Another trip to my favorite salvage yard, it really is blacksmith's heaven at this place.
I'm in great standing with the owner, forged him a few things in the last year as gifts.

Last year I remembered him mentioning that there was an old swage block "somewhere down by the fence". Keep in mind this yard is quite large, and it was started by his father 70 years ago. There are literally huge piles of all sorts of metal around this place. The nice thing is that he lets me have the run of the place and go searching anywhere I want on his property. After some lengthy and thorough digging/moving/poking around, I found it!

Being partially buried for a very long time, it certainly didn't look pretty. I asked the owner how long that thing had been there, I thought I heard him say four years.
I asked him, "Four years? Who brought it in four years ago?".

Then he corrected me and said, "No, it was FORTY years ago. I remember that thing being there when I was in high school...".
That is cool stuff.

Anyway, after a good cleanup it looks way better than it did when I pulled it from the earth. Unfortunately it is missing one corner, but is still very useable. The side that was down in the dirt is pitted, but looks to have some dishing hollows of different sizes in the surface. They don't look like it was chipped material from abuse. I'll weigh it sometime next week, it certainly has some heft to it.

Greetings Frogman, Did ya get it for free or best offer?? When do you find time to work with all that sniffin out rhe good stuff ? Forge on and make beautiful things Jim

Nice find! My local scrap yard keeps steering towards more aluminum and copper, radiators and window frames and less and less steel, drops, plate etc.

Getting a scrap yard that welcomes you and will tell you that they "pushed some stuff over to the side cause they thought you might like it" is worth a *LOT* to a smith. Well worth a box of doughnuts every once in a while or it the management approves a six of brownpop at the close of a hot summer day

You are hereby nominated as the IFI definitive example and practitioner of good PR, you de man Froggy!

 

SWEET score!

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Fun part is that after I pulled this one out of the depths of the yard, he says he thinks there is one more swage block buried under a pile someplace.... When he gets to whatever pile it is and happens to find it, he'll set it aside for me. :)

Who knows what marvels lie buried underneath the piles? <cue maniacal laughter>

When they moved the pile back at my local yard I found a mint condition stake plate buried in the loose dirt where the pile had originally been.

Lucky, lucky man!  That's really all I can say.

 

I've tried all of the local scrap yards, but they aren't interested in letting me walk around.  :(

Awesome find! I'm so jealous. My local scrap yard won't sell but only buy. What is worse is that the scrap put on the curbs Sundays is picked up by scurvy people who just want the weight at the scrap yard and aren't interested in reusing the stuff, before us weekend Smith's who work a first shift on the weekends can get to it. Wrought with aluminum it doesn't matter. A bit of sour grapes I guess.

The salvage yards in CT that I have found also only want to buy no selling at least to me.  That includes a yard we shipped 40,000 lbs. of scrap machine tool stuff to a year ago when cleaning out a family shop. 

 

A couple months ago I was offered a post vise by a fellow over breakfast that he had cleaned out of a basement shop of a old carpenter who's family wanted his place cleaned out for resale.  I bought it sight unseen and he delivered it as I was on my way out of town for a spell.  He said he had an old post drill on a pallet that he would give me if I'd use it in my new shop.  After 2 months of not connecting we did last weekend and it turns out to be a Chenay Otto No. 16 drill press that he said worked before the took it apart as it was too heavy to move in one piece.  360 lbs according to a brochure I found.  He is delivering that next weekend when I'm home so we can unload it with my tractor.  Has an old electric motor with it that was running it but appears to have been in a line shaft shop originally.  Who knows.  I've got to clean it up and find a space for it in one of my shops but's it's going to winter on the pallet. 

 

He also gave me an Envoy load of tools he couldn't bring himself to scrap, carpenter tools as well as mechanical/plumbing/shop items.  Some I've pasted on to friends who know more about woodworking than I do and can use them.  I'm hoping to get back there to see what I might have missed the first time. 

 

I have another fellow who cleans properties for estates that is looking as well.