Rant: Some scrap dealers have no standards

Couldn't agree with you more! I recently scrapped a shagged and completely un-desirable horizontal mill of no particular merit and still felt as guilty as hell.

It's really tragic to see some of the stuff being chucked just because some arse of an accountant says it too expensive to keep - I'm making a list for when I'm the effin' president!

I do need a bigger shed for all the TQT I'm preserving mind.....

Richard

Reply to
Richard
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Hi folks,

I met a guy who claims to be a machinery trader yesterday while I was looking for some JCB parts. I don't believe him, though. I think he's effectively a scrap dealer. He showed me a Mark I JCB 3C which he bought last week for £800. A nice machine which has clearly been looked after. The cab was a bit tatty, but that was the only major problem it had. Ran really well. He says he's going to scrap it so that he can get just over £1000. I feel this is obscenely wasteful.

If I was a bit richer, I'd buy the machine to save it, but I already have a rarer Fordson-based 3C, and I can only cope with one battle at a time. He also told me that he'd recently scrapped a JCB 4D. That is tragic, as the 4D is probably the rarest and most impressive JCB ever made. If I had visited when the 4D was in his yard, I don't think I'd have been able to resist buying it.

I guess you can blame China to some extent for driving up scrap metal prices (for some light-hearted mockery of China, take a look at this:

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. But the brunt of the blame lies with scrap dealers who take advantage of generous sellers and feel no guilt about scrapping good machines just to make a modest profit. I'm not saying I'm against people making money. I'm just against people making money through unacceptably wasteful and destructive means. It's not just one guy either. There are plenty of these guys out there destroying our industrial heritage. In my view, their behaviour is wholly unacceptable, on a level with that of pimps and loan sharks. It's a pity that there isn't a law which prevents this kind of thing.

If anyone in the Shropshire/Cheshire/North Wales area wants a Mark I JCB

3C (or the Nuffield engine, which is a great runner), drop me an e-mail (cdt22 AT cantabgold DOT net) and I'll give you the guy's number. You'll need to be quick, though, as he says he's scrapping it on Monday morning.

If there's one lesson we can learn from this, it's that if you can't keep a machine and yet you want to safeguard its future, you should know the scrap value of the machine and make sure that you set your price above it.

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

But they do re-cycle well so it's not that bad and the 3C was a turkey wasn't it?

Reply to
Steve

The message from Christopher Tidy contains these words:

Damn. I could make use of a digger at £1000 but getting it to Keighley, West Yorkshire on a low loader would probably cost another £1000.

Reply to
Roger

scrapping,

Chris,

What was so special about the 4D? Bigger engine, longer reach or what?

AWEM (who's been pushing a pile of rubble arround all day with his 3CX !)

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

Yes this is a unhealthy situation,most scrap dealers are only in it for the money and nothing else,at the moment they are riding a wave,this situation can not go on at this rate,why are so many scrap dealers/collectors getting things for next to nothing,most have to only knock on a door and walk away with pounds worth of scrap for nowt.

Reply to
R D Gravy

There was nothing special about the 4D.It was a clumsy slow beast of a machine.Had a Ford four cylinder engine that was famous for cracking blocks between two and three cylinders.Basically a Fordson Major with a JCB bucket and back hoe sat on top.Still a good few lying about in corners along with their equally useless cousin the Ford Whitlock digger. What Christopher is forgetting that these machines are only of interest to collectors.You would never get one hired on to a building site. What Christopher is also forgetting is that scrapmen are running a business.A scrap business is set up to process scrap metal.It doesn`t matter to the scrapman whether it`s a machine,digger,lorry or a pair of garden gates it`s just weight and weight is what he earns his money on.The more the better and it`s a case of into the yard,chopped/broken up and on to the next processor up the ladder before the price drops and he loses profit. Mark.

Reply to
mark

No, the 3C kicked ass. It was, without much doubt, the definitive backhoe loader which everyone else subsequently copied.

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

I feel bad if I buy parts off a machine that someone else is scrapping, because I might be encouraging them to scrap it. But in most cases, I think that they've decided to scrap the machine anyway.

I hope a JCB 4D survives until I can afford one. There aren't many about and I'd love to own one.

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

You want the guy's number, Roger?

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

It was just the biggest they ever made. Perhaps a little underpowered, but impressive because of it's huge size.

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

It's got nothing to do with the scrap man, that's just his bowl of rice.

It's all about supply and demand. If you feel that strongly about it, then buy it.

If you can't then does it matter who it goes to ?

