PistoneScrapProcessin

Well ok its my first time posting here but I don't think I am in the same line off work as most of you. My company provides services to scrap yards. On site processing of bulk materials. We basically cut up oversize pieces of scrap. I used to go to auctions and buy up the bigger pieces of machinery. Like I said I used to do that but since there's 100 scrap guys per auction I would rather let someone else break even or make a few cents. I have posted some of my pictures I have taken over the years. Let me know what you think? Sorry the plastech and Hammerbase pictures are so small but those pictures are from a camera that I lost while on a job site in Pittsburgh in 2006. I can't get them to show up any bigger. Trust me I am still kicking myself in the butt for not going back and looking for it. But anyhow the plastech pictures are stamping presses we cut up. The white one weighted in at over a million lbs. The hammerbase pics are a solid 250,000 lb block of steel 7 foot thick x 16 feet long. All day to make a cut all the way through it. Just figured I would share a few pictures of big iron with ya'll. Cut and paste the link. Any questions I will be happy to answer. Comments are always appreciated to since no one ever really tells me good job lol. There are 30 pictures in all I think.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/59582680@N07/

Welcome to the forum. Before i noticed where you were from I looked at your pictures and saw the Becker Iron pics in your photos and knew you were from the STL area. We are from Belleville IL so we are pretty close.

Escrap. Where do you take your material to if you don't me asking? Since we are so close I am just wondering. Theres only three companies in STL, MO now that PSC bought up the competition. Grossman, Becker, and PSC. I know there are smaller yards but I am talking about someone who handles 5,000 tons of material a month or more.

Well to be honest, we do not generate large amounts of non-ferrous metals, the only metal we do generate is that of computer cases. With that being said, I don't know if you are familiar with MetroEast Recycling out of Madison IL, but my father used to be co-owner and they always sold to grossman. Actually i know the company still sells to grossman. We will usually sell to them for our ferrous metal as they always give us practically what they are getting which is nice.

I am familiar with metro-east. They do sell there shred to Grossman. They also have a small yard in Venice, Il to. From time to time though I get to cut up material from Metro-east. They sell to the yard I am contracting for. Its always been Locomotive pieces though. Two or three pieces to a truckload. I swear in the last year I must have cut up at least 50 locomotives. I am about plain sick of them to be honest with you. I am glad you are getting a good price though. Who do you take your sheet iron or shred to though. Kinda hard to take it to a middle man like metro east when you know they are going to turn around and load it right into a Grossman trailer. I would just take it straight to Grossman. All they want to make is that 50 dollars a ton off of you. As long as the load weights 20 tons thats a grand they just made off of you. You could have put that money in your pocket and taken it direct to the source. Good luck though.

The guy who bought out my fathers shares in Metro-east use to own a rail company called southern Illinois Railcar. He sold it for something like 50+million. Anyways i can see why they have locomotive pieces. Every time i go past their yard in Madison, it seems as though they always have huge piles of track laying about.

I wish that we could generate 20tons at a time, but for our company that is just not feasible. We mainly focus on the e-scrap side of things as well buy the non-ferrous stuff. In my last post i meant to say we do not generate a lot of ferrous metals. We may have 3 tons or so at a time but not nearly enough to fill a trailer.

What yard to you contract at?

Right now Becker iron and metal. They just moved from over off broadway to Venice, Il. State of the art yard. Anytime you want to see us blowing through steel feel free to stop by I have the next few days off they are finishing installing our 3000 gallon liquid bulk tank. So don't come this week. Come next week. We were contracting at Cash's but the way they run that place is straight up out of whack. Once PSC bought them out it got even worse. I got into a tiff with the yard manager the one day and told her in the nicest way possible that they can go F themselves to weight up my material and I am out. Management problems drove me off. We are probably going to start up another cutting crew soon but I need to find another yard that will take me in and keep me feed with material. That's the only problem finding another yard big enough to supply me with enough material to support another cutting crew.

I do have one question though is your e-waste scrap 100 percent clean? No plastic no non ferrous attached to it. I hope you aren't turning it in for the price of shredd. You might want to call around find a yard that would let u bring it in as clean 1 1/2 bundle material. That three tons of material could be worth allot more then shredd if its clean. That prime grade material if its clean. I just don't want to see you lose any money on it.

Yeah we never liked cash to be honest with you. Yeah that is a great yard, Every time I go over the railroad track there, i see train car after train car filled with steel, which has probably been your work. haha. Anyway, no it is not 100% clean, we sell it as shred because we leave the plastic. Plastic can be a bear to get rid of, and it just takes up way to much of our space to store, so we leave it on and get our .125 cents for it. It just works better for us that way. We are currently getting around 240-250/ton for our shred. What do you think the bundle material would go for now.

I would imagine at least there is a 100 dollar a ton difference. I do have to ask though is the plastics coming off your ewaste clean. You might want to check into it. I remember getting around 11 cents a pound one time we took apart some stuff that had black plastic on it. I think it was automotive racks but I can't remember. I would call around and find someone who deals in plastics. Maybe Wallach might buy it since I have heard they deal in plastics. I would also call around to different yards and ask what there price is for 1 and 1/2 bundle material. I wouldn't want you throwing away something that's worth money. I would imagine you could segregate the plastics black, white, and off white and mixed.

Yeah we need to do that. We are currently pretty limited in what we do though. We are working out of a pretty small location. We are hoping by next year we are in a much larger location and able to do things that we are currently not able to do, like bale plastic and sit on it. I at one time had a price of .25/lb for plastic, but needed 40,000lbs. Just not happening, it would take half a year for us to get that. haha.