The Wild and Whacky Scrapping Adventures of MattyNoNeck

Part it out. IF it has the 5.3 and 4l60E I got $1200 for the engine tranny computer and wiring harness for someone doing an ls swap. Hood $50 grill $20 Fenders $100. The rear end is an easy $350 here. There are so many Silverado's that nearly every truck has a plastic trim or fender that could be replaced. And you have the tailgate handle and trim a lot of the ones 1999-03 don't have them they break easy $25. and since it is white you have a lot of work trucks that people need parts for. If you cant guess I have parted out 3 of these and drive one.

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Originally Posted by ThatTubaDude

Part it out. IF it has the 5.3 and 4l60E I got $1200 for the engine tranny computer and wiring harness for someone doing an ls swap. Hood $50 grill $20 Fenders $100. The rear end is an easy $350 here. There are so many Silverado's that nearly every truck has a plastic trim or fender that could be replaced. And you have the tailgate handle and trim a lot of the ones 1999-03 don't have them they break easy $25. and since it is white you have a lot of work trucks that people need parts for. If you cant guess I have parted out 3 of these and drive one.

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Parting out definitely seems like the way to go. Luckily, with the place we’re moving to having some decent driveway space, I’ll have a place to keep it while the parts go to their new homes and money goes into my pocket. This move is really, really going to help our state of mind and our business ventures in various ways. I’m really looking forward to having an actual living room and an actual couch so I can watch the rest of the world cup and play Xbox on my downtime (which there doesn’t seem to be very much of these days…but I try to relax when I can)

Other than that, had a decent run to the yard yesterday, bringing in a washing machine, dishwasher and a stove. Also promised the girlfriend I would take in all the copper bearing transformers I had. There weren’t many but they were taking up space.

Now for the fun stuff…truck shopping! Saturday, my gf and I went to look for a work truck at this little used car lot about half an hour away. It’s a dad and son operation and they’ve got a lot of really cool, vintage and antique stuff in the office. Old car parts, coca cola antiques…really cool place. They have a 96 Chevy 1500 there priced right for us with low miles for a truck that old, one owner, great shape, VERY little rust (big deal for us in upstate NY). Probably going to go make a deal for it tonight by trading in my 2010 HHR, taking the truck and some cash.
On my way back from the yard yesterday, a nice 95 Dodge Ram caught my eye at a little used lot. I think we found truck #2! Love that it has a cap and also, not a ton of rust underneath. Going to jump on this one if I have a chance.

http://i.imgur.com/R4HkwZ4.jpg

Two trucks! I’m excited like a little kid!

Had another boiler job the other night, though it went MUCH faster than last time now that we knew what we were doing. The guy who owned the house and called us to get the stuff out helped as well, which was really great.

Here's a quick run-down of how to break down and scrap a boiler for anyone who may stumble upon this in the future:

You'll need a sledge hammer, a cold chisel and help (this is most definitely a two-person job). That's pretty much it, save for safety equipment (gloves, goggles and N95 mask.)

The jacket going around the boiler will come off with a few whacks from the sledge and prying with the chisel (a crowbar will also work pretty well). There will be insulation which will likely have asbestos and this is why I say the respirator or mask is a necessity.

Now that you have the jacket off, you'll see that boiler itself is in sections. The one we did the other night was in four, the one before that was five. It just depends on the model I guess. Find a space between the sections that you can put your cold chisel into and start hammering with the sledge. The sections will come apart slowly but surely. There will be four steel rods, two on top, two on the bottom. You can take a whack at these with the sledge or an angle grinder will work well. Possibly bolt cutters too but I didn't try them. The rods may even break while you separate the sections depending on how old the boiler is.

Repeat with the other sections until they're all apart. Be careful when you let the sections drop/fall away from each other, as there may still be oil in the pump that is on the side of the boiler with all of the controls and attachments. Also be careful of the dust which may now just billow out. Basically it'll be like a pulverized brick material. Wear your mask and goggles!!! I can NOT stress this enough.

Now the fun part. Haul your sections out of where they are. Likely, you'll be dealing with a basement so you may have to be creative. The middle sections are mostly hollow and they're heavy, don't get me wrong, but you can handle them with help. The outer sections, though, are beasts. They're likely going to be solid all the way through and just heavy as hell. You will probably need at least three strong people and/or some sort of contraption to get them out. If you have to go up a full flight of stairs...good luck. A very heavy duty appliance hand truck with stair-steppers with tie-downs and/or rope may be your best options. Take it slow, breath and make sure you're hydrated! Carrying these things and working against gravity is some of the hardest work I've done in my life...and I am a firefighter!

