Scrap Yard Trip

[nahudson]

Making my first trip ever to the Scrap yard tomorrow. I don't think I have any thing big, maybe 70 pounds mainly just metal, and about 10 pounds of the non magnetic stuff (I know there is a fancy word for it, but I cannot think of it). small amount of brass and copper and probably about 3 pounds of just wire, with plastic still on it. So anyways, I am not expecting much. However I would like to have a little knowledge of what to expect.

Anyone suggest anyway to maximize my earnings or some tricks of the trade

 

[sharkytm]

Depending on what your non-magnetic stuff is (stainless, lead, tin, etc), you'll be lucky to get more than $40. Depending on how far you've got to go, it may not cover fuel.

There's a reason we wait until we've got 2500# plus of iron, and 50# minimum on everything else.

 

[nine4gmc]

my scrap guy says heavy metal is up, he gets about $360 per ton for clean and about $250 per ton of mixed steel. idk about the non ferrous, brass or copper prices.

 

[nahudson]

Depending on what your non-magnetic stuff is (stainless, lead, tin, etc), you'll be lucky to get more than $40. Depending on how far you've got to go, it may not cover fuel.

There's a reason we wait until we've got 2500# plus of iron, and 50# minimum on everything else.

I am not going very far, maybe 10 miles, I am not expecting any more than about 20 bucks.

 

[e30bradley]

70lbs light iron is worth about 7 bucks..

 

[booya719]

Wow we are getting fleeced up here. My last load of scrap steel all I got was 4 cents a pound. I got a whopping $48 for 1200 pounds of iron.

 

[fourjeepin]

I went a couple of weeks ago and am going again tomorrow (slowly gutting an old house). I got $3 a lb for bare copper. $1.85 for yellow brass. $0.13 for scrap. And $1.10 for insulated copper wire. With Romex, I strip it if 10ga or bigger. Smaller gauges I at least pull the grnd wire out.

I got $175 last trip. Two old copper lights and one pool heater accounted for most of the value. Nat gas pool heaters are loaded with copper and brass.

 

[Bkf350SD]

I get 0.08 a pound for steel/iron metal, 0.50 per pound for clean aluminum and 0.35 for mixed aluminum....

 

[ncfh]

Usually the places with the best prices have minimum quantities. As in "bring at least 1000lbs of steel or don't waste our time."

Being a new face with random bits, they may be somewhat suspicious. Lots of thieves, junkies, dreamers, and other losers showing up at the scrappers these days.

There are some yards who will let you rummage or even pick out and hold stuff for you, but there are other yards who will not allow any shenanigans no matter who you are.

Call around and know the going rates in your area, and no matter what anyone says, it's ALWAYS negotiable. lol

 

[slip knot]

Mixed loads bring much less than segregated loads. My last load of shred metal brought @ $3.00/100 but the prepped steel (short pipe and small pieces of steel) was bringing $11/100. Bright bare copper was at $2.85/lb. Don't burn it or you wont get **** for it. Aluminum cans is cans only. if you got other **** in with the cans they'll cut you too.

2 yrs ago I hauled enough scrap that the yard sent me a 1099 form, bastards. Had to pay taxes on it.

 

[ncfh]

Yeah, up here the state is auditing the yards at regular intervals.

We do a monthly run that we split. A few years ago the yards started requiring ID and we used to send the same guy every month for like two years straight, that is until the state wanted their pound of flesh from him.

Now we take turns and pray. lol

 

[geologist]

Wow we are getting fleeced up here. My last load of scrap steel all I got was 4 cents a pound. I got a whopping $48 for 1200 pounds of iron.

Long iron? I'm doing a hell of a lot better than that.

 

[nahudson]

Thanks, interesting stuff, I think it will be just a fun experience and we will see what I can get.
The plus side is that I am getting a lot of **** out out of my garage, so if I can make a couple of bucks, maybe enough to stop and 7-11 and buy a can or two of beer I will be happy

 

[TwoInch]

Bright bare copper was at $2.85/lb. Don't burn it or you wont get **** for it.

yards here give full price for burned copper(burned, rinsed). coppers dont like the billowing black smoke tho....

 

[Ft.ValloniaStreaker]

Just remember the less the yard has to do, to what you take them the more their likely to pay you for it.....Insl. copper wire is $1.00 a lb...stripped you get $2.90, or you may have a large piece of brass, but one small set screw will drop your price over a dollar a lb. Strip down everything before you take off.....and if you plan on going often ask the guys in the yard how they like things sorted......less work for them means more money for you.

 

[wafrederick]

Have to watch it when burning off the coating off of copper wire,I know of one township that will give a ticket for that.Brass,there is red and yellow brass and there is a way you can tell them apart.Batteries out of cars,you get $7.00 to $8.00 a piece and this is one reason why battery core charges are high.

 

[RobertMo1988]

i just took in 3 loads my self 4600lbs, 7800lbs, and 4400lbs! unprepared #2 or 1 i dont remember is was 2 something a ton

 

[woody 73]

My last load was a few years ago I think maybe 700lbs of steel but they gave me such a small amout of money back making it not worth the trip. Here In Central Ohio you must give them your fingerprints and now a photo. They even have lists of people that they will not take their scrap anymore (stealing Manhole covers, breaking into homes for the wire,etc.)

The best advice I could give is to stockpile a heavy load and seperate it out as best you can, and only make just the one trip in order to save on gas.

 

[zuk123]

I've been cleaning my shop and scrapping out leftover auction items that didn't sell.

