# Free Stuff.



## bmac2 (Sep 14, 2013)

Hello to all.
l just thought I&#8217;d pass this on as I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m the only one that runs into situations where I just can&#8217;t find the material I what/need for a project locally.
One day while washing up I noticed the metal spring in the pump soap dispenser and had an epiphany. That&#8217;s water biased and the springs doesn&#8217;t rust! Off to the recycle bin to retrieve that empty hand lotion bottle I&#8217;d seen in there.
A lot of the vertical pumped type dispensers have a stainless steel ball bearing and spring in them. Trigger pumps (think Windex etc.) have a SS spring but have switched to plastic valves. A recently defunked coffee percolator yielded 2 SS balls just under 1/4&#8221;.

The bottle in the picture is an empty 125 ml eye glass cleaner but the concept it the same.


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## stevehuckss396 (Sep 14, 2013)

Great tip! I have used this type of pump many times and never thought to recycle one.


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## bmac2 (Sep 14, 2013)

Dissemble the top pump.


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## bmac2 (Sep 14, 2013)

Cut off the bottom tip of the pump to get at the ball and spring


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## bmac2 (Sep 14, 2013)

And check with a rare earth magnet. The spring in this case holds weakly to the magnet. And the ball barely at all.


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## bmac2 (Sep 14, 2013)

There you have it. Less than 5 minutes work for a free 1/8 stainless steel ball and spring. And all the plastic bits go back into recycle bin. Im thinking small check valve? CO2 engine?


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## dave-in-england (Sep 14, 2013)

That's a good tip !

In the past I have used these stainless ball and springs to make miniature one-way valves.

Trying to find and buy these tiny and delicate stainless springs is almost impossible, no one stocks them.

I suspect that the manufacturers ( in China ) of these spray head units have these parts specially made just for 

them, by the millions !


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## jwcnc1911 (Sep 14, 2013)

Have you tried McMaster for springs?  Or Sprinco (don't know if you can find them online, we have a huge catalog at work).


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## Woodster (Sep 15, 2013)

I have a saying that "Everything has the potential to be something else!". You just have to release the parts you want from the donor material. I make all my stuff from whatever i have , and i tend not to throw anything away until it has been completely stripped of anything useful. VCR's, printers, DVD/CD players etc are a good source of gears, pulleys, shafting and bushing and if you're lucky, bearings. PCs can be handy for sheet metal, fans, electrical connectors etc, old drills for bearings and gears, old RC cars and stuff, anything with moving parts! I have NEVER paid for ANY material other than fixings. Find a local engineering works and ask for a few "bar ends and scrap". Offer to pay and the'll pretty much always say don't worry about it.


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## deverett (Sep 15, 2013)

And of course, the throw away retracting ball-pens have good springs.

Haven't tried to get the ball out of the writing tip, but for very small balls, this may be a source.

Dave
The Emerald Isle


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## bmac2 (Sep 15, 2013)

I hear you Woodster. Gears, shafts, IR sensors, stepper motors, notched belt drives. Printers can be a gold mine and the older the better. As for &#8220;local engineering works&#8221; (machine shops sound so much classier in England) I know of one I just happen to drive by every day for work where most any barstock under 6&#8221; long lands in the scrap bin. Here in Canada a $5.00 or $10.00 Tim&#8217;s card (Tim Horton&#8217;s Coffee&#8206 can go a long way in small machine shops.


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