scrapyards . . . wow!

[sfr]

Well, I was planning on making some stud-enclosures like R.G. had written about on Geofex, and I finally decided to getting around to getting the parts.  My usual hardware store is mostly wood-working oriented, so I stopped at a couple other ones en route to work and back, with no luck.  So I called my dad, since he seems to know where to find anything in this town, and he recommended I check out Queen City Steel, the metal recyclers/scrapyard place in town.  Well, I'm fortunate to live in a town with a really cool scrapyard - stuff there is cheap as dirt, and there's so many cool things for stompboxes, amps, and everything else.  If you have a metal scrapyard in your town, I'd definetly recommend checking it out.  

Prices were 10 cents a lb for aluminum, 5 cents for steel, but all the guy did was pick up and guestimate, so I got a good deal.  I ended up with something like a stud in R.G.'s article, but out of very heavy gauge (but surprisingly workable) aluminum, as well as all sorts of pieces of sheet aluminum for the top of it, and some really cool metal with lots of tiny holes for making grill covers or covering the tube part of an amp or something, but I saw all sorts of stuff - I mean,anything that was ever made out of metal, from wierd project enclosures of all sorts of sizes with crazy markings on them (like a mad scientist gutted his equipment!) to pieces of oddly-finished metal (already painted, some swirly colours, weird stuff like that) (some with pieces already punched out for making plaques or something) and road signs and all sorts of extruded stuff and tons of wire, everything from CAT-5 to the heavy braided stuff that supports telephone poles.  I was going to bring home some hookup wire type stuff, but I didn't have wire cutters, and the roll was more than I could carry! I'll definetly be going back again - I don't know, I guess this a "Duh, why didn't I think of this before idea", but this place rocked for supplies. There were lots of really wierd shaped things that would be very easy to make pedals out of.

Also, does anyone know how hard it is to work diamond-plate?  (like what you have on the runners or truck or whatever, with the funny patterns, or those heavy metal amps have on the front)  it was in with the aluminum, but it seems like it'd be really hard to work - but if not, it might be kind of neat.

if I find any amazing scores next time I go, I'll try and get enough to share!