I felt like sharing this. In the course of scrapping useful parts and metals from junk when I might have otherwise been kicking back with a beer after work (when I can afford one) instead or being otherwise non productive I also built up a fairly non useful (money wise) pile of metal my scrap yard considers tin although I believe it is actually steel. No matter though. The steel bin was full and I decided to take it in for scrap after work. I got a whopping $1.11 for it! Now it may not seem like much but consider having a coupon for 10 or 25 cents off of an item at the grocery store. That's the way I looked at so basically, what would otherwise possibly be considered trash turned into a coupon for not 10 or 25 cents but rather a coupon for $1.11 off of anything in the store! I kind of like white corn chips so I found some that weighed 10 ounces each and cost 98 cents a bag which is a pretty good price anyway nowadays considering a bag of Santitas at 11 ounces costs around $2.49 and they are one of the cheaper brands. So I used the $1.11 I got from the 'junk' metal I wasn't doing anything with anyway in order to buy 20 ounces of white corn chips for a total of 85 cents that would usually cost $1.96 at this particular store! I know, I could have picked something more healthy perhaps to save money on but times are tough (at least around here) and I'm all for saving money. How often is it you find a coupon for $1.11 off of anything anyway? Again, that's the way I look at it and perhaps anyone else out there struggling to make ends meet during a difficult month with property taxes and everything else hitting you all at once will appreciate my input. There are lots of ways to hang in there and this happens to be one of mine.

 

I considered collecting and recycling scrap metal during this period of unemployment I'm going through, because I like recycling. But I didn't want to compete with people doing this who really need the money, so I give whatever metal I collect to them.

 

I considered collecting and recycling scrap metal during this period of unemployment I'm going through, because I like recycling. But I didn't want to compete with people doing this who really need the money, so I give whatever metal I collect to them.

That's quite noble and human of you Brownout. I hope you don't count me as one who doesn't need the money because I sure do and I'd say donations are gladly accepted but I have too much pride for that. There was a time when I ate out of garbage cans and my heart is right there with anyone who struggles to merely exist. Such things should never happen in America or anywhere else in the free world... well, these things shouldn't happen in the world at all no matter where the one who is struggling comes from. Let me tell you a little story about when I was on the streets. There was this man who always seemed to have a permanent smile on his face. He had this bushy beard that grew like no other beard I ever saw. I kept running into him the whole day and as evening was approaching I made my way to a Safeway dumpster in order to find something to eat. He had beaten me there and picked out what was left... some lettuce and maybe a bit of romaine and nothing else. I watched from a distance. Then this elderly lady showed up looking to get food too and she had this little push cart of some kind in order to hopefully carry the food to wherever she may have laid her head at night. What I saw next I will never forget. The man with the beard gave her all he had found to eat that night and she thanked him so graciously with a smile that could have powered worlds that the moment lives inside me every day of my life since then. It was a beautiful thing I was allowed to see and it has helped me through my walk in life in more ways than I can possibly explain. Please pardon my rambling but I see the two of them as clear as day once again after all these years and it does my heart good. Keep caring Brownout. The world needs more of that, by choice and not force I might add.

 

Oh believe me, if I didn't have other means, I'd be scrambling at sun-up each morning to collect as much metal as I could. Right now, I'm OK, and should be able to find work again before savings run out

 

Oh believe me, if I didn't have other means, I'd be scrambling at sun-up each morning to collect as much metal as I could. Right now, I'm OK, and should be able to find work again before savings run out

Glad to hear that you're OK right now and were able to save up. Me, I'm paycheck to paycheck with little hope for saving anything in case a calamity hits like when I fell and broke a couple of ribs at work. Didn't take L&I and suffered like hell to do my job through that because I don't think anyone else should have to pay my way via forced taxes. That just isn't right in my estimation! I could hardly breathe and moving or coughing made me wish I were dead and I came home and slept in a chair for months because I couldn't lie down without pain of terrible proportions and I couldn't use the toilet properly because my bowels wouldn't work and once they finally worked again I gained an anal fissure that still hurts like hell to this day one year later but I never took a dime from anyone else due to what I was suffering. Yet, our 'free' government (which is supposed to represent my will as well as the rest of the free people) now say that I must pay for health care I don't wish to partake in or pay a fine. Well, they took a hundred and ninety dollars via theft from me on the taxes this time around and I've heard tell it will be worse next year and the year after ad infinitum. Such things are wrong, unjust and darn sure not what our founders intended because people have forgotten certain vital things such as the Constitution itself which is apparently now often called an 'antiquated document'. Hang on to those fiat notes backed by nothing while you still can and I'll still buy 20 ounces of chips with the same fiat notes they give me from what I worked to earn with 'junk' scrap after regular work when I could have been doing the dumb downed thing and watching some idiotic tv show or other ritualistic idiocy that seems to be predominant in our society today. It is right to care about our fellow man but it is wrong to take things by force that rightfully belong to someone else. Too many people who claim to 'represent us' do not. Washington, Jefferson and a whole host of others agree and gave us a Republic that hopefully we can keep but it isn't looking very promising right now is it?

