Tips from smf posters put to use

So today my wife and I went out to Harbor Freight and picked up some tools that I have been wanting to purchase, one of those being a 4.5" grinder. I have had some transformers laying around that I have been dying to get into, not real large but big enough to be worth the effort to break down, with the right tools. So we get home and I go to work trying out the techniques I have learned from reading the posts on this forum. Specifically, cutting the copper windings and punching them out. This is something I would have never thought of prior to joining this forum, then again neither was getting into scrapping. In order to punch the copper out of the motor I used one of the many metal rods I have collected from printers that I have broken down. This too was a tip I learned from reading this forum, so to all of you posters out there I say thank you and I hope all SMF members have a happy and healthy new year.

congrats on your new tools nothing more rewarding than spending some of your profits buying tools to enable you to work more efficient, and also on doing the research that being the most important without techniques tools wont do you any good, happy new year to you to and happy scrapping :)

Nothing better than turning something worth cents a pound into something worth dollars a pound with a few minutes of work.

Congrats on the new purchase! Be sure to use the cut off wheels instead of the big thick grinding ones. The grinding disks melt the copper together, and its a pain in the a** to get the copper out of them. Especially motors. Hope you make some money!

Can't go wrong with new tools

good to see tips put to use, the metabo brand cut off wheels are the best and if bought in bulk the are roughly the same price as generic cut off wheels

BX of 100 Metabo 4 5" x 040" x 7 8" Original Slicer Wheel A60TZ | eBay

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Originally Posted by porkchop01

Can't go wrong with new tools

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Not sure about that

I bought a used commercial grade dewalt 4.5 inch angle grinder for $15 , hard to beat that.

If they are "E and I" trasformers, I find that they are easyer to open with a hatchet.

Just goes to show ya. A person can learn a lot from SMF. And then turn all that knowledge into a heck of a lot of MONEY! Congrats on your new tools bud!

Thanks jg, I will look into metabo brand. I'm not sure what type of transformer it was, it was from an old dot matrix printer I broke own a while ago. Had a lot of copper in it but it was heavily shellacked and had paper wrapped with each layer, the motor was small but was a good one for me since I hd never broken one down before. Surprisingly, I followed the tips from this site and it went smoothly. May have taken me a bit longer but with time will come speed.

I also went shopping at HF with my 25% off one item coupon.
12 Piece Punch and Chisel – Green, Model # 4885 = $9.99 - Used the 25% off coupon on this item
Magnifier Head Strap - #95890 = $9.99 - They were on close out sale = $6.49
4 piece screwdriver set - #65158 = $4.99
6 piece screwdriver set - #6904 = $3.99
All of these were recommended on SMF. Thanks.

I use the 3mm thick (1/8th inch) cutoff discs. NZ$6 each.

I tried using a ultra thin cut off disc. But they are too flexable for cutting thru the copper wire loops & it broke off around the centre discs/clamp part.