near gone, etc  small stock gets made into small items, nails if nothing else.

I don't really have scrap, just different piles of progressively smaller stock.

There does come a time when you reach critical mass. This is when you fill the truck and drive to the junk yard. The resulting trip gets you some cash, and reduces the footprint of the current resource center (your scrap pile). Now you have room to bring in something useful AND they money to pay for it.

 

You will ALWAYS need something you just took to the junk yard. Live with it and move on.

I don't have scap, just unfinished projects that I don't quite know what they are yet.....

I don't have scap, just unfinished projects that I don't quite know what they are yet.....

 

Improvisational prototypes is what I call those whatchacallits.

 

I tend to keep stuff till it's a stain, even the chips under the bandsaw are useful, sprinkled on the rose beds or peach trees and they'll really richen up. Seriously, when the peach trees at the new house were pale and wimpy flavored my Grandmother drove an uncoated nail into each trunk and within a week they were almost red and the best tasting peaches on the block.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

I don't have the space to store much so I generally just dump the smaller stuff. Bigger pieces I know I will have a use for are kept.

I have to have regular clear outs though which tend to be pretty ruthless. - had one before I came offshore a couple of weeks ago. annoyingly I know there was a bit in there I could have used for an upcoming project. :/

All the best
Andy

I don't have a scrap pile....I have a "resource pile"... :)  :D

There is no scrap metal until I'm dead.

It's not scrap metal, It's pronounced scrap MEADOWS, the place where metal goes to retire, till it finds a new life. Since starting to learn this wondrous skill set I have found a new word to use instead of some cuss words. "Oh scrap meadows" is the phrase I try to use now, and when I think about it it amuses me which sort of undoes the temptation to be cussing anyways, heehee.

Sometimes it's hard to decide what is scrap and what isn't. I am lucky. I have all the scrap steel I can use and people keep giving me more. My place is full of stuff - from things too heavy to lift to bucket loads of bolts, horseshoes, leaf springs, coils, axles, etc. And a lot of wrought iron which I find useless because I don't know how to forge it. I just hate to throw anything out - even though I know I will never use much of it. And there are no blacksmiths near me to share it with.
The thing is steel scrap is commercially worthless here. Brass, Al, Copper, Lead you can get some return on but steel is not worth a cracker. We have sent hundreds (literally) of tons of steel (old bulldozers, tractors, old engines, boilers, etc) to scrap for nil return.
As for shop scrap, I keep anything that might be useful for my junk sculptures. I chuck out anything cast iron.
My place looks a bit like a scrapyard - just as well we have understanding wives, eh?

Hi Ausfire,

 

if I ever get really bored and stuck with Hungary can I please move to your land of blacksmith's paradise? 

Seriously there are times when your earlier posted photos just hop in my mind, and I get so upset I have to go to the scrapyard to relax.

 

As to the topic: in past one year I have produced about 2-3 kg of scrap. Also resourced from various places about 2 tons. There are many things to do yet...

 

Greetings

 

Gergely

My scrap tends to be stuff too small, cracked, or burned up to use. I even pick up the shavings/scale with a magnet. Can't remember the last time went to a scrapyard to drop something off.... 

 

One useful.....well, not useful but fun thing to do with small scraps is keep a pet rustball. Can be in a fishtank, give it plenty of water, maybe some salt, and a nail or some punch biscuits every couple of weeks, and it'll stay happy. Good for a laugh at demos or with kids.

 

One useful.....well, not useful but fun thing to do with small scraps is keep a pet rustball. Can be in a fishtank, give it plenty of water, maybe some salt, and a nail or some punch biscuits every couple of weeks, and it'll stay happy. Good for a laugh at demos or with kids.

A pet rustball. That's an interesting thought.
There were some old kerosene drums in my scrap yard and one seemed unusually heavy so I cut the top off. It was half full of horse shoe nails. The water had got in and the whole thing was a solid mass. Cut down the edges and this block of nails fell out.

Just as a little FYI... rust bunnies growing in or near our shops are perfect feed for a bloomery. Well maybe not perfect  but if they're just hanging out eating the rems and salvaged resources, why not?

 

Just a thought from the TBI survivor living the the forest.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

I've just accumulated enough scrap (of the less than 1" type, burned and mangled) to do my first hearth recycling, and it's something I'm going to do alot more of.
Four pounds of charcoal, a fistful of sand and half an hour working the bellows produced a beautiful little 1.5lb nugget

 

you are welcome to raid my scrap bin, it is a 2 gallon bucket and it takes months to fill up ( I dont throw away much over 1/4" long )

I have a similar scrap bucket.   Tho I would say that I have scrap well over 1/4" long!   Heck you could maybe find things up to 3 inches long in there!!!  

 

The rest of my "larger" scrap lays in the "hot Pile" area in front of the far side of the anvil.   Whenever I make anything this is the first place I look.    It has been mostly growing...   but it grows and shrinks...

Oh PLEASE let me beg you, as a newbie, to pass on your "scrap" to us poor metal-starving newbs!   I was at one of my instructors shop a couple weeks back, he let me raid his "scrap" bin, I couldn't BELIEVE what he was scrapping.  Example - 8 perfectly fine pieces of 3/8 round about 8" long each.  He makes very specific items, those are truly scrap to him, to me they are PRACTICE making perfectly good hooks.   Somewhere a fledgling blacksmith near you is pounding a hammer forlornly against an anvil or piece of rail, dreaming of your scrap.  Throw us a bone, guys!!    :o

Re-bar.    

 

Even if you buy it it is pretty cheap.   BUt you should not have to.   It's great practice hammering it to square.   It is a mystery metal tho.  BUt if you get the word out people will bring you their "trash".   It may be rusty and twisted...   BUt you can fix all of that.   Then, after awhile, you will tire of re-bar.   But it should sustain you early on when you are starving.

I've just accumulated enough scrap (of the less than 1" type, burned and mangled) to do my first hearth recycling, and it's something I'm going to do alot more of.
Four pounds of charcoal, a fistful of sand and half an hour working the bellows produced a beautiful little 1.5lb nugget
 

That's an interesting idea old sport. Might have to give that one a go!

All the best
Andy