 

The process for scrap metal recycling from junk cars was a major engineering breakthrough:

https://www.asme.org/getmedia/2c664309-172d-48d9-a822-5327e310a107/179-Newell-Shredder-1969.aspx

Interestingly, it was invented by a rather mundane scrap metal dealer in Texas rather than the mighty steel industry.

 

Here's a tech factoid. You can always distinguish steel from tin with a refrigerator magnet. If the magnet sticks to it it must have iron in it. If not, then it is something else.

 

I've always done some scraping myself as well. However I am set up to handle it in larger volumes. Last year I hulled in most of my free standing prepared scrap pile and had about 15 tons worth of stuff.

As of now I figure I have bout 20 more in unprocessed stuff sitting around plus several hundred pounds of aluminum breakage and a few hundred of copper.

 

I've always done some scraping myself as well. However I am set up to handle it in larger volumes. Last year I hulled in most of my free standing prepared scrap pile and had about 15 tons worth of stuff.

As of now I figure I have bout 20 more in unprocessed stuff sitting around plus several hundred pounds of aluminum breakage and a few hundred of copper.

Call American Pickers; most likely you have old stuff they would want to keep. You could make more per pound selling off the Antiques.

kv

 

I prefer to do my own goodies sorting.

Having a commercial size plasma cutter, tractors, a forklift and a large track loader/dozer makes sorting the more valuable goodies from the bulk pretty easy.

It's just finding the motivation to do it is the problem. Seems like I always have too many other higher priority projects going on.

Most of the time scrapping is a way to vent my frustrations and anger about things but my wife finally came up with her own hobbies now that don't involve me or chewing my butt over tiny stupid stuff which was where most of my destructive motivators were coming from.

That and I don't need the money or the stuff out of my way at this time.

 

I am going to load my scrap metal into my van, starting in about 3 minutes. Probably not much more than 100 pounds, but half of it is copper or aluminum. Definitely worth more than $1.11

My best year was over $500, but I can't pick up every dead appliance I see beside the road after squishing a disk in my back last July. This is mostly to clean off the concrete next to my shed. Not really a monetary project.

 

I am going to load my scrap metal into my van, starting in about 3 minutes. Probably not much more than 100 pounds, but half of it is copper or aluminum. Definitely worth more than $1.11

My best year was over $500, but I can't pick up every dead appliance I see beside the road after squishing a disk in my back last July. This is mostly to clean off the concrete next to my shed. Not really a monetary project.

I'm saving the good stuff in containers Mr. 12! Figure I'll watch the price fluctuations and take the money material in when the price is right... and this has nothing to do with Bob Barker by the way!

 

Here's a tech factoid. You can always distinguish steel from tin with a refrigerator magnet. If the magnet sticks to it it must have iron in it. If not, then it is something else.

I know the TS said his yard calls it "tin", and they do it around here too. But when was the last time anyone saw something made of Tin? Most scrap yards call sheet metal "tin", as opposed to heavy steel, usually ~1/4" and thicker.

 

FWIW you can generally ID pure (and near pure) tin by the appearance of α-Sn patches on its surface --- That said, faulty synonymy with galvanized sheet steel seems to have become 'vogue'...

Actual Sn is a rather interesting substance, howbeit such considerations are likely lost upon the average salvage operator

Best regards
HP

 

Around here anything that is light gauge and painted like what home appliances are made of is considered tin and believe me most scrap yard workers are not smart enough to follow you on a scientific chemistry and physics based argument over why in fact it is not tin.

How long do you think your kitchen stove would last if it was made of a a metal that melts at ~450 F?

My estimate is slightly longer than that burn barrel I made out of a plastic barrel lasted that one time.

 

Around here anything that is light gauge and painted like what home appliances are made of is considered tin and believe me most scrap yard workers are not smart enough to follow you on a scientific chemistry and physics based argument over why in fact it is not tin.

How long do you think your kitchen stove would last if it was made of a a metal that melts at ~450 F?

My estimate is slightly longer than that burn barrel I made out of a plastic barrel lasted that one time.

Hehehe!!!

 

heres some info you maybe dont have

 

heres some info you maybe dont have

I appreciate the shares takao and I'm well aware of such info. The images that get me are the ones from the third world nations and sometimes I feel like I'm one of them. Well, I am because they are human beings too. Col. Irwin was one of our Astronauts on an Apollo mission and he always carried a marble around in his pocket and pulled it out when anyone asked him what it was like to be up there in space. He would say that he put his thumb and a finger together and held the world like a marble in his mind and visually while up there. So he'd say that we are all living on this beautiful blue sphere floating around in space and that is us.... all of us! The experience changed his life and he tried to tell everyone down here just how much we need one another and how beautiful this earth really is. Unfortunately there are a whole host of people down here who can't see the forest for the trees and cannot seem to manage to even allow their fellow brothers and sisters on earth to live freely as nature or nature's God intends for us all as if it was their place to either allow or disallow freedom. That's a shame.