Scrap copper wire chopping

Can any body share his experience about scrap wire chopping on granulators. Is it worth if we buy from yards(not from other sources from where we can get cheaper) and process on granulators for copper recovery?

I run a granulator but I gotta leave for work in a few minutes. I'll comment later tonight.

Yes you are right. In start i am going to rely on yards. yes I have to work on the margin between input output material. In start i will be the only labor in my workshop. Want to start from low scale machine.

Originally Posted by brassbuster

I run a granulator but I gotta leave for work in a few minutes. I'll comment later tonight.

Thanks

Been a busy week at work but got time to reply. If you are planning on buying a grandulator to make lot's of money I WOULD not suggest it, unless you own a medium or large scrap yard were as you can buy your wire at a lower price than buying from other yards, they gotta make a profit. We bought the grandulator I run about about 5 year's ago, cost I think was about $750.000 plus freight and setup from Vegas. We started out grinding all our wire, flat, comm, #2 and #1 LOST money, it take's 2 two 3 guy's to run this wire, we only grind #1 and romex only take's one man, ME. You also gotta think of what you are gonna due with your fluff (land fill only) and plastic chops with copper fines, were lucky we found a place that takes our plastic chops with fines, they don't buy the but pay the freight. Cost 2cent per pound per man, 2cent per pound for shipping, plus you will have to go thru a broker, LESS money. I box my chops at 4500 lbs so 10 box's make a load. Here a few pic's of my setup. Any question's feel free to ask.

Originally Posted by brassbuster

Been a busy week at work but got time to reply. If you are planning on buying a grandulator to make lot's of money I WOULD not suggest it, unless you own a medium or large scrap yard were as you can buy your wire at a lower price than buying from other yards, they gotta make a profit. We bought the grandulator I run about about 5 year's ago, cost I think was about $750.000 plus freight and setup from Vegas. We started out grinding all our wire, flat, comm, #2 and #1 LOST money, it take's 2 two 3 guy's to run this wire, we only grind #1 and romex only take's one man, ME. You also gotta think of what you are gonna due with your fluff (land fill only) and plastic chops with copper fines, were lucky we found a place that takes our plastic chops with fines, they don't buy the but pay the freight. Cost 2cent per pound per man, 2cent per pound for shipping, plus you will have to go thru a broker, LESS money. I box my chops at 4500 lbs so 10 box's make a load. Here a few pic's of my setup. Any question's feel free to ask.

thanks for your time.


1: In your opinion, what offer offer i should give to yards for wire which they are buying for 70 cents/lb. or what your experience say, how much profit margin yards want to keep in their pockets while selling me scrap wire.


2: Can i earn near about 30 cents/lb if i process from low scale, say 1000lb daily.

You are in Ontario, You can make 35 cents/LB by paying $1.00 and selling as is. AIM Ontario pays: "#1 Insulated Cable 70% Rec $1.35 Lb 31-Oct-2016" which is directly from their website. Which means you will most likely have to pay higher than that to get it out of any yard in the area.

I don't do all the math as I'm just an employee but the boss and I talk about when to sell. We are paying .96 cent a pound for #1 insulated wire, anything over 3/4 in we run thru one of our wire strippers, bare bright wire and bare bright chops pays the same. The brake down .96 cent for the wire 2-4 cents a pound for processing 2 cents a pound for shipping so lets say I've got about $1.05 a pound in my chops, give or take a few cents. We sold a load of chops Monday when comex was at $2.19 minus 5 cents broker fee. Comex hit $2.23 this mourning so we sold a stright load of each #1 and #2 copper tube. As for buying from other yards it's hard to say what you will have to pay, we like to make between 15 and 25 cents a pound on every thing we sell BUT that dosen't always happen some times a lot less. Do the math, you can make good money BUT IT WILL BE ROUGH. I can't get my pics to upload say's there to big as we have a NICE set up. Any more question's feel free to ask. Good luck.

Originally Posted by brassbuster

I don't do all the math as I'm just an employee but the boss and I talk about when to sell. We are paying .96 cent a pound for #1 insulated wire, anything over 3/4 in we run thru one of our wire strippers, bare bright wire and bare bright chops pays the same. The brake down .96 cent for the wire 2-4 cents a pound for processing 2 cents a pound for shipping so lets say I've got about $1.05 a pound in my chops, give or take a few cents. We sold a load of chops Monday when comex was at $2.19 minus 5 cents broker fee. Comex hit $2.23 this mourning so we sold a stright load of each #1 and #2 copper tube. As for buying from other yards it's hard to say what you will have to pay, we like to make between 15 and 25 cents a pound on every thing we sell BUT that dosen't always happen some times a lot less. Do the math, you can make good money BUT IT WILL BE ROUGH. I can't get my pics to upload say's there to big as we have a NICE set up. Any more question's feel free to ask. Good luck.

The one thing that I see missing in this analysis is the percent recovery. #1 insulated is typically 80-85% recovery. Let's use 80% for this. Each pound your process with give you 0.80 pounds of chops. Let's take the 96 cents that you bought it at and the 4 cents for processing as a cost per pre-processed weight. This totals $1.00 per pound pre-processed. We need to divide by 0.80 to get the post-processed cost. $1.00 / 0.80 = $1.25 per pound of chops. Let's add the 2 cents shipping and we have $1.27 per pound. If you can sell that for $2.14 as indicated above, you are doing pretty good. Keep in mind that there will probably be a few other expenses, like disposing of the plastic, unless you have a buyer for that.

mthomasdev you were pretty much dead on with your math, after I talked to the boss today. My recovery run's between 78-90%. I've had my recovery as high as 92% but as low as 70% per day all depend's on what my guy's put in the gaylord box. We had an exporter that bought our plastic chop's with copper fine's for a few year's but the export tax got too much for them as they were losing money. We did find a company that will take them for free the good thing is they pay the freight. As for the teddy bear fluff we send it to the burn here in Indy, not much of a cost here. Comex this mourning $2.25 sold a load of 45,000 lbs. of chop's again. Hope comex stay's the same or goe's up as I have plenty of copper to sell. Thank's.

Originally Posted by brassbuster

mthomasdev you were pretty much dead on with your math, after I talked to the boss today. My recovery run's between 78-90%. I've had my recovery as high as 92% but as low as 70% per day all depend's on what my guy's put in the gaylord box. We had an exporter that bought our plastic chop's with copper fine's for a few year's but the export tax got too much for them as they were losing money. We did find a company that will take them for free the good thing is they pay the freight. As for the teddy bear fluff we send it to the burn here in Indy, not much of a cost here. Comex this mourning $2.25 sold a load of 45,000 lbs. of chop's again. Hope comex stay's the same or goe's up as I have plenty of copper to sell. Thank's.

Where you the one trying to get rid of the plastic about 6 months ago? After seeing that, I looked into some equipment from Cable Management in Meridan, CT. Think it was called a turbo mill. It is supposed to recover all the fines still attached to the plastic by balling them up.

You can also use a wet separator to recover copper fines. A few people i know with granulators use them and have said great things.

Thanks all for detailed analysis. I also add other expenses like ware house rent and hydro bill in that. Initial investment from 50k to 100k.

I am planning one more thing that i should not rely on single item(wire), i should keep another item, parallel in process. I want to add motors in my process. My ware house expense and scrap yards relationship can keep this as well on the run. For this purpose i have to add investment level of 20k to 30k additional for latest motor wrecker. what you people suggest?

Brass,

You'll probably have to ask the boss on this one, so here goes. Have you ever bought PUT options for copper futures to lock in potential high prices.