SOLA Transformers! Sell or Scrap?? Anyone familiar with these??? FOR SALE

I bought several 48" and 53" trailers at scrap price to either sell as storage trailers or scrap for alluminum. All of them filled with misc items.. We started on the first one which is all aluminum yesterday and found about 15 pallets of SOLA Transformers.. Talk about a jackpot!! Is anyone familiar with these? Majority of them are filled with copper and weigh anywhere from 20-80 lbs. with the majority of them weighing in at 20 lbs exactly. Took one to the local scrap yard today that we do business with and he was happy to pay us .30 lb and wants everyone we have. Any advice or offers would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

What you have looks like scrap. You may find a few that are good and could be resold, but usually its the larger ones that sell, and they have to be good. Do you know how/have the things necessary to properly test one?

I'd get them to a yard, leave with a pocket full of money, and move on.

I personally would try to work a better price if I had that much volume. Even .35 vs .30 would make a big difference.

Photo 7 and 8 should not go as a transformer, thy do not have any steel.

You will want to check both coils on transformers...i just sold 11,000 lbs of them and 900lbs of them had top coil of alum and bottom coil was copper..

Both coils are copper.. Went to a new scrap yard today to sell a load of steel and weighed the two coils. 7 lbs out of a 20 lb transformer. They offered me $2.35 lb for every coil. That's with them having tape and glue residue. Think I'm just gonna tear them all down over winter and cash in when copper rises again. Needless to say, it was a good day considering these transformers are worth $16.45 a peice instead of the .35 lb I was going to sell them for.

Markham Metal (in the buyers Section) was paying 47 cents a pound for copper transformers.

I did some microwave xformers today. 65lbs @ $0.20/lb = $13
Extricated the copper = 12lbs @ $2.70/lb = $35. So... $6.50 for shred + $35 is way better than $13. Took about an hour.

If I had that many and as winter is coming I would do as you say and widdle away at em. Happy copper harvesting!

Did you check the yard off of Cowan?

Originally Posted by jimicrk

Did you check the yard off of Cowan?

No I am not familiar with that yard? Where is it located? I'm currently in Murfreesboro/Nashville.

Originally Posted by MattInTheHat

If you do it yourself, it may go slow at first. You will need to figure out wich 2-3 ways out of the 100 work best foir your skill set and the types of transformers you have.

With this much weight, the price diference between yard and DYI is enough to cover some cool tools to do it faster and safer...Faster=less labor=more time to make money on another project. It may mean more "profit" from this project as well, depending on if you count profit before or after your hourly pay.

Ya I went and bought a new Gas powered cut off saw. I can cut both sides and separate the copper in about 3 minutes. I don't think its gonna get any faster than that. But I'm gonna explore a few more options.

What sort of auction were ya at? Can I ask what you ended up paying for the sheds? Or some pics of them? Talk about a serious score!

I would do like almost all of the others have said. If you dont need the immediate $$$ take the time to get those things broken down!