I have a friend who once ran the local salvage yard. He bought steel at the
time for 2-1/2 cents a pound and would sell it to me as a walk-in buddy for
10 cents a pound. He sold me complete machinery for that price, punch
presses , engines, and such, and would carefully lay the good stuff to the
side for me to buy. Figure the markup, and I was his pal. I asked him once
how lucrative it all was overall, and his words were "It's better than a
license to steal" Of course, I was going home and making my cut on the items
also. Another friend bought an entire elementary school property, athletic
fields and all. He has 2 of these locations now, and if he sat on his ass in
a lounge chair and paid someone to come in and cut it all up for him while
he drank beer, he would undoubtedly end up a millionare, very likely more.
Industrial companies through out the years have just given him truckloads of
industrial equipment to get out of their way.

The first guy was located in a low end section of town, and the street
scavenger types made most of their money selling him aluminum cans. Location
was indeed a big factor in the ability of the people to get their cans to
market. They rolled the cans to him in old grocery carts he provided for
their use.

RJ

"ED" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:54:06 -0400, SCOTT
wrote:

The town where I live has started not letting you take anything from
the scrap metal bin at the town dump. Apparently they have a contract
with the removal company that requires all metal brought in to stay
there. So it looks like I need to find a new source for bits and
pieces. I haven't tried to buy from scrap yards before. Do you guys do
this, if so is there repairable machinery that comes up there, or is it
all shredded, or what?

Scott
The local scrap/recycling yard was a source of metal for
me for decades. New management has closed it off to salvage
by the public. I suppose $100 a ton scrap price is the main
reason. Makes an old iron pile worth keeping. Rumor
has it a bit of ambition and a knuckleboom truck will
make a good amount of dough these days just hitting
up the farmer/rancher in the outback. IMO.the metal boom will go the
way of the realestate boom just a matter of time ED