And it gets worse... - Page 4

I know alot of this is my fault but.....Upon returning from vacation in August I came home to my garage emptied of all my Brass and Copper. Without going into details, the various metals combined to about 1800 lbs, much of which was bare bright. It was nearly impossible to move because of the "clutter" in the garage and the metal was way in the back. Probably someone in my own town. This is the second time (in 2 different houses). Police and detectives came, filled out reports and I haven't heard from them since. Wish there was a better way to keep track of large quantities of scrap being sold at one time....

It's usually the people that you keep company with. Sometimes it's one of the neighbors.

You might go around to the local scrapyards and let' them know your shop was hit. A large quantity like like that wouldn't go unnoticed of somebody tried to sell it.

Originally Posted by hills

I finally made a run to the yard today. It was pretty quiet. I was the only customer / vendor there. The small scale guys were great to deal with and it was a smooth process. Was hoping to average 1.00$ / lb. between the copper, ali, and everything else but it averaged to .91/lb. Still ... not terrible.

Gotta see how everything plays out over the next month, but i'm strongly considering buying a motorized wire stripping machine with the proceeds from this trip.

Maybe a Stripmeister and then add my own motor ? Haven't quite figured that part out yet.

" Power Tool Junkie "

i got the copper wire stripper cws 2. things a beast. if you got the volumes to feed it, you can make your money back easily. even doing what i did, buy the wire from the yard i worked at, strip it, sell it back. margins were thin doing that but i could generally average $20 an hour after the second day using it.

It's definitely a professional grade machine. Way to go for having good tools to work with.

It's a little out of my reach for the moment. What i was thinking is start small and then patiently build up to better equipment as i go along. I built some manual strippers out of scrap for stranded wire earlier this year.They work well enough for stranded but the cutter can't handle solid core wire.

Crushing seems like it would work with something like 14 - 10 ga. solid with one layer of insulation. The solid cuts it's own way out. Have you ever seen something like a sheet metal roller ? Something along those lines. I've been gradually collecting the parts n pieces out of scrap for the last few months. Thought i would take a run at building it sometime this winter when things slow down.

On the other hand ......

I'm all for re-investing the money already made from scrapping right back into tools that help me work more productively.

It snowballs that way. It starts out small and gets bigger as you go along.

Maybe i should jump ahead and just invest in a manufactured machine that i can buy with the money i've already i made on the last run to the scrap yard.

You know ... skip the home made tool step altogether ?

Here in Saint Paul, Minnesota one of our local scrap yards was down to $15 per ton for shred steel on Friday. They dropped from 40 per ton. The other local one was at 65 per ton and said they would be dropping their prices tomorrow. They are cutting workers hours here.at one local yard because they hardly are getting business. Not supposed to get any better pricing at least thru the end of the year and possibly longer. Soon they will probably accept steel as a donation.

It seems to be a common story lately.

I went to the yard, the workers were sweeping the floors, steel prices have dropped to little or nothing per ton.

It sort of makes sense though. The things we recycle become feedstock for manufacturing. If manufacturing is off ... it stands to reason that demand for our products will drop off.

It depends upon who you listen to ... but ... it looks like the manufacturing sector could be going into recession.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...rs/3832366002/

Originally Posted by hills

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...rs/3832366002/

This is unacceptable. The McRib isn't back in Colorado. I would go out of ketosis for one of those things. It's the article that showed for me behind the banner.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...19/3856789002/

At least three Las Vegas yards are only accepting tin for free right now and one is rejecting it entirely. One of our customers expects high grade aluminum borings to go as low as .10/lb in December, down from around .45 just 6 months ago. It you ever wanted to build something from iron or aluminum...now's the time lol

Originally Posted by SKWrapper

This is unacceptable. The McRib isn't back in Colorado. I would go out of ketosis for one of those things. It's the article that showed for me behind the banner.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...19/3856789002/

Hummm ... i dunno ... maybe our browsers display differently ?

The main banner that popped up was the story. The headline read:
More signs of recession? Slowing job growth, trade and factories add to economic worries

Anyway ... no matter ... In the grand scheme of things it's not all that important. We might have to hunker down and stockpile for a few years but things will eventually pick back up. They always do.

Holding steady at $.0275 per pound in western MA. Down from $.04 per pound a couple of weeks ago. I don't have a huge area to store it in, but I will not go below that price. That is what soft side sheds were invented for LOL I will store it for a bit. If you think of it in terms of the stock market, this is a good time to hunt for steel......hmmmm

Not sure why some of you are still looking for steel when there are so many other things to find that are worth so much more. SMH

If you look at steel from a business point of view:

There's the value of your time invested in picking it up and offloading it into storage.

There's equipment expense like wear & tear on the vehicle.

There's fuel expense.

There's the cost of a place to store it. Property tax, depreciation on buildings, and so on.

What's the anticipated ROI ? Simply put ... You've invested time and money into collecting steel. It does cost money to store it. How many years will you have to wait to see a return on your investment ?

I look at it this way.... I have the space to store it covered in my yard for free, so that is not an issue. From a business point of view it costs you money, but from my customers point of view, it reinforces our relationship. If I do not pick up steel and help them out, I may not get their copper, brass, lead or electronics later on. Be careful how you turn someone down when you tell them NO for their steel. Everyone has their way to scrap.

Yeah, totally agree guys. You can't pick and choose if you're providing a scrap removal service for a regular customer. You gotta take the good with the bad. That part of it wasn't clear.

Around here ... you could chase steel if that was your specialty but it would be pretty hard to make a living at it.