Does anyone recycle metal? AKA scrappers

[swampthang]

I cleaned out the barn at the house I just bought and took a medium sized truck load to the scrap yard and got $50. Not to back I dont think. It was junk to me that I needed to get rid of anyways. So this has got me thinking about what else I can scrap to put alittle extra money in the playtoy account. So far I have been trying to seperate different kinds of metals to get maximum money. I have been getting copper wire from old broken electronics. Trying to get a pile of aluminum seperated as well. Anyone have any tips to give me so I can get the best bang for my buck?

[rdlsz24]

I used to help my dad scrap when I was younger. He worked as a laborer and they did a lot of demolition. Anyway, the guys he worked with would throw everything in the dumpster and he would dig it out. He would get lots of copper wire but it always had the coating on it. So we would go out to my grandparents place in the country and burn the coating off lol. Copper is worth even more now than back then. Another time we helped a guy take down a pole barn and he let my dad keep the aluminum panels. We took them on a trailer to the scrapper and got like $1500 lol

Rob

[hippyplz]

They wont take it here if they think you burnt the coating off anymore. Some epa thing.

[swampthang]

Is there any difference in the silver looking copper then the usuall looking copper color? I have two piles started of each. I think copper is around $3.75 a lb! Thats what i seen on the internet at least might be wrong:wondering

[Jeepermc]

I've done a little bit of it. Ran a few loads in while I was unemployed for a few months. Best day I had was about $950 in one day and two loads. Might have been able to double that, but it would have been days before I could have separated all the wire I had. Best thing to do is separate as much as you can to maximize the money you get.

[atc350xer]

Been scrapping since I was a kid... my dad was an electrician, so we had 55 gallon drums at a time to take in... BIG money then, way more now. I put new siding on my house last year, the old aluminum siding got me over $600.

[Howdy]

I have been scrapping for ever. 6 years or so ago I sold $6000 worth of scrap ( mostly copper, aluminum, stainless, brass, ect ). I got a friend into it 20 years ago. Currently we are sitting on 14+ tons of scrap right now. We stuff cars with cans, appliances, and other scrap.
We took a Dodge Caravan in a couple years ago. No motor, no tranny, and no tires. It was just stuffed full. It weighed 4.98 tons and we got $245 a ton.
I can pack a car with junk. The appliances get all the copper, brass, aluminum, ect removed before it goes on the car. Those metals gets scrapped seperatly.

What some people pay to get rid of I get paid from the scrap yard. I might use 5-10 city garbage bags a year here at home ( paying to have it hauled at $1.20 a bag ). If you know how to do it, you can save and make quite a lot of money scrapping. ;)
Howdy

[aldochina]

Is there any difference in the silver looking copper then the usuall looking copper color? I have two piles started of each. I think copper is around $3.75 a lb! Thats what i seen on the internet at least might be wrong:wondering

the silver looking copper is what they call tinned. it is considered #2 and is worth a little less than the #1 or red copper. Been scrapping copper for 15 yrs, all through my apprenticeship i was getting alot. It was bringing 60 to 90 cents, 18 to 20 cents for insulated. Scrapped thousands of pounds at those prices. Of course i never see it now when its worth a fortune!!

[hoosierlogger]

I am a small time penny hoarder. I have a machine that separates the copper pennies (pre 1982) from the zinc ones (post 1982). If the govt. does away with the pennies, we are free to do with them as we please. If not it is still worth a penny. They are currently worth 2.47 cents scrap value each. People pay $0.02 each for them on ebay. I advise you to save your copper. It is like silver was in the 70's and the value will continue to increase.


Farm auctions are a good way to buy scrap metal. NO ONE uses discs and plows any more. They can be picked up pretty cheap at auctions because nobody wants them. If you buy a 6 bottom plow for $30 you can get about $ 60 for it at the scrap yard. And most of the time they will help you load it at the auction.

I keep an eye open behind barns and along fence rows. you would be surprised what people will give you just to get it out of their way.

[swampthang]

Funny you said that about the pennies. I just watched a video about them on youtube the otherday and already have started to seperate mine. How can you tell if an 82 is copper or zinc? I've been putting all my 82's in one pile by themselves. I don't have a mountain of pennies but I had a big 48oz coffee can full of both kinds of pennies when I started. Prolly weighed over 25lbs.

