Breaking Down Electrical Plugs, Switches, Outlets For Brass

Hello this is my second entry thread to the scrap metal forum contest. Sledge has raised the bar with his breakdown, so time to try again . I will be breaking down small electrical things that you can find brass in.

Any thanks to the post are greatly appreciated, direct all thanks to this post, since there will be multiple beneath. Thank you

Commonly all these items are either left on wire, put into shred, or looked over. This isn't get rich fast but if you have nothing to do than you can break into these items and get some brass.

Here are the items we will be tearing up for brass. Decide for yourself if its worth it to break these down, here ill simply be showing what you will get out of them.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...psdbd3ddd0.jpg

Item #1 is going to be switches. First ill show you what is in and how to break down the box, than I'll show you whats inside the switch itself.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3619e0e4.jpg

Now there is going to be 2 screws holding in each switch. Unscrew each of those and than pull the outlet out. Than unscrew the wires on the side of each switch and pull all the wire out.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7665f68e.jpg

Shown here is everything you get out of it, the screws that were holding in the wiring to the switches were brass, so make sure to save those. The box itself was steel, and there was some wiring and a ground wire inside.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...?1420754226454

Now that we've pulled everything out of the box Ill show 2 methods of scrapping the switches. One is crushing, which ill demonstrate using outlets, but it works on switches also. You can use a vice, or a hammer on this but I prefer a vice. The one in the vice is how it starts, the one laying out is what it becomes. After that you can just pick the brass out.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps27d8f944.jpg

Now here ill show how to take it apart without the mess, here is what I prefer to do with the switches. The stuff laying out on the vice is all brass, including the screws.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...psa37b6bb7.jpg
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7562986a.jpg


Here is doing a plug box:

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps241fc697.jpg
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps08ab62c2.jpg
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...pseb96ca3b.jpg

More posts below, direct all thanks to this post please! ENJOY!

Direct all likes to above post. Thank you for viewing!!!

Ok so now we will be breaking down a plug duplicator which you plug into your wall and it turns 2 plugs into 6. This has a suprising amount of brass and all you need to break it down is a flathead screwdriver and 30 seconds. Here it is!

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...?1420684595943
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...?1420684595943
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...?1420684595943
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...?1420684595943

Now I will be showing you breaking down some of the audio/video plugs I clipped over the last few days. These are brass ends, even the silver ones are brass. Beware if you pull out the whole top because below the small rod some of it could be steel, thats why I just snap off the rod and put the rest into shred. I also did some older cable connectors that are easy to breakdown.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...&1420684595943http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...&1420684595943

Here is all of those clipped off, and in the vice is car plugs. On those the only value is the tip which is brass, also if youd like you can grab the board thats in some, but I dont bother.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...&1420684595943
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...&1420684595943

Now heres a quick breakdown to show you what youll get out of this dual charger/plug-in. A good amount of brass, and some other small goodies

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...?1420684595943
http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...&1420684595943

So now I will show you some of the older box chargers and plugs that I have. The main things in these are CBM's, A bit of wiring, some brass, a small low grade board, and some junk plastic. So heres me breaking down

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps15400ad9.jpg

Take some pliers and grab the plugs and bend them off and that will force the plastic off of the top and than you can tip it over and the insides will fall out, if not hit it with a hammer a couple times and you should have it broken open and if your careful it wont leave a huge mess. Heres the result

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9d0e3555.jpg

Ok so now heres a quick tip on these cable ends. Cut them off cables and you can sell them as dirty brass, if you want to get really crazy you can cut off the small piece of copper sticking out of each of them, or even clean them but you will probably need tweezers.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8bfcf95f.jpg

Cut all your plug ends off, it takes 5 seconds to clamp it in the vice and pull the brass ends out, if your lucky some copper will come out to snip off the ends. The christmas light ones are the easiest since they are really junk plastic. But this works on all of them:

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...psd925aa27.jpg

Now heres a picture of all the plugs I broke down in about 2 minutes. This is all brass including silver plugs. Just test with a magnet but I'm pretty sure like 99/100 are brass.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...pscc39a156.jpg

Ok so lastly I want to show you breaking down light bulb holders for flourescent lights. This is your standard light right here, if you look closely in the corner there are 4 bulb holders on each side the bulbs slide and turn into, here's the breakdown of them to extract the brass.


http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/...psa392f23c.jpg
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Here is the brass I collected from breaking down just the stuff on the table, this is only a small amount of what I have that needs broken down.

Decide for yourself if its worth your time, how I think of it is your not making any money sitting on the couch, and a couple bucks here and there is better than nothing.

If this breakdown helped you don't forget to thanks the first post in this thread to vote for me for winning the smf breakdown contest. Ill have more breakdowns to come, hope you enjoyed!