Found A Scrap Metal Yard I Like
 

The wife and I have the shop closed this week for “vacation”. The July 4th week is one of our slowest weeks, and even though we’re mostly just going to be lazy around the house for the week this year, we’re officially “on vacation”.

We went shopping at a larger town (small city) nearby yesterday, and had ourselves a ball. We took the old highways to get there, and just eased along seeing what we could see. It has been so long since we’d been on the “old road” (over 20 years?), that we couldn’t tell what had changed since our last trip. It was nearly all new to us again, and it was fun just being on a casual “road trip”.

We had thrown 90# of crushed aluminum cans in the back of the pickup, and were searching for a scrap yard to sell them. Got down into the old part of the city where salvage yards are at, and found the neatest little junk lot. Nearly a city block of second-hand things of all types, all under a tent. Better than a flea market! I asked the very nice lady if she had any sewing machines, and her answer was “I try not to have sewing machines.” I told her that I didn’t blame her, and that we’d be back some other time when we could browse through her thousands of items.

She directed us to a nice salvage yard and we made a little over $58 for our cans. I got to visiting with the yard owner about bringing in sewing machine hulls, and found out that he’s looking for a sewing machine that will sew leather. He wants a good big machine. I told him that if he sees one come through his place, latch onto it instead of shredding it, and maybe we can get it working. He surprised me when he said he doesn’t see many sewing machines at all come through, big ones or little ones. Naturally he can’t see what all is in a pickup or trailer load of scrap metal that comes across the scale, but he has his crew watching for sewing machines when they unload. I thought that was neat, both that he’s watching for them, and that he hasn’t received many.

He told me what his shred metal price was for the day, but I can’t remember what it was. Sewing machines usually go as “shred” because of the variety of materials that they’re made out of. It’s one of the cheapest prices. I’ve got a couple of dozen hulls ready to take to him, and by the time I get them there, the price will probably have changed anyway. Still, at about 20# each, they should bring enough to help buy lunch when we return to get another “Schlotzsky's Fix” (I just can’t resist that Original Deluxe).

CD in Oklahoma

Very cool story and I'm glad to hear people are tending to not scrap them. Though I did save a Singer 15 from a scrapper last year. He also had the sense to pull it and list it on CL rather than shred it. But, someone did turn it in just for that purpose:< It's a lovely machine too, absolutely nothing wrong other than the typical bobbin winder needing a spring...

Sounds like a fun afternoon.

I enjoyed reading about your road trip and stop at the junkyard. My son inlaw works for a metal recycling company and he brought me a Singer 99 that he pulled out of a heap. What a cute little machine but, so heavy! I cleaned her up, oiled the heck out of her and hubby made her a box to sit on. She sews along very nicely. He made my day!