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Alan in Vermont
05-19-2018, 08:06 PM
Went cruising yard sales this morning. No pewter anywhere to be found but,,,,,,,

I was getting low on paraffin, of which I use quite a lot when smelting and blending alloy. When I find candles at yard sales and if I can just about steal them I pick them up. Today was spectacular for that, ended up with almost 11 pounds of big decorative candles and over 2 pounds of tapers. The tapers I will add to my stash of emergency lighting candles while the big ones will get melted and poured into min-muffin pans. The resulting wax "pucks" should be just about the right size to throw in the smelting pot as needed.

Oh yeah, total cost was $3.

At another sale I picked up two SS stock pots for $4. Probably 8 qt & 10 qt size with handles. They should make almost indestructible "hot buckets" to dump dross into when smelting. Steel 5 gal. buckets are scarce now and current galvanized pails are both expensive and not at all durable when used for 700° junk catchers.

nagantguy
05-19-2018, 09:09 PM
Gotta love yard sale scores!!! I know I do; my best I think last year was several Case XXX kitchen and filet knives for .25 a piece! And a large box of brass/ various dies and cleaning jags in the free pile!

Yogi
06-02-2018, 11:38 PM
The deals are there , we were going to our rental house to do a repair ,when she wanted to stop at a yard sale. I didn't want to stop, but she insisted, so we did. scored on a nice cast iron Dutch oven with lid in almost new condition for a buck. then on the way home she found another yard sale, and again we stopped. I ended up with 5 bullet molds and about 50 lbs. lead wheel weights for $80. The next weekend she dragged me to another one and I picked up a nice RCBS single stage press in working order for $8 . She asked me why I got excited after we left, when I told her that it was a reloading press, she asked what did I need another press for, didn't I already have a couple. LOL she's like my good luck charm.(I never thought of the min-muffin pans for the wax, I usually just cut it into chunks and make a mess.)






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Bazoo
06-02-2018, 11:51 PM
I got a cornbread stick pan for 4 bucks the other day at a yardsale... We decided to use it for cornbread, and it makes good sticks!

tigweldit
06-03-2018, 01:04 AM
I love garage sales. I'm a dedicated treasure hunter. I've never scored any boolet molds, but everything else. Lead, wheel weights, pewter, wax and all sorts of goodies. The wife and I go as many sales that we can find. With a little practice, you can usually get good stuff for pennies on the dollar.

Bazoo
06-03-2018, 11:19 PM
A couple years back.. I got an IH 8" adjustable wrench for 2 dollars. It was right after my house burnt down, I kept it for a while, but I needed loading gear more. Ebay fetched 125 dollars out of it for me. Dont remember what I bought, but It all went into reloading.

lightman
06-04-2018, 10:00 PM
You can find lots of neat stuff at yard sales. I don't go to many anymore but a lot of my camping and deer camp stuff was found at yard sales.