Richard Cranium
Well-known member
Strouty, hope things are going good for you.
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- Thread starter Strouty
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drivesitfar
Well-known member
Strouty: i doubt the winds would whip much more than that so congrats and hope it lasts until you figure out a permanent fix.
Nothing is going well right now. I am kind of thinking about giving up on the shop for a while. Too many other things that are more important and the shop takes away a lot of time and money. I am going to try and build a time budget and see where things take me, the shop is pretty low on the priorities and I need to get both my time and money in order before spending too much of either on it.
drivesitfar
Well-known member
Strouty: i can't imagine too much tower work in the wind and snow and cold weather so hope you can find other things to do because you have so so many skills.
maybe your DAD has work either in the office or shop that you can do better than he or his helper can? not sure you want to work for him, but maybe it might work for a temp solution.
i remember you saying you were looking for another cat or two and didn't hear if you found one. did you or are you still looking? you can also email me if you need to talk or bounce something off somebody.
good luck
maybe your DAD has work either in the office or shop that you can do better than he or his helper can? not sure you want to work for him, but maybe it might work for a temp solution.
i remember you saying you were looking for another cat or two and didn't hear if you found one. did you or are you still looking? you can also email me if you need to talk or bounce something off somebody.
good luck
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Richard Cranium
Well-known member
Strouty, if you need some one to talk to, I could call you again. Just an offer. P.m if you would like for me to call. Rich.
Richard Cranium
Well-known member
Hello Hello is there any one out there?
dittle fart around
Well-known member
Only you apparently.
dlcwent
Member Emeritus
Why don't we meet in Brunswick and share a couple of those umbrella drinks and shoot the **** for a while. I'll buy.
neonlazer
Well-known member
Too quiet in here! This forum ain't no fun without Strouty! Hope things are going better for you.
Thanks for the support guys, I have been taking a bit of a break. My elbow has been killing me lately. Looks like I am headed for another surgery, but this one is much less invasive. Today I did not take it easy, I spent a good part of the day loading outdated antennas and transmitters. I figure I will abuse my elbow until the surgery, then I can take the month off and do paperwork, I have a backlog of that, then I have a lot of things to sell on ebay. Here is some pictures of the stuff I am prepping for scrap, should be a good haul.
dlcwent
Member Emeritus
Nice. What are they paying for ppd copper around there? I see that copper is up right now.
DonPowers
Well-known member
Nice haul Strouty. My dad bought most of his toys from selling scrap.
The copper "tube" is actually a piece of air dielectric coax used for antennas. I removed the middle section of copper, it is held in place by a spiral of plastic. You can see it in one of the pictures. When I get back to it I will show my process.
As for prices, they **** right now. Bright copper is like $1.45 a pound and the stuff that has foam in it is at about 45 cents a pound. Part of me wants to wait for prices to go up, but I don't want to store it and handling it again costs me more time.
As for prices, they **** right now. Bright copper is like $1.45 a pound and the stuff that has foam in it is at about 45 cents a pound. Part of me wants to wait for prices to go up, but I don't want to store it and handling it again costs me more time.
drivesitfar
Well-known member
Strouty: all that work looks like NO FUN and probably more pain on those bad elbows. if you might be interested in a box of elbow supports that i used to use and some are still new in the box just PM or email me your shipping address and i'll fill up a flat rate USPS box and send it to you. i already need to go to USPS for a few other shipments so it might get to you next week.
isn't scrap steel still pennies per pound or are you getting better rates since yours is galvanized or do tell?
isn't scrap steel still pennies per pound or are you getting better rates since yours is galvanized or do tell?
jeffmoss26
Well-known member
Strouty, is that heliax cable?
Drives, thanks for the offer, but I have tried and own most every type of sleeve, brace, and magnet wrap thingy or gimmick I could find, they all seem to work somewhat, but never really did anything that would allow sustained relief. Knock on wood, it is only the left elbow, I had issues with the right, but that was almost a year ago and now it has been fine.
As for the scrap, there is nothing really steel, it is all aluminum, stainless, or copper and all of those are worth processing. The steel is worth nothing right now and will just sit in a pile out back until it either gets in the way or becomes worth it to haul away.
