Scrapping Grandpa's Hogfarm

Hey I been tasked with scrapping Grandpa's farm.... I dont how to tell different metals apart and I been looking for market trends for metal turn-in... Back in April I know the price was .06 for them gates but now its a .05 ... how do i know when the market is right? how do I learn metal types? I had thought clean metal meant washed down, lol, I found out that it means no mixed metals.... I been going to Picketts near dayton, Ia... well this is my start of questions.... I will be back with more I am for sure...

Timing the market is usually a futile practice. Ive been trying for two years and got lucky. Emphasis on lucky. Generally, early Spring and Fall will be best unless the metals market needs to replenish stock for some reason (usually heavy building/construction).

As for metal types - first is ferrous (magnetic) and non-ferrous (non-magnetic). Non-ferrous is worth more per weight. Most common non-ferrous metals are; Aluminum, Copper, Lead and Brass. There are several grades of each and price depends on dimensions. Stainless steel can be almost any degree of magnetic; from not at all to very.

Any scrap yard should have published prices. Get a sheet or copy them down. Ask questions; they dont mind. Ask if they publish a guide on how to prepare stuff by size and any special conditions. For any long pieces of iron (includes steel), youll have to decide if its worth the time and expense to cut it down so it'll be worth more overall. If a piece has several types of metal, you might want to just cut off the nonferous sections that are easily separated

hmmm.... i must have got lucky on the spring market, but I tried a couple days ago so late summer aint good... i was thinking january february would be the best times when nobody wants to do it....

In January/February, they may be on their Winter prices. Try in the middle of September, then again in March or April. I use the website London Metal Exchange (LME) to track price trends. Wont tell you what prices are locally, but lets you track the global market. The local market usually follows the LME.

EDIT - I just checked and the site is actually called KITCO. Their data is from LME.

Id use a angle grinder on the nail heads. But then, thats my answer to almost everything. I dont even have a cutting torch.

Someone on here was doing mobile home siding and was using a shovel of some sort to slide under the sheet and pry up which either popped out the screws or opened up the holes enough for the metal sheet to come loose.