Found Dreaming

Here is a picture of ingot molds I made for the break down furnace.

Barry

Very nice, you have a great set up. Where do you get all the wheels, everyone here thinks they are gold and want more than scrap price for them.

Jammer, I get mine through a large recycler. They charge me the price they are getting from their place down south and save having the haul them.

Last wheels I bought were at $1.10 a lb which was pretty near spot price at the time. This is kind of high but then I can go there any time and buy as much as I want in one trip with no calling around. I figure the savings in time and hassle of searching to make it well worth the cost especially since I buy 500 lbs or more at a time now. Hunting around and making multiple trips I might be able to save 10 or 20%, on 500 lbs that is $50 to $100 so if I spend more than 2 extra hrs to get the better price I am already behind and since it is 2 hrs driving for me to get just about anywhere that is the low end on time to get something done.

Hi Jammer: I have a friend who is a car guy (I always said car freak but he told me it is guy not freak) who knows a guy who gets me wheels for $10 each. The only problem with that is that they are 300 miles from here. So, every time my friend comes to see me he buys ten wheels from his buddy and brings them over. When I go to see him at the end of August I will order another ten wheels in advance. That is about 72 cents per pound. Really a good price as far as I am concerned.

Barry

Barry $10 ea these days is an excellent price. I was getting them at that last year but this year my good deals have been $15 ea. One of my brothers knows a lot of people who are junkies (crap not drugs) and he has let them all know I have a standing order at $15 with the current price of aluminum (last year when aluminum was closer to $0.70 a lb I was offering $10). With wheels you win some lose some on the weight since they can go from 15 to 30 lbs ea. In the big loads I have gotten it has always worked out close to 18 lbs ea on average.

Harry wrote:Barry $10 ea these days is an excellent price. I was getting them at that last year but this year my good deals have been $15 ea. One of my brothers knows a lot of people who are junkies (crap not drugs) and he has let them all know I have a standing order at $15 with the current price of aluminum (last year when aluminum was closer to $0.70 a lb I was offering $10). With wheels you win some lose some on the weight since they can go from 15 to 30 lbs ea. In the big loads I have gotten it has always worked out close to 18 lbs ea on average.

Boy, I hope the next batch has some big ones. I probably only need one more load for a semi-lifetime supply. Most of my castings will be very lightweight indeed. I expect under a pound each.The snap flask sides will be more than that since they are 48 inches long.

Barry

Apparently some guy travels through here and is paying $20 each for Ally rims. I would have to pay more because they consider him a steady customer.

If you have the patience to spend the time doing it, Id bet you could get a decent price/lb for aluminum valve covers at the junkyard. Same with alternators, water pumps etc. Im always keeping an eye on the sides of the road for dead weed eaters and lawnmowers people have set out for the trash.

Those long castings will be interesting Barry. The longest I have done so far are about 24" They cast fine but shrink which is really minimal in smaller parts really begins to show up and needs accounting for.

Jammer, someone paying $20 for rims to scrap them is insane unless they are looking to go broke. I had a scrapper out here this morning who picked up a couple of old awnings and some other various extruded aluminum. He had a pretty good load and gave me $175 which I was glad to have and be rid of that crap that had been laying out back for nearly two decades now.

I let him know I would buy wheels from him at $1 over what he is getting from the recycle yard any time he wants to bring them up. They come up to this area pretty regular so I am hopeful he will start bringing me wheels. I figure if I can pick them up 10 or 20 at a time it is not a huge hit and they will pile up fast. I would love to have a couple tons of wheels on hand.

4cf, you can get heads at the recycle yard and they produce a lot of good metal per. Water pumps are a lot of dross and steel for the little metal in them. At one of the local ones I deal with they always have tons (literally) of any part you want. I think heads were what they considered 80% which means they will sell at 80% of aluminum spot. Pistons were about the same I think and they had a bin 6' wide 8' long and 5' deep full of them. The nice thing about the recycle yard is getting as much of whatever you want one stop... you may pay a premium over more found items but if you want a truckload you can pull in and they will load it

The nice thing about wheels is that there is no disassembly required. I knock the lead off to make bullets out of, but I never have had to put a wrench to a wheel yet.

Barry