Anyone familiar with scrapping metal?

[92saturnsl2]

I made my first trip to the scrap metal recycler, there's about 4-5 of them within a block or two of where I work in Louisville. So not terribly inconvenient (other than waiting in line) but definitely an interesting experience. I think I got more entertainment value out of the ordeal, than the money I received for metal.

I have a complex about throwing metal away; I know full well it's cheaper to recycle used metal than to dig new stuff out of the ground.

I separated the aluminum out and took those in separately. Got about $50 for aluminum alone.

They paid:

$0.30/lb for alum radiator
$0.38/lb for cast aluminum (intake manifold for example)
$1.00/lb for cast alum wheels
$0.78/lb for aluminum cans

For steel I think I really messed up here. I had several years worth of old axles (my cars and others' I work on are old enough that there's rarely a core charge), brake rotors, calipers, control arms, suspension components, etc. Probably 400-500lb. of heavy steel/iron car parts, with a lawnmower deck, blades, and other semi-heavy steel/iron. I had another 300 or so pounds worth or random metal like computer cases, thin gauge steel decking, mattress springs, etc.

I had to load all this stuff on an open utility trailer (sides are framed with angle iron but otherwise open), so I carefully put the heavy automotive parts (some of which are small) on bottom, then covered them up with random sheet metal, old mattress springs, whatever other misc. metal I had that would give me a semi-flat surface to put some tie-down straps over.

When I went over the scale, the fella flagged it as sheet iron, because that's probably all he could see other than mattress springs. After checking out, I see that it pays pretty terrible, 7 cents per pound. I walked away with $52 / 740lb of steel, which was semi-worth my time (no flat tires afterward thankfully!). I assume the heavy stuff pays better, should that have been separated out before hand or placed on top where they can see it? I'd hate to make two trips through the scale, the line was pretty long. Just wondering the best way to approach this in the future. Hopefully it'll be a few years, it was an experience I don't want to repeat very often I need to work on my "tweaker" look to fit in... Also do these prices seem in line with what you guys are seeing?

 

[Leo99]

My ex-wife's ex-boyfriend is/was a scrapper. Being an ex-con drug user it's hard to get regular work and scrapping has no background checks. It's hard work. He'd drive around garbage-picking and spend days grinding and cutting it all up in the driveway. There's got to be easier ways to make a few bucks.

My town has a recycling center with dumpsters for cardboard, metal, plastic, wood, aluminum, etc. I throw my metal refuse in there.

 

[92saturnsl2]

My ex-wife's ex-boyfriend is/was a scrapper. Being an ex-con drug user it's hard to get regular work and scrapping has no background checks. It's hard work. He'd drive around garbage-picking and spend days grinding and cutting it all up in the driveway. There's got to be easier ways to make a few bucks.

My town has a recycling center with dumpsters for cardboard, metal, plastic, wood, aluminum, etc. I throw my metal refuse in there.

Yeah I don't really do it for the money-- for the time I spent there, I could have made more money putting an extra hour or two in at work.

But every time I go to throw a piece of metal in the trash, my environmental conscience kicks in and and won't let me do it. I've got few neighbors and plenty of land to store junk metal, so I figure I may as well get paid for it than give it away.

 

[RhondaHonda]

I’ve scrapped an old aluminum patio set, maybe $80 for it, 4 Mustang turbine aluminum wheels, a Mustang 5.0 cat pipe and other junk. Took about 300 feet of copper wire that the builder used to provide electrical service when building our house, can’t remember how much that paid. It’s not worth a special trip but if I have something I’ll take it with me as there’s a place a mile or two from my mom’s house. Saw a tweaked there with 5 or 6 brake rotors, probably spent more in gas than he made. Definitely some interesting folks at the scrapyard.

 

[Wrenchturner44]

92, One of my former roommates from college has a little brother who owns a junkyard. He will tell you, and I that he is a sophisticated "Auto Dismantler". He lives in a small town community and probably has the second biggest spread in town, next to a relative of the Walton family......one of Sam's cousins. He told us recently that he had a record year in 2021, and 2022 is shaping up to be no different.

