Dumpster diving

Welcome to the forum...tons of info in here to read that will help you to break things down and sort in the right piles to maximize the payout at the yard. Many people ask if it's worth it to tear stuff apart and separate and many things are, but you are the only one that knows what your time is worth so ultimately it will be up to you. You get faster the more you do it but with many areas to get proficient at, it will take some time. Construction background helped me quite a bit.

Welcome to the forum and along with what KZ said break everything down. After you break it down once you will know if its worth the effort. Tons of free info here if you take the time to read the old threads. Mike.

MightyMetalMovers, Hello & Welcome to the forum,
You have certainly landed in the right place!
This forum is packed with a wealth of information from helping the new scrappers right up to the serious scrappers.
Members of this forum are willing to help out and give excellent advise where needed.
Just take the time to read as many posts as you can, not forgetting the older posts.

In no time you will be on you way to being able to know whats worth breaking down and what isnt.

We could also use advice on how to get the kids involved because right now they are pretty much mortified by what we are doing.

Make it fun but keep it safe, there is NO shame in ANY job

Be Lucky

Welcome aboard. When it comes to the kids do what I do. My 15 year old daughter wants a truck ofher own when she gets a DL. How you think she is getting it? She goes out with me on trash night and scraps. Just last week my son wanted a new $30 xbox game. How you think he got it? I sent him out to the shed to break down 50 cdrom drives. Once they see they too can make money from scrappin. You will have to beat them away with a stick. Well if they are like my kids you will. Best piece of advice I can give you for just starting out is dont turn your computers in for shred.

Welcome aboard! And with 3 of you working together, man that's sweet. 2 breaking stuff down, 1 picking stuff up. Just trade off p/u and breakdown days. Read, read, read and yall should be rolling in not time!

Welcome. A lot of good information here.

You can start by asking all your friends and relatives for all their old electrical stuff that doesn't work. You can cut the cords off, strip them and you have copper. Or you can sell them unstripped. You can break up fans, vacuum cleaners etc. get out the motors - these can be further broken down for copper or can be sold as motors or copper bearing items at scrapyards. You can sell car batteries and a variety of other things on a car, christmas tree lights, aluminum blinds, aluminum siding to name a few things that people don't ordinarily think of when they think of scrap. Before long you will be seeing money everywhere. You'll also find that many of the items you find may be worth more than scrap value and you can sell them on Craig's list (CL), ebay or somewhere else.

Electronic scrap is also a great way to make the cash and there is a whole section just for that. The metal cases can be sold for scrap and keep the insides until you know what you are doing. Otherwise, you may regret it later.

There are tons of threads on here about breaking down all kinds of things, in addition Youtube has lots of vids- some are from forum members. If you can't find stuff in this archive - try using google and add "scrap metal forum" to your search inquiry. I've found it narrows things down better.

Your kids - well, you're going to embarass them somehow- it's kind of your job! lol.

Dredging up an old thread to share this:

This morning, I spotted a nice metal table frame sitting at the top of the pile inside a dumpster, so I stopped my truck & walked over and grabbed it. Ten pounds of steel is ten pounds of steel, in my book!

As I was grabbing it, though, I saw the handle of a baseball bat sticking up, inside what I recognized to be a protective case for a display bat.






Even I recognize that autograph: Jose Canseco, played for the Rangers in the early 90s.

Not sure of the value of this particular bat, but I see some of his Oakland A's autographed bats listed at over $100.

Originally Posted by Otto

^Must have been an ex clearing out some poor guy's stuff.

Yeah, there were some golf clubs down in the lower regions of the dumpster... I thought about it, but they didn't look anywhere near new, and as far as I'm concerned a golf course is just a willful and blatant misappropriation of a perfectly good rifle range.

Originally Posted by auminer

As I was grabbing it, though, I saw the handle of a baseball bat sticking up, inside what I recognized to be a protective case for a display bat.

Even I recognize that autograph: Jose Canseco, played for the Rangers in the early 90s.

Not sure of the value of this particular bat, but I see some of his Oakland A's autographed bats listed at over $100.

As an autograph enthusiast, I have to chip in a little. I know for a fact that at some signings his brother Ozzy would fill in for him. The reason they got caught is because someone noticed that "Jose" didn't have any tattoos on his arms. Not to rain on your parade, but double check that by looking at other Jose Canseco autographs on other sites and try to find a match before you do anything with it.