The biggest update to notice is that we now have a large bin for steel recycling. The Steel Scrap and Welding Practice Material areas had been completely overwhelmed by trash because we lacked this. (Right now, this bin is completely full; we’ll place a box out next to it for additional material and get the bin emptied as soon as possible.)
In addition, to reduce confusion, all of the bins and buckets for scrap and recycling, plus the special purpose vacuums, have been painted in color codes; aluminum is blue and steel is red.
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Remember: only potentially useful metal pieces are SCRAP. Place them in the appropriate scrap bins. Solid pieces without holes can be useful even when small (especially aluminum), but only larger sections of tubing are useful.
Swarf (millings, shavings, chips, etc.), short pieces of tube, pieces with many holes, and pieces with any non-functional welds are CRAP. Place them in the appropriate recycling bins or the trash.
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Do not put CRAP in the SCRAP storage!
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All containers for Aluminum are blue.
Aluminum Scrap: Place in the bin under the manual mill table.
Aluminum Swarf: Use the blue vacuums (also marked “Aluminum Only”) or place in the marked buckets.
Aluminum Crap: Place solid pieces in the marked buckets (separate from swarf) for recycling.
All containers for Steel (all types) are red.
Steel Scrap: Place in the bins under the central general metal shop table.
Steel Swarf: Discard in the trash or use the vacuums marked “General Purpose”.
Steel Crap: Place solid pieces in the marked rolling bin (for now, in front of the Brake-Shear-Roll machine) for recycling.
Recycling for other metals: For now, Brass, Bronze, Copper, and any other metal pieces can be recycled in the marked orange buckets. Copper-coated aluminum should be placed here. Discard all swarf in the trash.
Special exception: Steel and aluminum pieces that aren’t generally useful but could be used for welding practice aren’t uncommon. These can go in the “Welding Practice Material” bin under the main welding table. (But there is little harm in placing them straight in the recycling bin instead.)
(@Caroline, @ewei, @SavHarvey: The pieces left over from Metal Shop Safety are a perfect example of this last case. They are too short to be generally useful and should NOT go in the Scrap area. But they are good for welding practice, and hence can go in that bin.)
All of these containers have had labels placed on them, but these were quickly made, fit poorly, and are already falling off. I’ll get more durable labels made soon. Maybe I’ll go full Garanimals style and add some additional coding by shape: round labels for scrap, rectangular labels for crap (swarf and recycling).