Salem, Oregon has magic vortices that ensure that you'll get lost nine out of ten times you go there. This happens when you try to cut through from 5 to 99W, it happens when you try to find the Amtrak station, and it will happen when you go to visit Cherry City Metals.
Cherry City Metals is famous. It's a scrap metal yard par excellence. And I don't use fake French lightly.
My compatriot Jim took me down on Saturday, to check out the bikes and the metal and all the sheer possibilities of scrap metal.
The first impression is overwhelming. You don't know where to look. You catch a glimpse of a maul-head, and focus on where you thought it was, and find you're looking into a feed trough FILLED with maul heads, axe heads, hammer heads, shovel heads and double-jacks.
They have signs. Street signs, bus signs, railroad signs, pedestrian signs, street signs, stop signs, go signs, sign signs. Signs. They have scaffolding. Industrial shelving (the kind you stock with a fork lift). Hoods. Bed frames. Headboards. Car hoods that would make awesome headboards.
Motors. Hydraulics. Milking machine parts. Lots of milking machine parts, but they could all be gone as some as some Keizer dairyman stops in. Rowboats. We didn't even get a chance to look at the rowboats, because 50 minutes goes by in the blink of an eye.
At 10 minutes to 1 (they're open from 8 am until 1 pm on Saturdays, and like I said, we got lost), we headed in to check out. Jim got a huge roll of antique wire fencing and a cool little oiler. I got: A five-drawer Proto toolbox, a $190 Wear-Ever cookpot, an awesome numbered basket, two green anodized heavy aluminun tubes I plan to build LED bike lights inside of, a heavy ball of brass, and a weird little item with two small bearings and a zirk fitting for each one. And a giant whisk. All for $40. It should've been $50, since they wanted $33 for the $190 pot and $15 for the vintage Proto tool chest. And a couple of dollars for the weird trash at $.50 a lb.
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