Junk piles

[Lee]

I was thinking about this last night. After reading the oldster thread, I thought I'd post this.
I remember junk piles as a source of great entertainment in my youth. By junk pile, I mean the ones that were common to almost every rural property. Everything ended up there...all the old appliances, cars, etc...anything that wouldn't burn easily. I spent a lot of time shooting at these things, and rummaging through this stuff. I still find traces of them on the properties of my friends, and dig around a bit. I still find interesting stuff from time to time...glass and plastic only.
I assume they are a thing of the past, with recycling, flea markets and EBay. Too bad really. How many of you played in the junk piles?

[charby]

I did, used to go crazy with a .22 on the manufactures names plates on old farm equipment. Much of the piles I played in were sold as scrap between rise in scrap iron prices and rise in price of corn/beans. Reason for with the rise in corn/beans is that more acres were put back into to production and junk piles were cleared out.

[mtnbkr]

I did.  There was a huge one in the woods near where I lived in Tenn.

I'm talking about a ravine with old cars, appliances, etc.  A person could seriously get hurt there...We had a blast. :D

Chris

[cordex]

Yep.  You could always find the best toys in junk piles.  All that is left these days of the ones I played in as a kid are non-metal junk (glass insulators, ceramics, etc).

[tokugawa]

Oh yeah- all the farmers would deposit the old cars, trucks etc. in the back 40, we would play in them, look around the trash piles- and the abandoned barns were a freaking treasure trove full of all the old things that were too good to dump outside but not good enough for the house- old ice boxes, printing presses, magazines, tools, a cap and ball gun, all sorts of cool stuff for kids to play with. New England in the 60's was full of that sort of thing, before the suburbs ate the countryside.

[RoadKingLarry]

Ya mean stuff like this?







Of coure my wife is some miffed that a good bit of those piles found their way to my piles.

[Lee]

I was killing time in the afternoon at a friends place a couple of years ago (mid day deer hunt)..when I tripped on something. I looked down and there was a semi auto pistol sticking out of the ground. Ended up being a very realisric plastic toy from the 60s. The ground is very bumpy there, and overgrown with blackberries.  Another visit to that spot is still on my to do list.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Well, Dad's cleared a lot of it out, but ya'll are welcome to come dig around here.

Junk piles galore. :)

[Kingcreek]

Every farm had atleast one. I wish I hadn't sold mine when scrap prices went up. I need me some junque piles for my welding art.

[Boomhauer]

We didn't sell ours.

I've got everything from a '39 D-7 Cat to old cars of all kinds to old factory equipment and everything else. Lots of stuff has come in right handy for all kinds of things.

Unfortunately your scrap piles tend to become objects of affection among the local meth populace. When you're home, you get to chase the bastards off and it's great fun but when you're not home they load up their truck and your stuff disappears with no entertainment value.

[French G.]

The old man has netted mid 5 figures the past two years selling scrap and if you look around you still can't see much of a difference. So, junk piles still do exist.

[Kingcreek]

The junk piles are pretty well gone around here. One day I followed a truck and trailer on the highway hauling farm junk. I told my wife, " look at dat. Sumbuddy is selling a 9' wheel disc that's better than the one I am using."

[Boomhauer]

I told my wife, " look at dat. Sumbuddy is selling a 9' wheel disc that's better than the one I am using."

Did you flag him down and offer to buy it?

[geronimotwo]

The junk piles are pretty well gone around here. One day I followed a truck and trailer on the highway hauling farm junk. I told my wife, " look at dat. Sumbuddy is selling a 9' wheel disc that's better than the one I am using."

that always miffs me when i drive past the scrap yard and see nicer cars than mine being done in.

and yes, i would dig through old dumps and dig bottles as a kid.  there was a local shop ,with a section for old bottles, and the old guy who ran it would always throw me a few cents for the pretty ones.

[Tallpine]

Junk piles - you mean, "parts stores"   

 

[tokugawa]

Or raw materials- amazing what a lathe and mill can make from an old axle, etc.

[Tallpine]

My old logging buddy would go to auctions and buy piles of junk for a few dollars, and then we would go haul it all in.

I manufactured some good stuff out of those piles.

Some of that junk wasn't really - like hydraulic cylinders that just needed new o-rings 

[Scout26]

A friend of mine just bought some property in Kankakee county.  Last Saturday Robert earned his hunting rights by going through one of the junk piles on the property and pulled out all the glass (broken or not).  There are still a pile or two more to go.

And yes.  Not only growing up, but also hunting.  Someone shoved a school bus down a ravine in Ferne Clyffe State Park.  That was always fun to go past.

[T.O.M.]

Suburb I grww up in was former farms. I remember finding a junk pile when we were exploring the woods one summer.  It wasnreally old stuff, probably from the 1920's. Cool stuff.  Of course, this was in the 70's.  We all carried air guns (too many houses for .22s), carried cheap and big lock blade knives, and built campfires in our special spot in the woods.  Sometimes, I wish my kids had these same opportunities...

[230RN]

Junk piles - you mean, "parts stores"   

 

and...

Or raw materials- amazing what a lathe and mill can make from an old axle, etc.

Yeah, same sentiment here.  When I had my machine shop(s) I always had a pile of raw materials outside the shop.  The last place I lived where I had a shop was near some railroad tracks, and I was always picking up stuff from there.

Trouble was, if I needed that 8" long piece of 1" diameter brass I had scavenged two years ago, it was always at the bottom of the pile.

Something supernatural about that, where what you need is always at the bottom.

I call it the PON effect.... for the "Perversity Of Nature.".  I guess Einstein was wrong.  Nature is perverse.

Terry, 230RN

[RoadKingLarry]

I segregate ferrous and nonferrous metals in my junk scrap parts piles. Brass/copper/aluminum in one pile iron/steel in a seperate pile with usable "as-is" things like cultivator shoes and such off to one side of that.

[Tallpine]

I segregate ferrous and nonferrous metals in my junk scrap parts piles. Brass/copper/aluminum in one pile iron/steel in a seperate pile with usable "as-is" things like cultivator shoes and such off to one side of that.

When we were logging private land in Colorado back in the mid-eighties, the owner let us camp over multiple years on a mine site cut out of the side of a mountain.  It was sorta like living in a gravel pit with gorgeous sceneray all around.

Anyway, we had a lot of scrap spread out.  I had it sorted into "like stuff" so if you wanted sqaure tubing or pipe or plate steels or solid shafts, etc you knew which pile to go directly to.

Was a hell of a deal when we finally had to move.