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Looking for some cheap or free scrap metal for welding practice. Has anyone here gone down this road and have a source that they can share?

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

Ryan has a car or two in his back yard.

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Rubbin' is Racin'

ZING!

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2001 Honda S2000 - SOLD
2012 Boss 302
2003 BMW 330i

Rich:
Not sure where you live, but find a Fab Shop, tell 'em what you want to do.
I'd be surprised if they charged you for a few pieces of scrap from their shear or break.
Worst case might be scrap rate, which might be $.35-.40/lb.

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Brad

I agree. Find a Honda, start welding.

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In need of car.

Already have. First real project was a loose heat shield on my Civic. If I pull anything out of Ryan's yard, it is going to be that CRX for STS2.

Brad, thanks for the tip.

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

Picking up some of the black steel plumbing pipe, from a Lowes, is good for working on your skill in getting the fishmouths right and welding around the curves.

Learning to weld on pipe? Geez, throw him to the wolves already, Chuck.

It's ugly (in that you have to clean it up) but mild steel is probably your best bet to start with in terms of ease of joining. Aluminum, probably last, stainless is about as easy as mild, just have to deal with backpurging for a "perfect" weld (although the cleanup appears to be less, you still need to clean it as well as mild and the rust on mild makes sure you clean it adequately). Look up "Solar Flux", that is what I'm planning on using the next time I need to weld stainless since argon is pricey.

Pipe welding comes much later on, even if its what you need done now. You find that you essentially are doing what you learned to do with flat stock, except you are rotating in addition to traveling along the weld. You will want to learn on the largest diameter pipe that you can afford since the rotation is less (it's harder to weld smaller pipe).

As for finding suppliers - it is easier than you thought. Look up "Scrap Metal" in the yellow pages for a dealer near you. There are a few spread out over the Triangle. Leave checkbook at home, only bring about $20 (maybe $40 since you are "stocking up" for the first time), otherwise you will end up spending way more money than you planned on, there is too much impulse buy potential.

I have a box of stuff but I think that most of it already has weld bead on it or is aluminum doing a really bad impression of a Salvador Dali painting. I'll see if there are any pieces in there that you can have.

FYI, I have a good welding text I would recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140181 ... oding=UTF8

If you want to leaf through my copy to see if you think it's worth the $90, I can probably arrange that.

Edit - I swear that Chris Schimmel posted on here some recommendations eons ago. Durham Brazing (almost worth the trip just to just see the place) comes to mind as one he mentioned. My machine shop also told me to check out Young Roofing which is one street over from them.

Regards,
--Ashraf

Not sure about Durham, but here's what I know about Raleigh/Garner.

I used to get good clean scrap (looked like it was from a commercial fab shop) for a reasonable price from K&L Scrap on Garner Rd in Raleigh, but they've since changed names (and ownership I think..) and last time I was there, I asked about picking up some scrap and they said they did not allow that anymore due to liability and it generally being a PITA for them.

You might try TT&E, the other scrap place just up the road on Garner Rd. They said they would sell scrap, but you have to go there when the yard crew (crane operators) are on break in order to look around. This gives you a 15 minute window 2 or 3 times a day.



Bret.

The welders handbook by Finch is good and much cheaper. It is one of the books we used at the Wake tech course way back when.
How to Weld Damn Near Anything(A Monster Garage book) is acutally quite good as well.
I also suggest the Metal Fabricators Handbook. It really helps with all the stuff you need to do when making the bits you are going to weld together. Hammerwelding, forming. measuring out curves.