One nice thing about the upturn is you can get rid of an old clunker or even half decent, no questions asked on condition, no tyre kickers or time wasters.

I know where there is an old Van Norman mill that I can probably get for 50 quid, 75 tops and it must weight 2 tonne so thats about £420 quid for a 2 hour job. Advertising this would be a waste of time, hour to collect it, 10 hours to waste on drongo's and then still not sell it.

Another point is that the average Bridgeport is now worth more scrap than it's resale value, something I have thought for a long while.

John S.

Reply to
John Stevenson

The message from Christopher Tidy contains these words:

Thanks but don't tempt me. I think the cost of getting it from the Welsh Border to Yorkshire is likely to be too high and impossible to arrange any transport within the timescale. I wouldn't even know where to start looking for someone to do the transport.

Reply to
Roger

Nowhere near =A31000. Shropshire to West Yorkshire is =A3300 or so.

--=20 Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't=20 looking good either. - Scott Adams

Reply to
Conor

In my youth the scrapyard was invariably a place of "wonderment", hundreds of cars, vans, trucks, diggers and the odd bit of a bus or aeroplane. Yards full of old machines waiting for the spare part values to increase enough for the scrapman to make his crust. There was one yard close to us where I can't remember the guy ever selling us anything he always had the part stacked up somewhere just wouldn't sell it - "no that's not for sale it will be worth good money one day" ?? His ilk replaced by the "off the shelf - previously owned" spare parts supermarket which itself is rapidly beign replace with the fenced off - NO ENTRY - yard where as John says they have no time to take things apart or deal with "customers" just weigh it in ship it out, and get the money. Part of the consumer revolution and certain to mean that current diggers will be impossible to keep going when they are much more than 10 years old - that they tell us is progress. To me it seems to be the exact opposite of the true meaning of re-cycling and GREEN living.

Reflective of Wales

Reply to
jontom_1uk

I've had a lot of fun over the years with lumps of metal that to some eyes were scrap, to others interesting engineering opportunities.

Whilst I may shed a tear as machinery goes for scrap rather than being available to people like me for beer money the last person that I'll blame is the scrap man. That's muddling up cause and effect.

Charles

Reply to
Charles Ping

I always thought they were Leyland engines, that Nuffield fitted... The 4/65 was just the Nuffield tractor model number, not the engine number.

This 3C wouldn't happen to have the same engine as the 4/65 would it? My brother is looking for one at the moment, but it would be a bit of trek from Edinburgh to get it.

moray

Reply to
moray

I think you're mistaken. JCB stopped using Fordson engines and transmissions in 1965, but the JCB 4D didn't go into production until

1967. The Fordson units also had an excellent reputation for reliability and easy starting. The 4D used BMC Nuffield engines and transmissions (there is a possibility that these may have been branded Leyland in later years, but I'm not certain). The BMC Nuffield 10/60 60 hp engine was used until 1968, then the 4/65 65 hp engine until 1971. I believe the BMC engines had a more questionable reputation than the Fordson, although the one I saw yesterday ran very nicely.

The 4D is indeed a bit of a clumsy machine, and the 3C became the greater success because it was less clumsy. But the 4D's clumsiness is part of its appeal to a collector like myself.

Not on a major site, but there are plenty still working on farms and self-build sites. Many of these machines still work perfectly well.

I'm not forgetting anything. I just find it unacceptably wasteful to scrap machines that are in good working order. Either you agree with this statement or you don't. It's as simple as that.

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

I think that the 4D was the Ford 4D engine and that they went on to the Nuffield with the 3C.The Nuffield later became the BMC 3.8 and 4.2 and was built at Bathgate.Were also used in the BMC angle cab lorries.FG`s I think they were.Had wet liners which were prone to cracking if the driver let the water run a bit low.An easy job to change a liner on a JCB but a backbreaker inside an angle cab.3C`s also used Perkins engines for a while and then went back to BMC`s.BMC Bathgate supplied the complete skid unit to JCB from the time it opened about 1965/66 apart from the period when JCB went to Perkins when they got fed up with the never ending shortages of engines from Bathgate due to strikes. I worked for a company who were major suppliers to BMC Bathgate and we also installed all their replacement machinery.Because of this we had to run BMC lorries and we had Nuffield tractors with winches for the machine moving.When I needed engine spares for the tractors I used to get the head of security who would take me up the FG engine line where I picked the parts I needed. These engines must be getting scarce now as I know a collector of Nuffields from Aberdeenshire who has just driven to Somerset to get an engine and it wasn`t cheap. Mark.

Reply to
mark

Either you get my disgust, or you don't :-).

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

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