Whatever he is not selling for scrap he is selling as used parts to the body shops and insurance companies who are on the hook for repairing late model cars that they cannot get replacement parts for. He said his bigger ticket items are currently auto glass, and EGM, and BCM computers for cars that are less than 7 - 8 years old. He also has a dedicated machine just for crushing, grinding, and separating the ferrous metals and paper elements from oil filters. His shop also has some kind of heater that can burn the waste oil by-products as well as the oil soaked paper elements from the old filters. Talk about "making it" as a scrapper.

 

[Fitter30]

When i was working scrapped copper tubing all the time. Scrapped the last of my stuff 3 weeks ago $3.96 lb. Have seen prices like this ever. Stopped by HD priced wire and tubing totally shocked by the prices how insanely high they are.

 

[ET16]

I wish you could still buy scrap. Most places stopped selling to the public because of liability concerns.

 

[dlundblad]

I figured there’s little to no money in it. According to our neighbor, an old appliance would get picked up in a matter of hrs. Not so much now.

 

[TooManyWheels]

The way scrap places operate can vary widely. The best I've been to has various stations where you drop off the various metals and they will further segregate and pay you for them appropriately.

At the worst one they had a guy who looked at your load, maybe did a little probing, and offered you a per pound price for the whole thing.

The same is true for computer recycling. Some get more granular than others - some pay differently for the various types of boards, others go down to the materials in the boards.

Look up scrapping videos on youtube. Regular scrappers make a science of it. I saw one person analyzing whether it made sense to take control boards off hard drives.

To the OP - What I've seen is that scrap steel is scrap steel, no matter what form it's in. The only thing cheaper is steel breakage, i.e. steel with non-metals attached (handles, glass, etc).

 

[Number_35]

Yeah I don't really do it for the money-- for the time I spent there, I could have made more money putting an extra hour or two in at work.

But every time I go to throw a piece of metal in the trash, my environmental conscience kicks in and and won't let me do it. I've got few neighbors and plenty of land to store junk metal, so I figure I may as well get paid for it than give it away.

I've been to two different scrap yards here - the revenue barely covered the gas.

But like you I hate to see it go to the landfill, so I put out whatever I've accumulated in a cardboard box, and it always disappears. Probably do this 4 to 6 times a year.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I've done it a few times to get rid of stuff but I always end up with one or two flat tires after. So I try to avoid it. $3 in scrap to ruin a tire.

I do have to get rid of the original engine out of the grand marquis. I'll probably just let a scrapper take it . With how crazy the scrappers are around here, I could leave the engine block at the end of my driveway and it would be gone in 20 minutes.

 

[92saturnsl2]

The way scrap places operate can vary widely. The best I've been to has various stations where you drop off the various metals and they will further segregate and pay you for them appropriately.

That’s how the place I went to operated, there were separate stations for non-ferrous stuff. I thought they paid pretty good for aluminum, the scrap price for a cast aluminum intake and wheel was probably 75% of what I paid for the things at a junkyard a few years ago. They had a price breakdown for cast, wheels, radiators, alum. cans, etc. Aluminum cans paid pretty good.

The iron/ferrous metals is where I screwed up. They have several tiers of pricing, but the guy at the gate just peeks in your trailer or whatever and picks what he thinks you have the most of. I put sheet metal on top, so that’s all he saw, and it happens to pay the least. Had I put the 300+ pounds of brake rotors and suspension components on top, I’m sure I could have at least tripled what I made. But it’s awfully hard to secure loose brake rotors and misc sized parts to the top of a load.

 

[billt460]

I wish you could still buy scrap. Most places stopped selling to the public because of liability concerns.

+1 !!

That's where I used to get all of my scrap lead for bullet casting back in the 70's. Even scrap linotype and babbitt metal. You could buy the stuff for pennies a pound. I had a double gas burner smelting operation in my garage, and I could melt hundreds of pounds and cast it into 1 pound ingots.

The purchasing agent for where I used to work at the time had a friend who owned a local scrap yard. Once he got me almost 300 pounds of scrap lead pipe for FREE, that the guy didn't want to fool with because it was in long lengths.

I took along a set of big bolt cutters and a hammer. I flattened it and chopped it up into short lengths, and brought all of it home. I had bullet metal that I still have.

Now they've managed to mess that up as well. They'll all buy, but can't sell to the citizenry.