Where To Get A Bunch Of 3" Thick Phonebooks

[Brad Manion]

I've had quite a good winning streak when it comes to tearing phonebooks lately. Currently, I'm 8-for-10 on attempts at tearing thick (about 2-1/4" thick) phonebooks into 3 pieces using the grip-and-rip style. This weekend, while at a friend's house waiting for a 3 hour road trip to a powerlifting contest, I took a shot at a grip-and-rip tear of a 3" thick Chicago phonebook. Couldn't make ANY damage at all, not even to the cover. This bothered me ALL day long, literally. So, we finally get back to my friend's house after a long day out in the sun, and I do some more tearing. I tore 2 St. Louis Yellow Pages phonebooks into 3 pieces each, using the grip-and-rip technique, as my warmup.

Then, I took on Chicago. It took me about 10 minutes of stop-and-go action with the grip-and-rip technique, but I was able to tear the Chicago phonebook in half. Now that I know I can do it, I need a bunch of thick (3" thick or thicker) telephone books with which to practice. As I live in St. Louis, our thickest telephone books are maybe 2-1/4" thick. I was wondering how I could go about obtaining a bunch of thick books and having them shipped to my house. My thought is that it'd be easy to get the books for free (from hotels, apartment complexes, etc) as they are recycled frequently, but to have them shipped to my house would be quite expensive, due to the weight. Ideally, I'd like as many books as possible, say 100 of the really thick books, but I'd settle for 20 of them from any of the biggest cities in the USA.

If any of the other phonebook shredders out there have encountered and successfully resolved the same dilemna, I'd appreciate the advice on how to go about getting a bunch of really thick phonebooks.

[philthy]

Here you go all the phone books you need.

http://www.yellowbook.com/OrderADirectory/

Pick Manhatten it's pretty huge

I have one phonebook at home called the "American Business Directory" the damm thing has got to be close to 4" No you can't have it I'm going to have it as a challange at a grip event one of these days.

Edited August 21, 2007 by philthy

[Brad Manion]

A 4" thick phonebook.?.?.?.. wow. I'd say my hands are average size for a man, but that book may be doable. I've shook Phil Pfister's hand before, and if I had hands like that, a 4" thick book would be laughable.... maybe. Anyways, that would be an awesome challenge event at a grip contest. If done successfully, let's see some video