Can crusher

I have managed to find myself a couple of local sources of cans. I am pulling in between 20 and 30 pounds of beer and pop cans each week, and in the fall I am guesstimating that I may be able to grab well over 100 pounds of cans during a few select weeks. There is a recycling company locally that only pays about half of what a few places pay within about a 50 mile drive of me, and so it makes sense for me to save them up and take a larger load on a 50 mile drive. I have been crushing all these cans by the heel of my boot so that I can haul more in a load and have been looking into figuring out something mechanical to crush cans. I see some pneumatic air powered can crushers on ebay for over a hundred bucks that have caught my eye but I'd like to build my own and hopefully not spend that much. Ideally I'd like to do something with 2 spinning wheels kind of like a baseball pitching machine that would just pull them in out of a hopper and spit them out the other side into a trash can. Does anyone have any experience with any kind of mechanical can crushers?

Sdak, check around on youtube, there is all kinds of home made ones that the people are demonstrating and one in particular is just what you are describing. There is also home made can balers. When I get a big bunch from my daughters house, I throw a bunch in my driveway and run over them with the car. Smashes them real fast and saves the foot.

Why waste the time crushing them?? I get roughly 50 lbs a week on my route n just takr em in w my other scrap...
Roughly half of those were crushed..

Last thursday was 102 lbs of cans, 40 lbs of #2 cu, and #100 of #2 wire..

Btw I crush my cans in my hands..

Mech beat me to it, I do the same with my cans. Drive over them with the van, makes short work of it, an saves my hands an feet the trouble of doing such.

Far as why crushing them? You can fit more crushed cans into a sack or bag then you can non-crushed. Thats my story an I'm sticking to it. It's also kind of fun to drive over them.

Sirscrapalot - Crunch on.

You can also melt them, and sell them on ebay for a premium:

aluminum ingot | eBay

Hobbyists are always looking for good supplies of high purity Al for their casting.

You can make even more if you learn how to sand cast or lost wax cast Al, and can make custom items, but that's taking what you are wanting to do a little far for this thread I think.

I am seriously thinking about casting Al bars for hobbyists from cans myself, it's super easy, relatively inexpensive, and adds to the bottom line.

Scott

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...903TXJrKI#t=2s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B1iBxfbLyY&feature=player_detailpage#t=15 s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njmvg_y6k0c&feature=player_detailpage#t=24 s

I tried to make one once. We took a piece of aluminum pipe like for flag poles welded a piece of metal to one end, cut a hole in the middle the size of a can, cut a hole by the welded piece of metal on the pipe itself about a quarter of the original size of the can, got an electric motor , and a piston from a lawn mower, atattched the piston to the motor. You would turn it on, drop the cans in, and they would fall out the other end.

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Originally Posted by scrapping4ever

I tried to make one once. We took a piece of aluminum pipe like for flag poles welded a piece of metal to one end, cut a hole in the middle the size of a can, cut a hole by the welded piece of metal on the pipe itself about a quarter of the original size of the can, got an electric motor , and a piston from a lawn mower, atattched the piston to the motor. You would turn it on, drop the cans in, and they would fall out the other end.

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That would be great if it had an automatic feed

If I was going to consider trying to build one I'd start by studying one up close like the ones you'll see at the scrap yard

If you make one you need to make sure the cans go into a bag! I hace a hand crusher that goes over a 33 gal trash can. It sucks to crush and then pick up the can again.

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Originally Posted by sdakscrapper

I have managed to find myself a couple of local sources of cans. I am pulling in between 20 and 30 pounds of beer and pop cans each week, and in the fall I am guesstimating that I may be able to grab well over 100 pounds of cans during a few select weeks. There is a recycling company locally that only pays about half of what a few places pay within about a 50 mile drive of me, and so it makes sense for me to save them up and take a larger load on a 50 mile drive. I have been crushing all these cans by the heel of my boot so that I can haul more in a load and have been looking into figuring out something mechanical to crush cans. I see some pneumatic air powered can crushers on ebay for over a hundred bucks that have caught my eye but I'd like to build my own and hopefully not spend that much. Ideally I'd like to do something with 2 spinning wheels kind of like a baseball pitching machine that would just pull them in out of a hopper and spit them out the other side into a trash can. Does anyone have any experience with any kind of mechanical can crushers?

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I know it would be a fairly big investment but have you considered baling your cans? There's a couple of balers on an online auction in minneapolis with a couple days to go and so far the high bid is $480. Now I know there's still a few days to go and anything can happen so it's hard to say what they will sell for. I don't know how often you sell your cans but if you figure the amount of space saved by baling cans rather than having them loose and figure the time it takes to make a bale of cans vs. the time it takes you to crush them individually a baler might be the best bang for your buck in the long run. Just my $.02

I have a recycle center close enough to the house that I don't need to crush for space and return.

Before I had that place so close, I poured them out in the driveway and drove over them back and forth.

