Scavenge

Scavenging is like dumpster diving, only better. Scavenging takes 3 forms. The first is hacking up the corpses you might come across in your travels. With a blade type weapon you can cut <part> from <corpse> to obtain body or other parts. For instance

cut skin from crackhead

The second use for scavenging is looking for items or secret passages in your surroundings. The higher your scavenge skill, the better you will be at finding hidden paths and objects. To do a search of your surroundings, simply type

search

The third use for scavenging is to break down items into their core components. It will help greatly to have a schematic to work from and the bench the item would be made on. However, you'll want the schematic in your inventory, not in the bench. The higher your skill at scavenge, the better chance you will have at not destroying the item utterly, and the more of its raw materials you can retrieve.

break AK-7

You can scavenge (or search) just about anywhere. If and what you find depends on where you are. In the streets of FC, for instance, you can find things like pogs, ashtrays, and religious tracts (among other things). The streets of gangland will yield cinder blocks, syringes, piles of scrap wood, crowbars, and even severed heads.

A popular spot for scavenging is the Sharpton projects (SH in gangland). In the projects you can find many useful items for crafting. Almost any component for a rifle can be found there as well as electronics equipment, spraypaint, and even lengths of springsteel.

The JunkRat mutation will help determine what you can find by using the 'sniff' command.

Vor starts sniffing around the room, poking her nose in every nook and cranny.
You think you could find tracts here.