Fri Jul 10, 2020 4:00 am
Asking nicely also gets you very far. I got a 3 minute meetup with the mayor of Deer Park after asking about preserving their siren. He gave me the number for the city manager and he said It was mine for the low low price of if you can get it down.
To quote crazy Eddie Antar "You can steal more with a smile than a gun."
Most scrapyards have some stuff they will never scrap. Manhole covers, railroad tracks, things that are someone else's property. It wouldn't surprise me if they were hesitant to scrap something that is/was federal property. If they can't sell scrap,trade it. Or give them more than what it costs scrap value. If it's historical (which it is) you can use that angle till it bends straight.
Not to mention that due to covid steel demand is down, as is the rest of the economy and they may be able to be persuaded to sell the siren since they're probably being flooded with scrappers dumping stuff trying to make a quick buck like at the 3 yards near my place (Cohen Iron and metal, David hirschberg and garden street)
Sirens also aren't much scrap value wise, especially supercharged ones. A used car weighs about 3,000lbs, and a thunderbolt (can't find hurricane weight) is around a third of that.
There's a reason most old sirens are left standing. Cincinnati still has a lot of roof mounted SD 10's and Thunderbolts, because the cost of removing them is more than the cost of scrapping them.
Funny story, the manager of Deer Park told me that someone asked about scrapping their sterling and never got back to him after promising to do so. Probably because the cost of getting a crane and crew to remove and transport the thing would cost more than it would pay.
The siren weighs 300lbs, and with a scrap motor value at .28 cents a pound now, that's only 84 dollars, and that's being generous.
I'd pick up the hurricane while scrap is cheap. Tell them a story. throw some facts, stats and stacks on the table. It's already down so that's a time saver right there.
21 Y.O. Student welder.
"This is my step van. I never knew my real van."