Bring it to the scrapyard. The main sections will be short steel at most places. There is some copper and brass if you feel so inclined to break down the outer sections a bit. The oil pump thingy went in as dirty aluminum at the yard today.

Get paid, go home, take a hot shower. You earned it!

Backtracking a bit...when you're separating the sections, keep an eye out for a coil of copper similar to what you might see in a pool heater in the upper portion of the boiler. It's heavy, weighed in at 9 pounds of #2 today. The one we did a couple of weeks ago didn't have it...which was odd. So keep an eye out. You don't want ten pounds of copper going into the pile of steel!

Here's what it looks like loaded into the back of my new (to me) truck. Any questions, feel free to ask!

http://i.imgur.com/kJc3Sue.jpg

Once again, I didn't get any pictures of the process because it was way too dark and wet in that basement. Next time, though, I will do my best.

And here's a couple shots of the new work truck! Meet Louie!

http://i.imgur.com/JnODfJt.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/dymUZnM.jpg

lol, thats some weight in the back of that truck! what did that weigh do you know yet or haven't turned it in yet? Nice truck, congrats!!!

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Originally Posted by newattitude

lol, thats some weight in the back of that truck! what did that weigh do you know yet or haven't turned it in yet? Nice truck, congrats!!!

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Thanks!

And the boiler itself came in right around 800 pounds. Glad the guy with the big magnet was there to lift it out!

Just wired up a utility winch to the truck on my lunch break at work. No big deal. Beast mode.

Went to pick up a small item from a co-worker's mother's house last night, more as a favor than anything. It wasn't the kind of thing I would normally go out of the way for but I figured what the hell. The neighbor had a busted dryer out on the front lawn behind a tree, looked to me like they were waiting to drag it out. No answer when I knocked on the door, though. Boo! But I noticed it was trash night in the neighborhood so I decided to do a little curb shopping. Snagged a busted A/C, some fire/scrap wood and a big metal bed frame that was already cut up. Had to ask for that one since it was in a WM bagster but they said go for it. Got a nice piece of plywood out of it as well. Ended up being a nice haul!

Two junk removal jobs lined up this week and now that I found a dump that charges by weight instead of piece, it’ll be even more profitable. I’m telling you guys, junk removal is definitely something to look into if you can make it work. Look how fast 1-800-GOTJUNK grew into a giant company. There’s a lot of money to be made in that business and most of us already have the equipment needed to handle that kind of work. It’s a great foot-in-the-door to get to good scrap and resellable items.

Picking up a (possibly) working A/C tonight, too. Looking forward to building up an inventory of items I can bring to a swap meet.

And look at that, an email just came in as I was typing this for a BUTT TON of scrap metal. Out of control! I love this job!

Stay thirsty, my friends.

So please explain the term BUTT TON is. Does it pay better than a long ton? Great pics, keep up the pace!

A BUTT TON is not quite as much as a metric f**k ton. Still a good amount though.

Sup fellow scrappers!

Had a nice job on Saturday and it was the first "joint" run with my new scrapping partner aka my girlfriend! She's really taken to this whole scrapping thing and sees how it can grow into a nice business.

So this job came down through email from craigslist and sounded like it would be a really nice haul. Did not disappoint! A fridge, stove, grill for the big items Also got some copper mesh, some wire, a broken HDTV (gonna sell that for parts), a busted UPS (big sucker), electric motor, stainless steel sink, various pieces of short steel. Here are the two trucks loaded up.

http://i.imgur.com/EgdyOjK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/IjySsFW.jpg

Also found this little gem in the pile of random short steel stuff. Apparently one of the previous owners of the house used to go out and just collect random stuff (there were a few old railroad spikes in there as well...just stuff like that). I have a hunch that, due to the area we live, that it might date back to the Revolutionary War. That would be pretty sweet if it does!

http://i.imgur.com/IpAcFqI.jpg

It was a good run to the yard, in any case, and still have some aluminum that we couldn't fit. So it's going to be a nice run next time as well!

Congrats on the job and enlisting the Sig Other in the Treasure Hunt.

Got a facebook message from a friend of a family friend last week about some bird cages and a shed in pieces. Set up the pickup for last night. Wasn’t expecting much since she said “I don’t know if it’ll be worth your time” but since it was a friend of a friend and not too far from me I said what the hell and I headed out. Turns out…DEFINITELY worth my time.

