First time taking in steel/tin/shred

While I've been scrapping non-ferrous for many years(20+), tomorrow will be the first load of "shred/tin/light iron" that I've ever brought in to a scrap yard. I've got four barrels of nothing but bandsaw and sawzall blades that weigh around 3100 lbs total. Called my local yard on Tuesday and they said $135 per ton. I'm looking forward to breaking this ice.

Band saw blades and sawzall blades aren't tin. Most are L6 steel - which has a relatively high nickel content. Have the yard hit it with a gun - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Do you know what kind of gun he's referring to DWJ? Some yards won't have them, you might should call around and ask

I've got another five barrels of "shred" from the computers I've been breaking down, maybe 1500 lbs. A lot less weight than my "blade barrells" but I think these will now be my first run of ferrous to the yard, I know this is all plain metal. Thank you all for helping me with grading possibilities!

i've never seen or used one either, i've only seen them talk about em

Originally Posted by DWJ

I've got another five barrels of "shred" from the computers I've been breaking down, maybe 1500 lbs. A lot less weight than my "blade barrells" but I think these will now be my first run of ferrous to the yard, I know this is all plain metal. Thank you all for helping me with grading possibilities!

I just took about 1300 lbs of stripped towers to my very local yard the other week. It was labeled by them as "light iron" and I came away with $115 @ .09 lb.

Called several yards after the holiday regarding the high nickel steel. First one said no thanks, second one said they're not interested unless I had 5+ tons, third yard said I'd need over 10tons for them to be into it. The guy I talked to at the third yard, asked me a lot of questions about the material I had and put me in touch with a friend of his,who buys used industrial equipment. After talking to him for a while and a couple of pictures of the rusted coils, we agreed upon a price of $600 for 32 coils of the bandsaw blade. His guys came by today, handed me 6 benjamins and left with the coils. 32 coils of blade @48 lb. each =1536 lbs. 1536 lbs/$600=$0.39/pound or $780/ton. Thank you Waredu for getting me started on this journey!

Also, on Friday I took in my first load of non-ferrous to my local yard. I had 1760 lbs. @ $130/ton for $114.40. I don't know why I was intimidated about going to a steel yard, it was as easy as I could've imagined. Drive in, weigh, go where they told me, dump, drive out, weigh again, get paid and go home. Now I'm ready to do this over and over and over!

Originally Posted by DWJ

Called several yards after the holiday regarding the high nickel steel. First one said no thanks, second one said they're not interested unless I had 5+ tons, third yard said I'd need over 10tons for them to be into it. The guy I talked to at the third yard, asked me a lot of questions about the material I had and put me in touch with a friend of his,who buys used industrial equipment. After talking to him for a while and a couple of pictures of the rusted coils, we agreed upon a price of $600 for 32 coils of the bandsaw blade. His guys came by today, handed me 6 benjamins and left with the coils. 32 coils of blade @48 lb. each =1536 lbs. 1536 lbs/$600=$0.39/pound or $780/ton. Thank you Waredu for getting me started on this journey!

Glad that worked out as well as it did - $780/ton is a lot better than the $160/ton I just got on a load of computer carcasses I just took in.

What I usually do if I am not 100% sure of what I have metalwise is google it. I knew band saw blades weren't just regular steel from having sold them years ago. So I googled "band saw blade composition". The first few links took me to a couple of manufacturers that described what metal they used. I had to do the same thing with the submersible pumps I get - turns out they're made out of stainless steel.

Volume makes a big difference before you sell as shred. Thanks for the reminder to everyone here.

how in hek do you fit computer towers in a barrel?

Bear, it requires an 8 lb. sledgehammer, a six-pack, and a little bit of energy!