My father had a supply of lead that he used for casting bullets for reloading. After he passed away we eventually gathered up the lead and took it to a recycler in the area. The first trip went without any problem. The second trip (just a few months later) I had to let them photo copy my driver's license before they would process anything. They told me it was a new law to try and prevent thieves from recycling stolen material. Wonder if they have ever caught anyone?
Then there was the time we had a foreman's rig stolen from his driveway. It was completely outfitted for steel erection work. When the police recovered the truck several months later, guess what? You got it, not even the doors were left on the thing! We should probably have checked ebay for someone selling "like new" welding equipment!
ziggy
We had a major problem with stolen tooling at work. Our orbital welding collets are solid copper and run about $500 each with machining costs included. Some butthead stole ALL our copper tooling as well as about $2000 worth of raw copper stock from our tooling shop. The worst part is it takes up to 3 months to get collet tooling made due to the backlog. Our orbital tooling supports about $13M a month in parts business! That is what we get for depressing wages down to $9 an hour for some workers, but I have to ask: Does a dog bite the hand that feeds it? Now, all our tooling is under lock and key, and we have to hunt for someone with the key everytime we set up a job. More delays.
All to often a dog will bite the hand that feeds it regardless of how well or poor the feed is.
It is sad, but if it has value, you better lock it up or it will grow legs and be gone like a fart in the wind.
jrw159 :-)
I worked for a Styrofoam cup manufacturer in the tool room for three years. This lathe hand in the machine shop got busted stealing, of all things...Paper towels & gloves. He had worked there for about 7 years. Needless to say, he got his walking papers. Of all the valuable things there to steal......Welcome to the dumb crook lineup! :-) S.W.
"That drunken S.O.B. would steal just about anything that wasn't bolted to the floor. And if it was, he'd bring a wrench." Dave Miner, regarding Jack Jackson & his perpetual theft of Company property, The Corridor.)
At the auto frame plant We had "copper" bar stock, resistance welding alloy #1 or something like that. One of the guys had aranged to take home the coffee grounds for His garden. Turns out He was hiding a bunch of foot long lengths of the 1 1/4 x 2 1/2 "copper" in the grounds and scrapping them. The scrap yard finally reported Him. The union got His job back for Him. The guy in the tool crib on day shift was even worse, but that is another story.
A company I worked for hired a new lead welder, management gave him the alarm codes and keys within a few weeks of work....one of the products we made were large bronze castings for bridge bearings, well one Monday morning date of shipment for these castings we began to search the yard for 'em. We did not find them anywhere, after a day or so calls were placed to the local scrap dealers and bingo we found them ....seeing this king of "scrap" material looks just like finished product.
After a brief investigation it was realized that the welder had come in on Sunday opened up shop grabbed a fork lift loaded up the bronze and if I remember correctly was not at work or had come in late monday.
We were able to get the original sales slip from the dealer witch was either on the front seat or on the ground next to his truck. The castings were sold for scrap for 1,700.
Trust no one........................
Mike
Hi Mike!
Wow!!!
What happened to the welder... err - Thief???
Respectfully,
Henry
Went back to the Dominican Republic I think.
Mike k
At my plant we were working on a 3" copper supply project. The next day four large boxes of T's and 90's along with four sticks of 3" walked off. Some guy probably got a few hundred dollars at a scrap yard for several thousand dollars worth of fittings and pipe. Not to metion a great delay in the project, you just dont run to the local home depot and buy 20 3" copper T's lol.
.....and they will also steal grease of all things.
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