RESCUED METAL

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 13, 16 July 1934, Page 11

RESCUED METAL

THINGS' NO ONE WANTS

BUYERS FOR BATTLESHIPS

The housewife- about mid-summer has usually got rid of all.the-lumber and "junk" accumulated during- a. twelvemonth, but she probably does not realise that the man who knocked at the door in search of her cast-off goods and paid her a few coppers for them is an important though small cog in that vast machine which handles year in and year out all those things with which one section of tho community has .finished, and ultimately turns them to good use, says the "Manchester Guardian."

Rags and rubber bulk largely in tho grand total, but in point of tonnage tho palm goes to scrap metal, of which the world's annual turnover runs into thousands upon thousands of tons; Low prices obviously upset the smooth working of the scrap-metal, trade, for there is so much. breaking-up, grading, and sorting to be done that unless the disposal value-of the resultant product is reasonable the expense of preparing it for the market cannot be- covered; For example, if trade is Tjad and quotations . depressed, one can imagine a motor-car • proving an embarrassment to a scrap metal dealer even as a gift, for although the iron, brass, aluminium, and so on will find purchasers in due course, the cost of getting at them may proveto be excessive. In effect, the ore body- of the. scrap metal mine exists in the world's machinery and utensils, and if buyers are not prepared to pay high enough for old metals, then the mine must remain unworked.

WAR STORES,

One of the legacies of thewar was an enormous accumulation of unwanted military stores and equipment which> although perfectly ...suitable for theiroriginal purpose, possessed no morothan scrap value in a. world no longer engaged in fighting. Huge quantities of brass shell cases, finished with painstaking accuracy to a thousandth :part of an inch and only awaiting the' charge and time fuse to fit them for the artillery, were melted down in the Midlands, and eventually worked up into household articles. Some o£ the eighteen-pounder cases escaped: the, melting-pot to figure as "gongs/ and, doubtless there are many homes-today .with these war relics, hung on the xalls. Generally speaking, however^ it was impossible to put the instruments of' war to peaceful uses until they had been melted aud transformed. ' ' , It is not everyone who would care to buy a battleship, but there are firms in this country quite prepared to carry through such a deal. When a, vessel comes into the shipbreakers'.-hands-it is-first stripped of that has, any saleable-value in its then condition. Afterwards the cutting-up process begins, the oxy-aeetylene flam© ripping through the steel plates like a sawl through wood.; A modern ship yields a rich harvest for the scrap-metal trade in. the shape of iron and steel, brass, bronze, copper, and nickel. con? denser tubes are frequently disposed of to tube mills, where they, are drawn down to a smaller ..diameter and-take up a shoregoing job. V \, ■-,' r '.,

LOST FOR EVER.

Although, a.large -percentageof all the niotal going into the; manufacturing system eventually returns .to the raclting-pot, bo it a blast furnace or a copper refinery, there is some that is lost for cvor... Asia imports every year thousands of tons of yellow metal and copper sheets which are worked up into pots and pans. Many of these vessels aio buried with tlvfr.dead.- The .same fate, of course,, befalls, qoffiu brass in Western countries," and in. these and similar ways.hundreds-of tons of copper disappear every month. ; Some of the metal shipped to the East is worked, up into trays, brackets, and other ornamental- goods. During the. course of .manufacture small flaws often develop, a? a' result of which the ■artielo is rejected and sold "as. scrap. Occasionally such parcels,coins'- back; to iEurope, and it is usually '~'lodssibte to pick out^ examples of native wqrk^ which to the-.uncritical-eye have little or no blemish;. Scrap-metal sorters are always on the. look-out for "finds," aird once in a while/they, are rewarded; Soon after the war a.'consignment of old metal from Ireland yielded a small piec© of platinum for which a big price was obtained. . V

, To.the discerning eye most parcels of scrap have a story to tell. Copper and bronze wire sold by the- Post Office has at orie time stretched across hundreds of miles of country as tele-1 graph.anil.telopliono wires, while copper firebox plates, befdie' the" burning heat and fierce draught of. main'-Jine ' runs compelled replacement, formed part of a modern locomotive. Not long: ago Woolwich Arsenal disposed of a quantity of old cannons, some of- them dating back hundreds •■ of years and marked by the sears of campaigns -now almost forgotten.- Into the- melting-pot they" went, and although probably the gun-metal makers/tflo'v most, of . them. for. the manufacture' .of .macHiiieryi brasses, and1 so on, it is by bo lieans impossible that in the shape of a door knob, a stair tread, or a metal ashtry some portions "of them are nowbeing used in our homes.