They run a parrot rescue and get junk cages donated all the time. And these aren’t the dinky little $10 cages from the pet aisle at Walmart. These are big, heavy (and I must stress heavy) duty big bird cages. They usually toss them on the curb and other scrappers snatch them up almost instantly. BUT, she’ll be saving them for me now. Heck yes, regular pickup and steady supply! This is exactly what I need to start doing to keep a steady income from this gig. Really excited about this.

And the shed turned out to be mostly aluminum. Combined with the aluminum I still have from the big job last Saturday, it should turn into a really nice payday (and I need a trailer!). I’ll have some prepping to do to make it clean Al but it’ll be well worth it.

http://i.imgur.com/B2JadZK.jpg

DAT ALUMINUM...so sexy

Dude, nice hauls! You need to get yourself a headache rack on that chevy though. It terrifies me to see sharp metal around that glass! I just installed one on my truck and its one of the best investments I've put on it.

Matty- You're Killing it Bro! Good On!!
+1 On the Headache Rack and the idea of a trailer.. Scrap On!

A couple of setbacks...

So, turns out that what I thought was aluminum in sheets since each piece was so light was actually ferrous. Boo! No big deal, still made for an ok payday at the yard.

And my venture into wood recycling just came to a grinding halt. Turns out the place that I thought would buy clean wood at $35 a ton actually CHARGES $35 a ton. So there goes that idea! Oh well, at least I got some firewood now.

And I happened to see the boss man on the way out of the yard this morning so I stopped to ask him if they’d be willing to sell back anything I saw in the pile that I might be interested in. I saw a couple of mowers with Briggs and Stratton motors just this morning and I see people dumping whole computer towers in there (!) all the time. He wasn’t willing to do so since in NY, the regulations state that once it goes into the pile as scrap, it has to stay scrap. He did tell me that some of the smaller yards might be willing to “overlook” that kind of thing, though. Now I’m not sure if he was throwing that out as legitimate advice or if he was hoping I’d go to the smaller yard, do that and then have the DoT shut them down. Pretty sneaky and smart if that’s the case. But then wouldn’t that hurt him since the smaller yards in the area likely feed in to them? I dunno, but it’s a lead I’ll pursue when the time is right.

Got another job tonight that I’m looking forward to so stay tuned!

Finished up a two-day job this afternoon. Guy just bought a house with a basement and garage loaded with this metal shelving. I managed to salvage some of it so I'm going to keep a couple for sorting and maybe try to sell a couple more. Anybody ever dealt with these and know how I might price them? Never bought or sold anything like these.

http://i.imgur.com/9hD0dzo.jpg

A little tough to see in this picture but they're the kind you might see in a stockroom, warehouse, garage, workshop, etc. There were a lot of them but the unsalvageable ones got broken down and crammed in. And I will say, the only thing I miss about the "old" truck is the long box.

No jobs lined up tomorrow for a change of pace so I'm going to use the time to break down some stuff that's been sitting and sort some non-ferrous. The day off means I get to do other work! Yay!

Also FINALLY going to get a trailer. Guy down the road agreed to $150 for a nice little utility trailer. I will post pics when I get it.

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Originally Posted by MattyNoNeck

A BUTT TON is not quite as much as a metric f**k ton. Still a good amount though.

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That made me laugh. I"ll be stealing this for my SMF quote day. ;)

Keep up the good work! An pictures..I like pictures, more pictures! :p

Sirscrapalot - Got beverages?

Regulations that say once it is scrapped it has to stay scrapped? Maybe with something like automobiles or airplanes but mowers and computers?

I think he was pulling yer wazoo.

A polite way to say "no."

If they allow people to buy scrap you'll get some doddering old fool who wants to climb to the top of a 30' pile of scrap to get a 1/2 lb prize. And kill himself in the process. The idiots screw it up for all the rest.

Jon.

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Originally Posted by sawmilleng

Regulations that say once it is scrapped it has to stay scrapped? Maybe with something like automobiles or airplanes but mowers and computers?

I think he was pulling yer wazoo.

A polite way to say "no."

If they allow people to buy scrap you'll get some doddering old fool who wants to climb to the top of a 30' pile of scrap to get a 1/2 lb prize. And kill himself in the process. The idiots screw it up for all the rest.

Jon.

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I didn't do that. yet.

Dude you've got some nice hauls. I never even considered driving around on Wednesday evenings checking peoples' trash bins for metal. I'll be sure to keep an eye on this topic and maybe learn a little something, :-)