Greetings from New York City!

Hi everyone,

I am new to the idea of scrapping metal. I discovered this by accident while I was cleaning out my attic and I found a bunch of loose circuit boards and other 1980s/early 90's computer parts that were left up there and I went online to see if they were worth anything and I found out that they can be sold. I sold some of the loose circuit boards and floppy drives to a local scrap metal company but i still have a few complete towers and screens as well as an old epson printer, a bedframe and a bunch of other metal parts up there. I want to make room in my attic as well as make some extra income. The trouble is I do not own a car or have any friends or family that are willing to drive me there so the first time I carried the circuit boards in 3 separate trips on a train and a bus to the scrap metal yard. So for the complete towers and long metal bedframes, I want to take a cab since it is not too far from my house and won't cost much to bring it all at once. Do I need to take out the circuit boards from the towers or can I bring the whole tower there and they will take it out? I can't figure out how to take those circuit boards and other inside parts out. Do you know how much I can get per complete tower including the casing? Thank you in advance.

Hey bud, nice to see you're showing interest in scrapping!

To touch on a few things and probably not answer your questions correctly (lol), let's start here:

First, i'd just call the yard in question and ask them their price per complete tower, verse board lb price. Personally, it's always been worth it for me to strip out the towers completely. Depending on your market, it could be more lucrative to do that, generally only by a few dollars. But still, mo' money is mo' money.

As for taking tin the the yard via taxi. Man, that sounds terrible lol. I'm guessing you're going to only get less than 0.50 for the tin you have. Wondering how that would work out when it comes to cab fair, your labor, etc.

Sounds like you have a unique situation, that's great. Just do as much research as you can here, you never know what you might have, and what it might be worth.

I figured it would probably be better to strip it since they told me that the boards are worth more than the tower alone. I just don't know how to go about doing that. I feel it would be a shame to just throw it all out if I can make some money from it. I got 58.00 for my circuit boards and floppy disks/hard drives that I brought in last time. The cab fare shouldn't be more than 10 dollars. But this time I have 8 computer towers, a printer, a bed frame, a heater, assorted smaller metal pieces like door knobs and in the basement I have more stuff too like a few old metal ladders, tools, a big charcoal bbq grill, metal cage parts and more stuff. I wanted to bring it all in one shot.

Originally Posted by Doggonecutsy

I figured it would probably be better to strip it since they told me that the boards are worth more than the tower alone. I just don't know how to go about doing that. I feel it would be a shame to just throw it all out if I can make some money from it. I got 58.00 for my circuit boards and floppy disks/hard drives that I brought in last time. The cab fare shouldn't be more than 10 dollars. But this time I have 8 computer towers, a printer, a bed frame, a heater, assorted smaller metal pieces like door knobs and in the basement I have more stuff too like a few old metal ladders, tools, a big charcoal bbq grill, metal cage parts and more stuff. I wanted to bring it all in one shot.

its not too hard to figure out how to remove the boards from a tower.
u just need some screwdrivers

golden rule: the more work u do by stripping & sorting the different metals & grades of boards, the more u get paid.

There is a lot of info on breaking down towers on this forum and also YouTube. There is also excellent buyers on here of escrap. Bed frames and tower shells are going to be difficult to put in a taxi.

Hi Deborah, and Welcome to SMF from Indiana...You can strip most PC towers with just a couple everyday screwdrivers within a few minutes...After the first one, you'll be confident... After the others, you'll be an expert...Good Luck...

The cab driver is goanna let you fill up the trunk with scrap metal? If so tip him well!

Thank you all for the advice.