My old barn had power ran to it back in the day but has sense been unhooked. the wiring looks pretty scary and I plan on replacing it when I run power back. I image I have a couple hundred feet in wiring just waiting to be seperated.

[hoosierlogger]

Funny you said that about the pennies. I just watched a video about them on youtube the otherday and already have started to seperate mine. How can you tell if an 82 is copper or zinc? I've been putting all my 82's in one pile by themselves. I don't have a mountain of pennies but I had a big 48oz coffee can full of both kinds of pennies when I started. Prolly weighed over 25lbs.

My old barn had power ran to it back in the day but has sense been unhooked. the wiring looks pretty scary and I plan on replacing it when I run power back. I image I have a couple hundred feet in wiring just waiting to be seperated.

Copper pennies are heavier. My machine sorts them by their electrical conductivity. Coper and zinc have different resistance. The machine decides in a fraction of a second which bucket to put them in. It is pretty accurate. I double check them all and get very few errors.

[84honda200s]

i did it for a few years (while laid off), everyday for about 9 hours a day. if you wanna break it down into categories it takes time and effort. most scrap yards have their own guide lines as to what falls under what. but ill give ya examples from the place we use to go too.

aluminum seems simple rite ? not..
there is irony (aluminum with steel mixed with it), clean (no grime no dirt no other metals or alloys), cast (mostly found on engine ceases/blocks but has to be stripped of all other metals)... clean aka pure pays the most of all of them.

steel well its not so bad.. you have auto steel (car bodies, trucks and so on), sheet (lawn tractors, steel roofing, hoods, snowblowers, ect.) then short iron (3 ft or shorter and at least 1/8 thick) short pays the most and many yards wont accept railroad steel without a permit

copper is just crazy.. copper 1 (copper wire from a car,power cords) .. pure bright (stripped clean) and so on depending on the yard you go to.. never did much with copper.. too much time and hassle.

brass .. way too many to even mention

cast iron .. well as far as i know there is only 2 .. engine and industrial




ohh and dont get caught scrapping pennies !! it is in fact illegal.

[Lord Letto 20]

I think it's OK to scrap pennies here in Canada now that the Penny is out of circ or not being made anymore or whatever, if not now then soon.
Edit: My Brother used to collect scrap and bring it in, but not lately, I would be interested in it though considering i'm currently unemployed and the money I would get for doing it would help save up for summer vacation and then whatever I get after getting what I need for summer vacation can go towards saving to get a Trike Again, would mainly be wire by going around and picking up old TVs and other Electronic items and Cut off the Cords and strip them for the Wires inside.

[briano]

The last truck that I scrapped, I paid $100 for and drove it for 3 1/2 years. Then scrapped it and got almost $400. I alwayshave a little scrap laying around that I pick up here and there, one or two loads per year. What the heck it's easy money and lots of times I pick up junk for free.

[sledcrazyinCT]

Man all I can say is I have recycled for years. Some times it was just nice to have a scrap yard that you could drop light steel with plastics and tires mixed in the years when the local dump would charge to take that stuff

Then it hit the point that a car could bring you 300+ and vans and light trucks were around $500. Last January I scraped over 7 ton in one load and came out with $1685!

Only bad thing is the amount of old cool equipment and spare parts that have gone to scrap. Most places won't let you pull an old sled or dirt bike out of their yard once they own it damn shame

[hoosierlogger]

Only bad thing is the amount of old cool equipment and spare parts that have gone to scrap. Most places won't let you pull an old sled or dirt bike out of their yard once they own it damn shame

Thats no lie. I saw about 200 steel mail boxes that there was nothing wrong with, a subdivision got new ones. I tried to get a couple of them. guy said no they couldn't do it. All I wanted was a couple of spares. We had a brief spree of mail box bashings on the road I live on. It gets expensive replacing a mailbox every week.

[swampthang]

Guy that runs the local scrap yard here is pretty cool. He knows what stuff is worth and if someone brings in a vehicle thats worth something he has them put it to the side so he can try and sell it to someone for a project.

[spaghetti]

Yeh the local yard has an old 1920's ford sitting up on a semi trailer and they pull out all kinds of cool trailprotrailprotrailprotrailpro. Scrapped an old john deere yard tractor there once and it sat to the side for years.
And copper is awesome! I think it's $2.50/lb for #2 and $3.50 for #1.