I guess scrapping doesn't always go as planned.

Originally Posted by wannabescrapper

I have been trying to get to town and sell my meager scrap pile for two weeks so I can use the funds to buy many tools that will make scrapping much easier. Mainly I need a vise, some small screwdrivers to open up a laptop and some security torx so I can open up these satellite receivers I have so many of. I was supposed to go in today but when I woke up there was a pretty good snowstorm happening and probably 5 inches of snow on the ground. It's a very windy, hilly 1.5 hour trip to the scrapyard and on April 15 the winter shift was over for the highways so they were down to one plow/sander. I decided that I could wait until it got warm except tomorrow night I start on night shift again and they are 12 hour shifts so I will need to sleep some during the day tomorrow and a trip to town wouldn't be prudent.

So I will fill the van up with stuff I have that I can scrap now, and that is safe to breathe. I have a bunch of radiators from a/c units to process but I want to limit the dust from cutting, grinding while cooped up in a vehicle. I have a few tvs and a really old microwave I could do, as well as some other e scrap I could break down. I have to work until Sunday for sure and can maybe get into town on Monday if no jobs come up but by then I will have more than the van is capable of carrying so I might have to leave some shred at home.

I have lots of room for storage but I hate having these piles of shred that aren't worth the space to haul them to town. The van can take about 1200 lbs payload and I'm sure I have that much shred now. I have the option to take it to the dump for free but that seems like an even bigger waste. Maybe take 200 lbs of copper and aluminum and 1000 lbs of shred so the trip makes more than $50?

What about you folks? Does everything go the way you expect? Do you try to keep stuff cleared out or just keep piling stuff up?

No one else on this forum will tell you about the silver soldered elbows located on one end of the AC evaporators and condensers, I save them and melt them into an anode then part the copper over to a stainless steel cathode. The slime left in the copper parting cell will be silver along with some other elements.

I your cutting compressors open for the copper windings from the motor be advised the oil even after the unit has been evacuated will still hold some Freon, two things about Freon it's heavier than air and also when it comes into contact with a flame creates phosgenea nerve gas.

Source

Notably, phosgene is a poisonous gas and poses a serious threat to health. Car Fires Freon is used as a refrigerant in car air conditioning systems, and older models have the R-12 variety of the gas. If such a car catches fire, it is important not to inhale the fumes because the R-12 will turn into phosgene (nerve gas), a lethal chemical.

Originally Posted by wannabescrapper

I have been trying to get to town and sell my meager scrap pile for two weeks so I can use the funds to buy many tools that will make scrapping much easier. Mainly I need a vise, some small screwdrivers to open up a laptop and some security torx so I can open up these satellite receivers I have so many of. I was supposed to go in today but when I woke up there was a pretty good snowstorm happening and probably 5 inches of snow on the ground. It's a very windy, hilly 1.5 hour trip to the scrapyard and on April 15 the winter shift was over for the highways so they were down to one plow/sander. I decided that I could wait until it got warm except tomorrow night I start on night shift again and they are 12 hour shifts so I will need to sleep some during the day tomorrow and a trip to town wouldn't be prudent.

So I will fill the van up with stuff I have that I can scrap now, and that is safe to breathe. I have a bunch of radiators from a/c units to process but I want to limit the dust from cutting, grinding while cooped up in a vehicle. I have a few tvs and a really old microwave I could do, as well as some other e scrap I could break down. I have to work until Sunday for sure and can maybe get into town on Monday if no jobs come up but by then I will have more than the van is capable of carrying so I might have to leave some shred at home.

I have lots of room for storage but I hate having these piles of shred that aren't worth the space to haul them to town. The van can take about 1200 lbs payload and I'm sure I have that much shred now. I have the option to take it to the dump for free but that seems like an even bigger waste. Maybe take 200 lbs of copper and aluminum and 1000 lbs of shred so the trip makes more than $50?

What about you folks? Does everything go the way you expect? Do you try to keep stuff cleared out or just keep piling stuff up?

