How about a small scale shredder for metal?

**Repurposer** · 10-24-2016, 01:53 PM

I am going to make a small baler for home shop use out of some scrap metal I have in order to bale my copper that does take up lots of space. I am planning on using an 18 inch long piece of heavy wall (say 1/4 inch) square tubing maybe 10 inch ID. I have bigger tubing but that seems to be a good starting point. I have a flat piece of one inch thick steel that will be trimmed to fit in the tubing ID to be the crusher panel and one piece of steel (does not have to be one inch) welded to the bottom. There will also be a thinner (1/4 inch thick minimum) flat piece of steel sitting below the bale. The bottom will have three or four 3/4 inch holes drilled in it (any size holes you want. I am going with 3/4) so it's possible to drive out the bale if it gets stuck. (this is where the thinner piece under the bale comes in to play). Kind of hard to drive against something soft like copper. I have all kinds of number one and two copper but it's various sizes and lengths. I use a harbor freight cable cutter ($14.00 on sale) to easily chop even one inch copper tube in to managable sizes. Most of my copper scrap is already doubled over and will easily fit in the 18 inch depth of the tubing. I have a 20 ton shop press. After dropping the press base down set the baler on it. I have a supply of diesel engine wrist pins various lengths I use on my press. Very strong but other solid steel rod will work or even steel punches at least an inch in diameter. More than strong enough to push down the compactor plate and the copper downward until it stops. Not much pressure is needed. Don't want to smash the copper to death. Just compact it some so it's easier to stack and store and remain identifiable. I plan on compacting it then adding more and crushing it again until I have close to an 18 bale each time. Just one of my ideas to make my life easier. The scrap I will be using to make it cost me nothing. Just stuff I was given to haul away. Forgot to ad. Some kind of lift handle or threaded hole a handle can be threaded in to must be added to the crusher panel so it can be lifted back out.

Originally Posted by aph

I keep telling my guys to cut down, clean up non-ferrous as they go along, but nobody listens.
I have a big pile of copper lines, mostly from dishwashers and they take up a crapload of space.
I crimp and bend them into 6-8 inch pieces so much more weight fits into the buckets.
But it is tideous boring A.F. work.
So I was thinking, is there a small scale metal shredder that would shred my #2 copper lines into smaller chunks?
I would be willing to pay a few 100 bucks for it since it would save so much time in the long run.
TIA
Martin

**myekem** · 10-25-2016, 02:37 AM

Make sure your bale is a loose bale or the yard may not want to buy it in case there is something hidden inside. I had a guy bring me a 4x4x2" block of copper that he baled really tight in an oil filter press. After he left I was looking at it and there was some brass mixed through it that I didn't see when buying it. We made an alligator shear out of some steel plate, thick pipe, truck rim, small cylinder and an old hydraulic power pack that we got in the scrap. works good for what we do with it (chop and clean copper/brass/aluminum). You can take a roll of 3/8 copper and make a cut through the whole roll on both sides then place the two halves together and make a cut through it all at once.

**Repurposer** · 10-25-2016, 02:31 PM

Yea just a loose bale. Like I said I did not want to crush the devil out of the copper. Just make it more managable and easier to store. I have actually done this before and light can be seen through the bale. Oil filter crushers have some guts for sure. They can flatten the toughest filters. Thanks for the advice though.

Originally Posted by myekem

Make sure your bale is a loose bale or the yard may not want to buy it in case there is something hidden inside. I had a guy bring me a 4x4x2" block of copper that he baled really tight in an oil filter press. After he left I was looking at it and there was some brass mixed through it that I didn't see when buying it. We made an alligator shear out of some steel plate, thick pipe, truck rim, small cylinder and an old hydraulic power pack that we got in the scrap. works good for what we do with it (chop and clean copper/brass/aluminum). You can take a roll of 3/8 copper and make a cut through the whole roll on both sides then place the two halves together and make a cut through it all at once.