When i was much younger i used to walk the town picking up cans, scouring dumps,and a few beer drinkers along the route saved then up for me. A good heavy post mall worked fine, just lay them on the ground and splat,splat did the trick. The picking them up twice did slow me down. later a harbor freight manual can crusher worked just fine. It worked even better after the kids were big enough to do it,they loved crushing cans,but when the teen years came about i lost my cheap labor

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Originally Posted by Arkansaw

Later a harbor freight manual can crusher worked just fine. It worked even better after the kids were big enough to do it,they loved crushing cans,but when the teen years came about i lost my cheap labor

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LOL!! My secratary brings her 5 year old grandson out to the shop a couple days a week & he loves crushing cans. He's good cheap help, a bag of gummy worms a day and he's a happy camper.

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Originally Posted by Dieseldozer

LOL!! My secratary brings her 5 year old grandson out to the shop a couple days a week & he loves crushing cans. He's good cheap help, a bag of gummy worms a day and he's a happy camper.

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thats why farmers have lots of kids....free labour

I've got a setup for quite some time now that is cheap, and works well. Get a 5 gallon metal bucket, 12"x12" 3/8" thick sheet of steel, 2'-3' long black pipe. Cut a circle out of the steel, about 1/2" less then the diameter of the bucket bottom. Weld the black pipe to the middle of the cut-out. Easy peasy. Only issue I have sometimes is the cans wont come out of the bucket, just gotta smack her around, or add a bit a lube to the bucket before you crush em.

I don't crush my cans dead flat. I just pick 1 up, shake it to see that theres nothing in it, then squash it between my thumb & fingers so the sides touch each other and chuck it in the bin.

I find I can drop the volume of the cans about 50% by just doing that.
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Theres something else about all of this...

My scrap dealer said that.
start quote> "If you squash the cans dead flat, they don't take up much less space than if you just squashed it by hand. It just takes a lot more of your time.

Then, when you drop a dead flat can, its **** hard to pick up, its skates across the ground & you have to get your fingernails under it to lift it off the floor.
Then.. When we try to pour them into the crusher, they slip & skate everywhere & WE have to pick them up, one by one.
Then.. When we pull the squashed cube of of the bailer, because the flat cans can't 'bind' together as the squash, the cube can fall apart. (that'd ruin my day too, if that happened)

So, don't waste your time crushing them, we know that if you have went thru the whole lot & checked each one individually & crushed it like that, that we are getting a good product.
That we can check for stones by just shaking the bag & the cans don't actually hold that much water anyway, we can hear it. Thats Ok" ." < end quote

Found this on IMGUR, not sure if its a repost.
http://i.imgur.com/zZUTGvT.gif

Looks good, but I think some kind of hopper might be a lot safer. Someone would just need to look away at the wrong moment to get some fingers caught.

All very good advice. Also have you ever thought about shredding them with a 5 horse shredder.

OldDude, that would be dangerous with the sharp edges, smashing would be safer.

Dump a bunch of cans in the driveway. Put a piece of plywood on them. Drive over it.

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

OldDude, that would be dangerous with the sharp edges, smashing would be safer.

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Just a thought. One of the yards I use has a large shredder for cans.

Wow, ours uses a compacter and makes them into 3x4' cubes.

Lots of ways for a yard to get rid of them. I wonder what pays the most?

Used Beverage Cans (UBC loose)

Loose whole or flattened aluminum beverage cans, free from excessive dirt, liquid or other foreign materials. Equivalent to ISRI code TALAP or former code TALC.

Shredded UBC

Shredded UBC shall consist of aluminum Used Beverage Cans that have been magnetically separated and shredded into uniform material handleable (pneumatic) state.
the shredded UBC shall have a minimum density of 12 LBS. (pounds) per cubic foot and a maximum weight density of 17 LBS. per cubic foot.
Must be fee of excessive fine material under 4 mesh in size.
must be free of other metals and foreign material.
Equivalent to ISRI code TALCRED.

Baled UBC

Baled UBC shall consist of magnetically separated Used Beverage Cans that have been compressed into bales.
Baled densities must be a minimum of 14 LBS. per cubic foot .
Bale dimensions can range from 24" to 40" x 30" to 52" x 40" to 84"
ISRI code TALDON shall be included in this grade

Briquetted UBC

Magnetically separated aluminum Used Beverage Cans compressed into briquettes with a minimum weight density of 50 lbs. per cubic foot.
Briquettes sizes should be uniform and range from 12" to 24" x 12" to 24" x 8" to 48".
Briquettes should be stacked and banded together to form uniform bundles with a maximum height of 48" and a maximum weight of 4,000 lb. This Grade is Similar to ISRI code TALDORK.

New Beverage Can Stock Scrap

New Beverage Can Stock shall consist of new clean pre-consumer aluminum can stock (printed or unprinted) and may include clips or punching skeletons, & cans in various states of production but may not include whole cans from packaging lines.
Equivalent to ISRI code TAKE.