1200 lbs of shred or 200 lbs of copper + 1000 lbs of shred, I take the latter without hesitation (for the reasons JJinLV just mentioned and what I wrote in the other thread). Go with the non-magnetic metals first and complete your load with shred. If you have plenty of storage, it won't go away, it won't cost you a dime and you'll always have an opportunity to load it later. Also, make sure that your radiators are clean (no steel attachment at the ends) or you'll be heavily penalized on the price. Old TVs, they won't probably accept them as a whole item. It is another story if they parted them out and you bring them the steel screen inside the glass tube, the circuit board, the degaussing cable around the glass tube and the copper yoke. After that, you'll need to find a way to get properly rid of the glass and the ABS plastics. This is the main problem mostly everybody got with dismantling TVs or CRT monitors.

Originally Posted by alloy2

Like you I live rural between postage and delivery time it's often better to make it yourself. The majority of the forum members are city born and bred, most of them are into curb shopping. I suppose that could be profitable in the city and I often envy them for having millions of people setting out valuable trash..

WE all know its a throw away society we live in, one mans trash is another mans treasure.

Millions of people setting out valuable trash, but hundreds/thousands of people looking just to curb shop it. The larger the community, bigger is the competition too.

Also, out in the country, some guys are also making some bucks cleaning old homesteads and farm machinery and dumps.

Originally Posted by wannabescrapper

Wow, you are doing all of the things that I have said I wanted to learn about. We just make a basic hot process soap with mostly natural ingredients. We buy the lye from the hardware store though and depending on what people want for fragrance they might be a synthetic fragrance oil instead of essential oil. We used to render pork fat from a friend's restaurant and have rendered bear fat for soap and moisturiser when some hunters from the city didn't want their fat back from the butcher.

I am glad you mentioned the freon complications as I didn't know about those dangers. These were hotel ptac units and were about 10 years old so probably not r12 but still good to know what to avoid doing.

I am very interested in the silver recovery opportunities and do plan on studying further. I have a lot of lead acid batteries and I'm currently looking for the materials to build a furnace so I will be picking your brain a lot, I am sure.

People who melt lead acid battery's for the lead usually only get a couple of pounds, the positive and negative plates are made of grids packed with oxides which do not melt back into lead. You need a carbon source to rob that oxygen atom free from the oxides..

One the large scale this procedure is carried out in a reverb furnace.

Any pottery supply would have what you need to build a furnace, I used to do a fair bit of metal casting making fishing weight molds that I sold on fleabay. My next furnace will be smaller and used specifically for smelting.

The UniCast refractory is castible with a higher temperature rating than the wool. When I built my first furnace poured the floor first then used a plastic garbage can filled with sand before pouring the outer core. After removing the sand was able to remove the garbage can.

In the tube video Jason is using the wool blanket.

I'm not planning to be on the forum much longer, if you want to contact me use this email address. blackgold12@protonmail.com

When you tire of this forum you might consider joining the gold refining one.

Alloy/blackgold or whoever your alias is this week you have threatened many times not to come back to this forum yet here you are again..........I hope you keep posting.......I find your postings sometimes informative often entertaining and always good for a laugh

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Alloy/blackgold or whoever your alias is this week you have threatened many times not to come back to this forum yet here you are again..........I hope you keep posting.......I find your postings sometimes informative often entertaining and always good for a laugh

Why would I stay and be party to those who were remiss in their fiduciary duty to inform a new member of the dangers of Freon's ability to make phosgene gas when it comes into contact with a flame.

I'm tired of being the watch dog for the mutts on this forum, as members its your duty to inform others of the possible dangers they may encounter.

The scrap metal forum portrays itself as one big family.

Source.

Each parent owes to each child, as a legal matter, a fiduciary duty. The parent is required by law to act in the best interest of the child and failure to do so can impose both civil and criminal liability (child neglect.) And, since the child is a minor, there can be no waiver of such fiduciary duty by the child.

We will miss you