story about scrapping school shop equip
I was just talking with a new friend about someone buying old school shop equipment at auction for a steal. My friend is a high school shop teacher and he proceeded to tell me how the system really works, and my fear is that this is probably common place. you see they take their older equipment to the dump! They just took a walker turner (or something of that vintage) radial arm drill press to the dump cause they wanted a new one. He said it took 3 guys to pick up the base, so you know this was some drill. I said “was it broken?” No it wasn’t. Apparently when they want something new they have to make room for it, and the official way of dealing with the equipment is to time consuming to bother with. You have to get permission from all appropriate school authorities to start, post for sale in paper for certain amount of time, get at least three bids, and make sure all the “t’s” are crossed. Well what does the teacher get out of this? More work! What does it matter to them? So, what they do is scrap it. All done. Can’t give it away. Can’t take themselves. The only safe thing to do is scrap it. In the past 3 years that he has been at this school, they’ve scraped quite a bit. So if you think about it, the only time they have an auction is when they liquidate the whole program otherwise, when dealing with one machine at a time, they scrap them!!! I have a feeling this goes on at every public facility across the nation, but i guess its just tax money. Wish i worked at that junk yard when they brought that stuff in!
Replies
Ya, it's like that. It really is stupid. The system they have bothers me so much I don't even like to think about it. I got 3 free lathes a school shop, 2 general 160's and a rockwell, but I was lucky. The key is to make good friends with the teachers there. I had to wait a while before they finally decided to throw the machines out. Once they're headed for the dumpster it's easy to just pick them up. All the teachers have to do is turn a blind eye, and if your friends with them they'll gladly do it, as it saves them paper work and they don't like seeing this stuff go to waste either. Just make sure the board doesn't find out, however I'd be likely to level one of those @ssholes if they told me that machine has to go to the dump instead of being put to good use.
The one thing I have found is that these teachers are often short on time, so if you help them out they are likely to return the favor. A lot of school shops are shutting down in my area, and it really is sad to know that there are so many good tools that will be sent off to the dump, and I can't do anything to stop it. I wish I worked at that junk yard too. Anyone who is responsible for hauling off "junk" from the government could become a millionaire reselling the stuff. I've heard a lot of stories of how wasteful they are and it's disgusting, and scary to think that they're in charge of an entire country.
I wouldn't put too much stock in the fact that these machines are in good working condition. Industrial Arts are on their way out in many schools, making them at the bottom of the list for new funding.
Any machine that suffers the abuse of generations may not be worth picking up. If there is some funding available, in many cases it is cheaper to replace an item rather than hunt for the parts needed to make it safe for use in the schools. This is especially true when the Shop has the highest liability of any area in the school.
I've got an old Rockwell jigsaw in the garage now. Paid $35 for it. That was probably $33.50 too much.
TomS
You don't understand the system we have.
Not getting into all the details, here is a small part:
Any program funded by the government (all or part) must account for the equipment they have purchased with government money.
They cannot sell the equipment, they cannot give it away.
They can disposs of non functional equipment after it's service life.
It's easier to disposs of (costs nothing) then sell. It can be transferred to a similar user without problems.
I've delt with volunteer police and fire personel who were given
equipment free because it cost too much to fix as opposed to replace.
Oh, and I've greatly simplified this.
Out government system at work.
Jeff
Perhaps its time for someone to set up a website dedicated to saving (rather than trashing) these gems. Really I'm serious. Kind of like adopting a child. Promise to give it a good home, instead of abandoned at the dump.
Jon
Howdy All,
It's funny this topic should come up becouse I went to an auction not to long ago where the school system was not going to have shop classes anymore becouse it seems that more and more kids were not sighning up for these classes and they had to have the room for ever expanding computer classes (lets all stand up and give Mr Bill Gates a standing ovation) It seems that our generation of today find it more gradifieing to set in front of a computer screen such as I'm doing right now instead of broadening their minds in other areas. But at any rate I did get a pretty good buy I bought a " 26 1/2 J-Line scroll saw for $50.00 this thing is a monster the only thing that it's missing is the peice that holds the blade that has the return spring in it. Its the blade holder that is keyed and mounts on the upper arm of the saw. If anyone has any ideas where I might be able to get one I'd be very gratefull. The sale had several other items also like the "10 Powermatic TS for $280.00 or the J-line BS for $175.00 they also had 2 variable speed lathes that both were J-line one sold for $200.00 the other for around $300.00 But I think the best buy came on a big Reliant dust collector it only went for under $300.00 I only wish I had more space and $$$$$$becouse a inspiring woodworker could really have cleaned up and set his shop up for a fraction of the cost of new. The worse problem I could see with the tools came with the wood turning chisels my son doesn't attend the school where the sale was held but he told me that it's the normal practice of the schools to sharpen the chisels with a high speed grinder and from the looks of the box of chisels this was definately true those things were a mess and from the looks of them they wouldn't be able to hold a sharp edge no how but other than that the rest of the tools were in realy good shape heck the paint wasn't even wore and they were all about 35-40 yrs old.
Well so long for now and if possible lets try to keep them from scraping out perfectly good tools.
Sincerely,
Jim Clark
I understand how the system works, and most of their policies are there to protect themselves. It seems that they can't unplug anything because it has to be done by a union electrician, and it ends up costing them a lot to give something away, that is if they do it by the books. Then there are the countless incompetent morons who they have to worry about, because if they were to hurt themselves while removing a machine they would want to sue. What has come of our society when you have to pay someone because of their own stupidity? Lawyers and idiots are destroying our society.
However, there are the benefits of the system too. Without their rules and regulations there is no way that any woodworker would be able to stumble across these machines for next to nothing. Just another case of can't live with it, can't live without it.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled