Where does old machinery go to die ?

[mancavedweller]

Based in Melbourne, Australia.

Just wondering, where does machinery that's ready to be retired, go to. Cars go to car wreckers, but I've never heard of any such thing for machinery. Machines like excavators, bobcats, tracked dumpers, forklifts, industrial machines, etc.

I've got my own little shop with 3D cad, lathe, mill, cnc plasma, etc, so have some capabilities. I'm looking at making a purpose built machine, but rather than building from scratch would like to browse any such wrecking places to see what parts are available that I could use.

 

[boaterri]

I don't know about old machinery, but in the US old TV mobile units find their way to Hawaii. The few remotes I have done there, some of the trucks should have been pushed off the ship as they went over from the Continental US.

 

[Pixie]

There's heavy equip dismantling yards around the US. I bought an excavator door from one. They could not tell me if it would fit. I took a gamble after getting the guy to measure.

 

[Mike L]

I always assumed that they sat around until scrap prices went up and someone took the time to cut it up and haul it in.

 

[Old Doug]

What are you wanting to build? I have been and worked at the places your talking about and most of the machines are totaly junk worn out.

 

[JD955SC]

There are various parts and salvage yards around.

we buy used machines and part them out too in our used parts department too

 

[Spud_Monkey]

In the US they go to Ritchie Bros. and sold as lightly used

 

[Ct Farmer]

We had a good equipment boneyard near here for many years but maybe 10 years or so ago they closed it down. Sales were way down, price of scrap was high and pressure from the greenies to clean it up was what I heard. Torched and shredded much of it, sorted it to railcars and, I assume, sent it it China.

As for industrial machines like mills, lathes etc. Most of that goes straight to scrap. My Dad was in the machinery business for 30 years. Hanging around sometimes I saw many machines get put in dumpsters. There is such a surplus on the market now that scrapping it is a better tax write off in some cases, so good running machines are hit with sledge hammers and scrapped. Was picking up a few purchases at an auction last year and saw the scrapper there, power was cut to the building and so they literally grab the machine with a huge forklift however they can, rip it off the mounts and a dumpster it. Anything too big, they had an excavator with a shear standing by.

 

[Tugger2]

It seemed like they were all ending up my yard for a while. Most old machines here go to the scrap yard. I have bought some decent machines off the scrap yard here , a good running D8 H and a D6 9U that came from an estate cleanup and was in excellent shape. I used to wonder why decent machines were just scrapped. After years in business im begining to understand its mostly taxes drive good stuff to the scrappers ,things like capital gains and recaptured depreciation that force us to think ,just scrap it. Pile some new regulation onto that and the fate of old iron is sealed no matter how good it is. I wonder how long before society realizes how we are being sucked down the drain by this way of thinking.

 

[Bls repair]

A lot of them stay where they die

 

[mancavedweller]

Thanks for the replies lads.

I'll have to dig a little bit to find out where stuff goes here (if not straight to the metal recyclers).

Old Doug, what I'm looking at building will have forklift tynes, and a tracked base. The tracked base would be something like a tracked dumper would have. Even if the hydraulics are worn out, just having the base "chunks of metal" will be a good start to build on.

 

[JD955SC]

We had a good equipment boneyard near here for many years but maybe 10 years or so ago they closed it down. Sales were way down, price of scrap was high and pressure from the greenies to clean it up was what I heard. Torched and shredded much of it, sorted it to railcars and, I assume, sent it it China.

As for industrial machines like mills, lathes etc. Most of that goes straight to scrap. My Dad was in the machinery business for 30 years. Hanging around sometimes I saw many machines get put in dumpsters. There is such a surplus on the market now that scrapping it is a better tax write off in some cases, so good running machines are hit with sledge hammers and scrapped. Was picking up a few purchases at an auction last year and saw the scrapper there, power was cut to the building and so they literally grab the machine with a huge forklift however they can, rip it off the mounts and a dumpster it. Anything too big, they had an excavator with a shear standing by.

a lot of machine tools are scrapped because of obsoletion too. Machine shop near me has a huge scrap pile of older CNC machines because they are no longer supported

 

[JD955SC]

It seemed like they were all ending up my yard for a while. Most old machines here go to the scrap yard. I have bought some decent machines off the scrap yard here , a good running D8 H and a D6 9U that came from an estate cleanup and was in excellent shape. I used to wonder why decent machines were just scrapped. After years in business im begining to understand its mostly taxes drive good stuff to the scrappers ,things like capital gains and recaptured depreciation that force us to think ,just scrap it. Pile some new regulation onto that and the fate of old iron is sealed no matter how good it is. I wonder how long before society realizes how we are being sucked down the drain by this way of thinking.

the older machines have their issues too. Parts availability, technology has outpaced them (we sell very few dozers that don’t get grade control), and in some ways they can be much more aggravating to work on.

 

[Spud_Monkey]

Two words, disposable economy

 

[Flat Thunder Channel]

My wife would say too much of it finds its way to my house....I enjoy fixing things people have once forgotten and deemed unusable. It's saving them from the scrap pile I suppose.

 

[DMiller]

Just delivered my spare parts donor to a scrapper, had several light medium and heavy trucks being torn asunder were several other heavy machines going under the gas axe, dozers and loaders, in the same pile were lathes mills drill presses in varied levels of decay/rust where could see the wear on bed ways or guide slots. Motors were three phase and removed to break for Copper or Aluminum, the machines were just going to a recycle furnace in IL either Granite City or Alton to be converted to base pipe or steel forms, aluminum for pop and barley soda cans where aluminum heavy truck and car wheels being sorted to go similarly.

 

[Vetech63]

Some of it evidently goes to one of my customers every time they show up at an auction. Then they bitch and whine cause it costs so much to fix all the issues.

 

[Old Doug]

a lot of machine tools are scrapped because of obsoletion too. Machine shop near me has a huge scrap pile of older CNC machines because they are no longer supported

The manual machines are very cheap now cnc has replaced them. Cncs are cheaper and easyer to build and less labor in running them. I bought most of my stuff when manual stuff was still valuable now there worth scrap iron. The bigest most eapencive thing i bought is the only thing i have that i want to get rid of thats how things happen.

 

[crane operator]

My yard. If its not dead when it gets here, let me work on it a while.

 

[Tugger2]

My yards looking kind of like a boneyard, Kenworth and its donor ripped apart,75 ton American house off its truck,45 ton opened up. Trouble is work keeps coming in leaving no time for repairs,cant find anyone around here right now that likes working on old stuff.