In Houston, there is a small scrap guy on just about every corner, next to the used tire guys

Rates fluctuate daily. The one closest to my shop buys lead batteries, motors, transformers, plumbing parts, aluminum cast and extruded, steel/iron (what they call "metal"), copper bare, and covered. 25c to 65c for the motors and transformers, 65c to $3 for aluminum, wire, bare copper and brass depending on what it is. 8c to 10c for steel. Bare metal, sorted will get you the highest value classifications.

I spend an hour or 2 at the shop, busting things up (think old printers, electronics, NOT machine tools!) and I drop it off on the way home. I usually end up with $30-60 for my time, and I get the shop cleaned up too.

One thing I haven't found anyone to buy is circuit boards or hard drives. Ink cartridges and toner cartridges are worth taking to the right place, not the scrapper. Office Depot will give you a couple bucks credit for each one, toner recyclers do even better.

You'll get some cash, clean up your place, and get a nice feeling for helping the planet.

Win win in my book!

zuk

 

[G_P]

There are several places out there that will buy high grade circuit boards. They pay pretty well too. Regular boards out of tv's and radios and such are not worth much but computer boards and boards out of some DVR/dish boxes are worth quite a bit.

Also any board with gold plated contacts is going to be worth saving up and shipping off to an electronics scrapper.

 

[fourjeepin]

Scrap prices are down from my trip a couple of weeks ago. Steel was 12 cents a lb and insulated copper 90 cents per lb.

 

[shurik06_83]

Last week 380lbs got me 41$ nothing fancy just parts of junk cars

 

[booya719]

Wow 12 cents a pound? I would have gotten $144 with your rate instead of $48. 4 cents was actually the best rate I could find anywhere near me. All the other scrap joints within a hundred mile radius were offering 2 cents a pound, and one with 3 cents. You could go in with a semi truck full and it's not worth your time and money in fuel to drive there. Especially in Canada we pay over 5 dollars a gallon for fuel. It would cost me more in fuel to drive there in back than they'd give me for my iron.

I'm better off welding my scrap iron together and making anchors out of it or something. At least it was a good lesson learned for me that it's not worth the effort to take in scrap steel up here. Other metals are worth it though, like copper. I've heard a lot of stories out the states of guys stealing copper from construction sites for the purpose of cashing it in at a scrap yard. All I ever use in my work is iron though...so I never come across any rare or valuable metals in anything I work on.

 

[Greg-nwo]

We had a person(s) steal all the ground wire from a tower site we operate... not cool... 3 million dollars worth of equipment ungrounded and a storm was supposed to arrive that night. Police figured it was a crew that was going cross country hitting places along the way. Never heard if they caught them or not.

 

[geologist]

We had a person(s) steal all the ground wire from a tower site we operate... not cool... 3 million dollars worth of equipment ungrounded and a storm was supposed to arrive that night. Police figured it was a crew that was going cross country hitting places along the way. Never heard if they caught them or not.

Someone stole all the grounds from the larger poles in my neighborhood yesterday. When a copper thief fries, I smile. I can't stand thieves.

 

[zuk123]

I saw pictures of a guy stealing copper buss bars from a Con Ed substation.

Took 13.8KV and blacked out a neighborhood.

The surprising thing was that he looked mostly normal. It blew off all his clothes, except the soles of his shoes, so naked, but pretty normal.

There were some other effects, but due to the G rated nature of GJ I won't go into details. Really wish I'd never seen the pictures. It's been years and it still sticks with me.

zuk

 

[osborn.ozzy]

Someone stole all the grounds from the larger poles in my neighborhood yesterday. When a copper thief fries, I smile. I can't stand thieves.

When I lived in Toledo I had that happen, you could tell they just used a hatchet or something because its was cut 7-8ft from the ground.

 

[warmpancakes]

meth heads up in the UP stole a car to ram a power pole then tied the downed wires to another car and drove away with about 2 miles of power line

 

[nine4gmc]

I saw pictures of a guy stealing copper buss bars from a Con Ed substation.

Took 13.8KV and blacked out a neighborhood.

The surprising thing was that he looked mostly normal. It blew off all his clothes, except the soles of his shoes, so naked, but pretty normal.

There were some other effects, but due to the G rated nature of GJ I won't go into details. Really wish I'd never seen the pictures. It's been years and it still sticks with me.

zuk

a guy got hit by a substation transformer here a while back, wtf are these guys thinking?!

 

[chris142]

we scrap our Copper radiator cores. just 1 screw and they will call the whole pile cpntaminated. not just the one core. often they try to screw you once its unloaded as they know that you're not goingto reload it all. they tried that a few times with me. tried to tell me that copper radiators are contaminated with solder. they fingerprint and see id and we have to wait 3 days to get paid. have to make2 trips

 

[nahudson]

I am super new to this, but it turned out that I had 113# of steel/alum/tin and 11 pounds dirty cooper and I think a few pounds of, I think he said 25 cooper, these wires were not stripped. I went to a recycling center near my home, pretty easy, I got $23 bucks, so overall I was happy
I think steel was like $.05 pound
I really did not pay as much attention as I should have, but I am pretty happy to get bunch of **** our of my garage and only drive about 15mins round trip and get $23 bucks.

They did say in here in OKC, that they will not accept burned cooper, it its illegal for them to do so

 

[toomanytoyzz]

We had a run of Tweakers around Philly robbing the ornate (and expensive) brass door knockers off of wealthy home owners in Society Hill and surrounding neighborhoods.

What cracks me up is if you're the guy weighing the scrap how in the hell do you justify a shady looking dude scrapping twelve door knockers. Do you think it's from his vacation homes???

Another situation I see alot is guys bringing brand new spools of copper tube to scrap. What didn't the job pan out, and you lost the receipt to return it???