How Cat^® Parts Artists Turn Scrap from Trash to Treasure

End of life rarely means the end of the road for Cat^® parts. They’re built to be rebuilt and reused for multiple lifetimes — and not always how you might think. Meet the innovative minds behind these trash-to-treasure masterpieces.

By Caterpillar

Published: Jun 26, 2024

Remanufacturing, rebuilding, recycling — Caterpillar’s commitment to giving old products new life is no secret. But while most reborn products go back to work inside heavy equipment or on construction and mine sites, a select few have a different fate.

An old engine crankshaft is reintroduced as a coffee table. A scrapped piston is resurrected as a podium. A used exhaust bellows is born again as a flower pot. These reincarnations are all in a day’s work for innovative Cat parts artists at our engine facilities in Lafayette, Indiana, and Mossville, Illinois.

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From Discarded Scrap to Employee Recognition

At the Lafayette Large Engine Center, it all started with RD Merryman, an assembly maintenance planner who spent many years as a welder and fabricator. As his colleagues began retiring, he started creating special mementos representative of their time working on large Cat engines.

“I thought it would be cool to come up with something from our scrap parts that we could use as a retirement gift,” RD says. “I made lamps, clocks and other small pieces personalized with each individual’s name and years of service. Most people were just blown away.”

It wasn’t just retirees who took notice. When the local chamber of commerce renovated its building and asked area companies to contribute décor representing their businesses, Caterpillar Lafayette leaders immediately approached RD: Could he create something larger — like furniture — out of Cat parts?

“Larger” wasn’t a problem, given the size of components that go into the biggest Cat engines. But RD knew he couldn’t make truly functional items without additional expertise. So he recruited Nick Wainscott, a technology project team lead, for engineering and design support and Mike Powell, a tool room machinist, to handle the precision machining required to create the finished pieces.

Off The Scrap Heap, Into Headquarters

The first item the Lafayette trio created was a podium made from the massive connecting rod and piston off a Cat 3600 engine — so massive it required a 400-pound baseplate.

Nick used his everyday engineering software to mock up plans for the podium. Though the size and weight of scrapped parts presented challenges, he quickly learned that furniture design was a lot simpler than engine design.

“We had to select parts that were available, fit the size constraints and were visually appealing to look at,” he says. “But we didn’t have any of the concerns about vibration, heat or other factors that can damage engine components.”

Once the podium was done and accolades started rolling in, so too did requests for more furniture. To date, RD, Nick and Mike have created nearly a dozen pieces for Caterpillar Lafayette’s welcome center, the Greater Lafayette Commerce building and even Caterpillar’s global headquarters in Irving, Texas.

Of all their creations — coffee tables, end tables, serving tables, display cases, abstract art and more — both RD and Nick point to the same favorite: a small side table made from a single piston off a G3612 gas compression engine. Why? This engine ran on a customer site for more than 100,000 hours, with a visible burn pattern showing the wear and tear of all that hard work.

“It’s a true symbol of what we do here,” RD says, “a true representation of the longevity you can get out of Cat engines and parts.”

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Cat Employee Creativity Benefits Charity

Across state lines, at the Mossville Engine Center, the annual United Way campaign was the impetus to get creative with old parts. One of the most popular fundraising activities is an auction, where employees with creative hobbies often donate handmade items for sale.

“What sells really well are unique things that you can’t buy at the store,” says T.J. Crowell, who manages the engine components and systems group for Caterpillar’s Large Power Systems Division. “So I had the thought that maybe people would like little desk ornaments made from our parts.”

Prior to each year’s auction, T.J. gathers up scrapped parts, recruits volunteers and encourages them to get creative. The only constraint? Keep the creations small. Unlike the Lafayette team, which builds furniture for conference rooms and welcome centers, the Mossville volunteers need to focus on items people can display on their desks or take home easily.

Every year, the volunteers’ ingenuity exceeds T.J.’s expectations. With help from Caterpillar welders and painters, they’ve made planters, pen-and-pencil holders, clocks, desk ornaments, fishing rod holders — even a desktop cat complete with whiskers.

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And T.J.’s intuition about the appeal of these items has proved spot on. On the auction block for just a few years, they’ve already raised more than $20,000 for United Way.

Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts

To create the auction items, T.J. specifically seeks volunteers from different departments and functional areas, assuring them they don’t need to know anything about parts or engineering or welding to participate.

“We meet as a group and brainstorm, and people will say, ‘If we put this and this and this together, we could make this,’” he says. “It’s that same diversity of thought, opinion and approach that builds good engineering teams and good products.”

The Lafayette furniture-making trio takes a similar tack. Though each focuses on a particular area — Nick on design models, Mike on machining and RD on welding and final assembly — the true magic happens when they come together.

“It definitely is a group effort,” RD says. “I’ll have an idea, then Nick will add something, and then Mike will add something. Pretty soon we have a whole different idea, but it’s a better one.”

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Waste Not, Want Not

The Lafayette and Mossville teams also share a commitment to sourcing used parts. In fact, the alternative was never on the table.

“We’ve never used anything that wasn’t a failed or scrapped part,” RD says. “Our parts are extremely expensive, so we’re not just taking them out of production.”

Sometimes, it takes a bit of “dumpster diving” for RD to locate the perfect part. Other times, he puts out the word to his colleagues and waits for someone to find it.

While RD, Nick and Mike often pursue specific used parts to fit their furniture designs, T.J. and his volunteers typically let the scrapped parts drive their auction creations.

We’re making use of things that otherwise would not have been used at all,” T.J. says. “The fact that people are interested in bidding on them, in having them on their desks at work or at home, really shows the pride they have in working for Caterpillar.

T.J. Crowell

A Scrapped Parts Showcase

As they gear up for the next United Way auction, T.J.’s team is fielding requests for items and hoping a bidding war — like the one that ensued for the desktop cat — drives up fundraising dollars.

Meanwhile, at the Caterpillar Lafayette welcome center, 11,000 visitors a year get to see the fruits of RD, Nick and Mike’s furniture labors. Their creations are as popular as the tour of the engine facility itself, with customers, dealers and VIPs lining up to have their photos taken next to various pieces.

“It’s some of the most fun and personally rewarding work I’ve ever done,” Nick says. “Everyone who comes through our facility gets to see our parts in a new light.”

And gets a reminder of the lasting legacy of Cat products — driven by the ingenuity of Caterpillar people.

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Show Us Your Cat Parts “Art”

Have you gotten artistic with old Cat products? We’d love to see and possibly share your creations! Email us some photos and a brief description of your work.

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How Cat^® Parts Artists Turn Scrap from Trash to Treasure