Jeff, it is heliax cable, most is 1 5/8" the air dielectric is 2 1/4". It is all from abandoned equipment on one of our towers, doing a bit of aerial spring cleaning.
As for the scrap, there is nothing really steel, it is all aluminum, stainless, or copper and all of those are worth processing. The steel is worth nothing right now and will just sit in a pile out back until it either gets in the way or becomes worth it to haul away.
Jeff, it is heliax cable, most is 1 5/8" the air dielectric is 2 1/4". It is all from abandoned equipment on one of our towers, doing a bit of aerial spring cleaning.
dittle fart around
Well-known member
In high voltage substations shielded cable is used to pass any induced voltage to ground. With 500,000 volts passing through the overhead buss control cables need to be protected. What you're picturing is shielded cable guts. Been there done that.
The plastic sheathing is removed then a braided ground strap is soldered onto one end of the cable and the lugged down to a ground buss. The ground buss is connected to the grounding mat. The grounding mat is a grid of 4-0 copper that is 12 to 18 inches below the surface that collects stray voltage and dissipates it over the entire grid.
YADA YADA YADA
drivesitfar
Well-known member
Strouty: i'm not sure i favored any of my tennis/golfer elbow aids, but a few of them provided some relief from my 24/7 pain. only problem with elbow and knee and other braces is while you are quieting down the joints, muscles and tendons in that area you are putting about 2 times or more stress on the other parts of your arm or leg. thankfully i don't need anything currently, but i still get pretty sore some days.
just curious since you bought the Teeter Up inversion table has your back pain been taken care of and have you been hanging 100% for 5 minutes at a time one or two times a day?
thanks for the 411 on the scrap and figures i have about 40 tons of steel that i'll have to learn to weld and do something with because as you mentioned it isn't currently worth anything to the scrappers. fortunately some of it is NOS so once i do learn to weld i'll plenty of raw materials.
take care
just curious since you bought the Teeter Up inversion table has your back pain been taken care of and have you been hanging 100% for 5 minutes at a time one or two times a day?
thanks for the 411 on the scrap and figures i have about 40 tons of steel that i'll have to learn to weld and do something with because as you mentioned it isn't currently worth anything to the scrappers. fortunately some of it is NOS so once i do learn to weld i'll plenty of raw materials.
take care
Richard Cranium
Well-known member
Sorry guys I have been missing with out leave. Work is busy, Which means a lot of people are having a real bad day. Rich
Drives, I have not been that consistent on the inversion table, my boots work the best so my ankles don't hurt and this time of year is either snow or mud. I have to play around with some of my other shoes and see if I can find some that work better.
Sorry to hear that got you so busy Rich.
I spent the day doing errands, then the afternoon gathering the rest of the coax from the tower site. Then I went back to the shop and off loaded the trailer, so now the shop is full. We are supposed to have a couple days of bad weather, so I figured it would be a good time to stay inside and prep things for scrap.
Sorry to hear that got you so busy Rich.
I spent the day doing errands, then the afternoon gathering the rest of the coax from the tower site. Then I went back to the shop and off loaded the trailer, so now the shop is full. We are supposed to have a couple days of bad weather, so I figured it would be a good time to stay inside and prep things for scrap.
drivesitfar
Well-known member
Strouty: good plan.
just an FYI. the ankle pain will go away as you use the inversion table regular for 5 minutes per day. at least mine did and does. i've stopped using it for a few weeks or months at a time during the last 8 or 9 years, but i think i've used mine at least daily now since maybe September or October for 5 minutes per day and sometimes 2 times for 5 minutes each.
good luck and you can PM or email me with questions if you have any.
just an FYI. the ankle pain will go away as you use the inversion table regular for 5 minutes per day. at least mine did and does. i've stopped using it for a few weeks or months at a time during the last 8 or 9 years, but i think i've used mine at least daily now since maybe September or October for 5 minutes per day and sometimes 2 times for 5 minutes each.
good luck and you can PM or email me with questions if you have any.
Richard Cranium
Well-known member
Will the scrap be worth the time to clean the coax?
dittle fart around
Well-known member
Looks familiar. When we replaced cable in the substation yard the old cable is lead shielded instead of copper.
We had pallets with built up sides to carry material from job to job. We would drag the old cables out onto the gravel and cut them to fit the 4 x 6 ft pallets.
