where to find metal for learning stick welding?

[Inspector507]

When I was learning to to stick weld, I found my scraps in a most unusual place. When they build a new house, sometimes they need to add some shims under the I-beams in the basement. They use steel plates about 3X3 or 4X4. The ones they don't use they just toss over in the corner. Some houses I'd find 2 or 3. Other times I'd pick up 8-10. Collected them forever, but have used them all up.

 

[Jstpssng]

When I was learning to to stick weld, I found my scraps in a most unusual place. When they build a new house, sometimes they need to add some shims under the I-beams in the basement. They use steel plates about 3X3 or 4X4. The ones they don't use they just toss over in the corner. Some houses I'd find 2 or 3. Other times I'd pick up 8-10. Collected them forever, but have used them all up.

Not all of us get to poke around in the basements of new houses though. It could get rather embarrassing, to say the least.

 

[cabinhollow]

We do that, too. However, I doubt they would decline a request for a few pieces. We don't. I asked my boss the same thing when I started learning, and he said, "Sure, take whatever you need. We get requests like that all the time from complete strangers." Frankly, there's not much profit from recycling mild steel. The cost of most of that scrap (offall) is already figured into the jobs, so it's not like the company is losing money by giving away a few pieces here and there.

I pay X for a sheet of steel, it goes out the door at 15 x's what I paid for it and 1/8 of the sheet goes to the scrap pile. Only about 5% of my tubing goes to the scrap pile.
I have a small shop and have app 6 tons of scrap each year.

 

[jaxs]

I buy material for projects from a couple of places that buy scrap. Sometimes I'll buy the whole item if most will be usiable. Sometimes I go out and mark cuts with parking lot marker paint and the owner has his boys cut it and weigh it for pickup the following day.