What a waste.

[Tinbasherdan]

Anything to do with the mod is a money wading exercise to a point believe me

 

[penfold]

The F4s would not be part of SALT surveillance, CFE perhaps; the DoD and by extension the MoD also have recurring nightmares about bits ending up helping to keep the few airworthy IRIAF F4s in the blue, so surplus ones not in national collections like Cosford or the Smithsonian get chopped up and made into Fray Bentos tins.

 

[Wedg1e]

There was a Police forensics car pound near where I worked which we sometimes used, part of the process they used was some kind of solution which became carcinogenic when exposed to high temperatures, there were a lot of mint, virtually new, top of the range cars in there (Range Rover, Mercedes, BMW, Jag) which where all going to the crusher, nothing at all was allowed to leave that compound (except to the crusher) because of that risk.

So you end up with a cubed car full of carcinogens, what happens to it then? Sell it to a third world country where there's no comeback?

 

[Wedg1e]

I have a box of lovely bolts, each individually numbered, that were about to be skipped at a certain naval base, following a refit of a frigate. I asked why they couldn't just be put back into stores but no; once open the boxes could be 'contaminated' so any surplus had to be scrapped.
I'll find a use for them one day... maybe when a frigate needs a refit

 

[Swift&Bold]

So you end up with a cubed car full of carcinogens, what happens to it then? Sell it to a third world country where there's no comeback?

I guess it gets melted down in a manner where the carcinogenic effect is minimised.
The difference being that rather than the driver and passengers being enclosed and unmonitored during hot weather, it's heated quick enough in a blast furnace to neutralise the nasties.
It's like all this stuff; even if there is a minimal risk of damage to health the measures taken to prevent are Draconian.

 

[julianthegypsy]

A place I worked in the 90's decided spares should be stocked under internal part numbers rather than manufacturers part numbers so they cleared the shelves into a skip instead of re-numbering. I saw £000's of Telemecanique contactors, relays, sensors etc. just dumped

I did the opposite once, working for a major agricultural machinery manufacturer. Over the years they had acquired a lot of companies and had marketing agreements with others. Their spare parts numbers were loaded into the system and assigned a new company number. The duplication was endless, we had five different sources for a standard H4 headlight bulb and still kept stock of yellow headlight bulbs for France. I saved a fortune by tracing it all and throwing the results at the purchasing department, as well as rationalizing the price list.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

@julianthegypsy
My local agricultural spares place was the same. For some tractors they had up to 6 part numbers for the same part.
They simplified their part numbers etc, ordered new parts and binned 100 years of old parts.

 

[julianthegypsy]

@julianthegypsy
My local agricultural spares place was the same. For some tractors they had up to 6 part numbers for the same part.
They simplified their part numbers etc, ordered new parts and binned 100 years of old parts.

We were smarter. Purchasing sorted out the cheapest supplier, even better since the order quantities increased, then we loaded the system with supercession numbers so as the stock of the old numbers ran out it shifted orders to the number we wanted to end up with until eventually the old numbers fell into disuse and if a customer tried to order one it would simply tell him the number had been superceded to the new one. Nothing was junked. The very idea!

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

As a rule I try not to throw anything away, a few work friends call my van "The TARDIS" for what I carry and salvage from old dead systems.
My best repair this year was on a fire system built in 1968. I know t is not compliant, it is not used as a main system but as a demonstration unit.
In my box's of spares was a signal line amplifier what fitted and allowed it to power up and work.

Yes, the main PSU has valves.

 

[penfold]

I have a box of lovely bolts, each individually numbered, that were about to be skipped at a certain naval base, following a refit of a frigate. I asked why they couldn't just be put back into stores but no; once open the boxes could be 'contaminated' so any surplus had to be scrapped.
I'll find a use for them one day... maybe when a frigate needs a refit

In a previous life I spent a few weeks dogsbodying on an Admiralty Floating Dock while HMS Repulse was receiving a wash and brush-up before her last year of operation; once she'd been returned to the oggin I was trawling the dock bottom for detritus and dislodged packing from the docking blocks, and in amongst that I unearthed dozens of nickel aluminium bronze bolts, evidently discarded or dropped by careless dockyard mateys, buried in the doubtless highly toxic sludge of antifouling paint, rust and crushed crustacean shells. I still have one as a paperweight as most of them were 3/4" or 1" whitworth, presumably from through hull valves or something.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

In a previous life I spent a few weeks dogsbodying on an Admiralty Floating Dock while HMS Repulse was receiving a wash and brush-up before her last year of operation; once she'd been returned to the oggin I was trawling the dock bottom for detritus and dislodged packing from the docking blocks, and in amongst that I unearthed dozens of nickel aluminium bronze bolts, evidently discarded or dropped by careless dockyard mateys, buried in the doubtless highly toxic sludge of antifouling paint, rust and crushed crustacean shells. I still have one as a paperweight as most of them were 3/4" or 1" whitworth, presumably from through hull valves or something.

If you want a laugh, try drilling it

 

[penfold]

Previous interactions with bronze lead me to forgo this kind suggestion, tapping particularly was a miserable nightmare of cold sweats imagining how expensive and time consuming starting from scratch will be if the barsteward breaks and aching biceps turning the tap wrench. It was like tapping in especially hard and sticky toffee.

 

[mechman]

In the early 80s I was working on a rig in the north sea, the job was at an end and a skip(s) arrived on the accommodation come workshop platform they then were filled with tooling. Grinders, pistol drills mag drills spanners sockets etc etc I ses whats happening to that lot, ans, the lots going for scrap, Me, Why? well its all been allowed for and something to do with vat on tooling when it arrives back on shore, couldn't understand myself but £1000s of good gear getting skipped.

 

[Wedg1e]

In a previous life I spent a few weeks dogsbodying on an Admiralty Floating Dock while HMS Repulse was receiving a wash and brush-up before her last year of operation; once she'd been returned to the oggin I was trawling the dock bottom for detritus and dislodged packing from the docking blocks, and in amongst that I unearthed dozens of nickel aluminium bronze bolts, evidently discarded or dropped by careless dockyard mateys, buried in the doubtless highly toxic sludge of antifouling paint, rust and crushed crustacean shells. I still have one as a paperweight as most of them were 3/4" or 1" whitworth, presumably from through hull valves or something.

Not quite as funky but we decommissioned a dockside steam line and all the bronze flanges and bolts accidentally fell into my van .
The flanges were weighed-in but the bolts'n'nuts are still here... they look just like any other cacky old bolt until you get them on the bench wire brush Must be about M20x75 or Imperial equivalent I think; sure I'll find a use for them one day...

From the stories I hear, 3 Basin at Pompey is NOT a place you'd wanting to be trawling the bottom

 

[Wedg1e]

As a rule I try not to throw anything away, a few work friends call my van "The TARDIS" for what I carry and salvage from old dead systems.
My best repair this year was on a fire system built in 1968. I know t is not compliant, it is not used as a main system but as a demonstration unit.
In my box's of spares was a signal line amplifier what fitted and allowed it to power up and work.

Yes, the main PSU has valves.

I've just been on a call-out to a Linear Accelerator built in the 70s to a 1960s design by Vickers! Still going strong... at least, it is now a probably-40-year-old fuse has been replaced

 

[Dieselman 63]

I remember going in to the old TMD at Buxton when I was much younger, before I started to be interested in machines, and they had a huge lathe in there. Just read it's been demolished - wonder what happened to it?

Here's a photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/funlesterphotos/24878912600/