One of the guys used to cut the outer cover of the cables and harvest the lead for fishing weights.
Good times, I'm telling ya, good times.
The coax that is in the back of the suburban is not worth doing anything to, each piece is worth about $1 as is. I could make it worth maybe $1.50 a piece (probably a bit less), but the mess it makes and the amount of trash I have left *****, so I am not interested in doing it. The stuff in the shop is fairly easy to get bare copper out of it, so I will process all of that and get about $1.50 a pound. The rest of the stuff is aluminum and stainless and is worth about 50 cents a pound, some of it is harder to process than other stuff, but I am going to feel things out before making my final plans. The old radios are full of copper and aluminum and will definitely take time to break down, I have done it before and it was also worth the effort. I am guessing it will take me a couple of days to get all of it processed and I should end up with a decent paycheck. I all ready scrapped a small load and it was just under $300, this is all icing on the cake, I was paid to oversee the removal and disposal of all of this equipment.
When we did strip outs I said the same thing, we called it our bonus, got some really nice ones too when copper was high, nothing like 2000lbs of bright #2 at >$3.50 a pound well worth the effort to process it.
mdbeck1
Well-known member
Sounds like a nice project for a cold windy day when you can sit in a warm toasty shop....
I gotta wonder... would it be faster to cut that copper pipe the long way with a bandsaw? Then you should be able to just pull the plastic away from it???
I have done that before, but I don't have a vertical bandsaw anymore. I tried it on a table saw and it works, but the kerf is too wide and it makes a mess. I spent about two hours today and got almost half of the coax done. The next half will be a bit slower, because I have to cut some of it into shorter pieces. The long pieces are much harder to do, but short pieces take more time for the setup.
dittle fart around
Well-known member
That stuff cuts the **** out of your hands. 
Only did that once. Always wear your PPE
Only did that once. Always wear your PPE
Upon arriving at the shop today I found everything to still be dry, so the billboards are doing the job perfectly. I also realized that I may have been a little generous in saying that I finished half of the coax, looks more like it was one third. I spent about 45 minutes working on it this morning and I am finishing lunch now, then it is back to it. Surprisingly my elbow is not killing me, but I am going to take some advil before going back to it. I will be at the shop later tonight as the GF has a dinner with some coworkers. Updates as I make more progress.
dlcwent
Member Emeritus
Good luck with the project. And hopefully the elbow will hold up for you.
The coax is all processed! I am about to head home and I am sure it is going to be a loud ride with all the copper clanging around. I guess I will have to remember that it is money the bank and ignore the noise.
The best part is the leftover plastic will all fit in the dumpster and there should be room for another bag or two. I was worried it would fill the dumpster and I would need to get it emptied in order to have all the trash gone, it is too late for this week, so I would have been stuck with it until next week.
The best part is the leftover plastic will all fit in the dumpster and there should be room for another bag or two. I was worried it would fill the dumpster and I would need to get it emptied in order to have all the trash gone, it is too late for this week, so I would have been stuck with it until next week.
Richard Cranium
Well-known member
I think copper prices are good right now. Most scrap is not worth the time, But I think I read that copper was up.
Richard Cranium
Well-known member
@11:37 pm last night our alarm went off, we also have a auto dialer, so it calls you and it will tell you what kind of alarm you are having, Our big refer which we keep product in went on the fritz. I had to go in and move about 800 units of product into a smaller refer. then comes the paper work to let the feds know that you have had disruption in Services.
Johnny Generic
Well-known member
What kind of frozen product do you store that the Feds have to know that you changed it's location?
Rich, copper prices are not so great, they have been much better.
I took the first load to the scrap yard and got $504, I am finishing loading the truck for the second load and I will report back. So far I have invested about 15 hours of time, maybe $50 in fuel and about $40 in various blades. I also had a smaller load that I took to the scrap yard when the job started, that got me $240.33.
Total so far $744.33 updates later on.
I took the first load to the scrap yard and got $504, I am finishing loading the truck for the second load and I will report back. So far I have invested about 15 hours of time, maybe $50 in fuel and about $40 in various blades. I also had a smaller load that I took to the scrap yard when the job started, that got me $240.33.
Total so far $744.33 updates later on.