This post is going to help you identify some expensive alloys you may not have known about
Are you getting paid enough for your 316 grade Stainless Steel? Are you giving away free cupronickel?
Do you know what you are selling?
Here is a small sample of ALLOYS people often SELL FOR THE WRONG PRICE!
CUPRONICKEL
- a fancy way of saying copper/nickel alloy
- is worth much more that copper 1.
- Some yards will cheat and try to buy this stuff as brass or cheaper.
- is actually at least 30% Ni, sometimes up to 90%, which is 3 times as expensive as copper.
- Is often used in fake jewelry, silver-plated dinnerware, silver-plated anything, ship making, salt water pipes, heat exchangers or elements, thermocouples, musical instruments and more...
- You my have to shop around until you find a yard that will buy this for a great price without trying to screw you.
316 GRADE STAINLESS STEEL
- is non magnetic
- has about 3% more nickel/less chromium then 304 stainless, but is worth up to 50 cents more per pound depending on the yard.
- To me and most scrappers, it looks exactly the same as 304 stainless.
- Have your yard check with an XRF gun if you're curious.
- look for a "316" stamp.
ELECTRIC HEATING ELEMENTS
- The heating elements out of an electric stove are all made of a majority nickel alloy.
- If you have a lot of them, get payed for them!
- have your yard check all heating elements with an XRF gun so you can get payed the right price.
- Your price for heating elements should be at least the price of 316 Stainless.
Permalloys
- used in HDDs, aka computer hard drives; they are the supermagnet's bracket.
- in giant transformers on power lines to control EMF.
- in the blocking of magnetic fields because of their high permeability.
- made from a majority of nickel, with some iron and maybe molybdenum.
- have your yard check all heating elements with an XRF gun so you can get payed the right price.
- Your price for any Permalloys should be at least the price of 316 Stainless.
If a yard says they do not want to pay you for nickel alloys, politely tell them that you will sell it to a yard that does. Then do so.
Scrapping is not black or white... There is a decent grey area involved. The job of a scrap yard is to settle the grey areas, while of course making the most profit. The job of us scrappers selling metal, in a sense, is to argue those grey areas so we get the best price.
Now, I'm not saying you should start an actual argument; but fighting your case for a expensive metals is important. Ever since I started out I had to fight for a fair price, and although the game has changed a bit since I started, that part has stayed the same.
Now, I'm not saying you should start an actual argument; but fighting your case for a expensive metals is important. Ever since I started out I had to fight for a fair price, and although the game has changed a bit since I started, that part has stayed the same.
Hi, Great information, anything that helps someone like me who is not sure exactly how to do this, is great. Thanks Nell Rose
ReplyDeleteI found your site while looking into the possibility of dealing with CRTs I have sitting around that don't work at all or are too dim to bother with anymore.
ReplyDeleteAlso I was curious at auctions I sometimes go to for vehicles and such why the people were buying skids of CRTs...sometimes they'd get a dozen or so for a dollar. Now they actually get some competition. I finally asked one guy and he told me he gets about 6 bucks of metal out of a CRT, he said copper but Im assuming it's others and he just wanted to keep it simple.
So I thank you for providing the information since a lot of people are very reluctant to do so. I know my father had some snowblades that were pretty battered and rusting...and other items. Adding up to tons of steel and barely getting enough to bother taking it to the scrap yard. I found the place to be full of people who don't really want to explain anything to you if they spoke English at all.
So I am hoping you can maybe cover this subject specific to computer components, because it almost seems like even if I could get all of the metal out of them as you have shown in your other blog posts that the left over pieces would be a pain to deal with. The glass and the plastic casing. Zoning and other government agencies have been on people's backs with fines and stuff (to generate money obviously) but just one fine would make it difficult to make money.
Also I have pretty bad carpal tunnel and working with my hands for extended periods screws my ability to grip up for days, I need surgery to address it...and need money for the surgery...and you see the cycle there I hope.
Im looking into anything to make money, I have to be honest that scrappers do not have a good reputation in my area (thieves). So I think I would primarily do it to things I might end up with at auctions or things I can get from friends who have them sitting around wondering what to do with them to be legal.
Im very serious about the local government and such cracking down on anything that could violate zoning or disposal laws....so the remains of the monitors are a big deal if they can't be simply thrown away. Can't keep tons of anything around that creates an eyesore.
Also, are there possible health hazards that being exposed to things in these CRTs and other computer hardware people should be aware of? I know computers can develop microscopic tin hairs that usually result in a short and damaging of electronics...and that breathing those in can be very bad for you. Your lungs can't deal with non-water based foreign particles.
I know that every waste management system is different, so you need to check with your local waste management service. All of the monitors I scrap are collected by me whenever I see people throwing them in the trash near my house, and sometimes large companies that wish to dispose of their obsolete computer systems. The collection trucks that come by will usually grab them, even though I don't really think they a supposed to. I will usually throw whatever waste I have back into the trash where I got it. If your local government is seriously cracking down, dont even bother with this type of scrapping.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to buy skids full of computer towers (the actual machines) then there is a lot of money to be made from those! Computers have many precious metals, especially components like RAM, processors, and PCI cards. If you want some more info on how to collect those, please don't hesitate to send me an email with your questions or suggestions at TheIrrationalist@gmail.com or ScrappingMetalBlog@gmail.com.