A lot of talk about E-Scrap, what about I-Scrap?

I received 10 lbs of a sample to process for silver that was from a manufacturer of silver brazing rods.

During the production of brazing rods, silver and copper are spun welded together, which makes it easier to separate the two with certain processes.



Because of the way the rods are made, the ends become bulbous and must be cut off. The scrap is collected in 55 gallon drums and sold as copper scrap. After assay the material comes back being 5% silver. The company that generates this scrap sells between 3-4 thousand lbs of it every 2 months.

If you contact the asset recovery department of manufacturers of this type of material, you might be able to pick up the scrap for a little more than copper value, and they would probably be very happy to sell to you.

If anyone finds this type of scrap and needs help making the transaction happen, or if you are looking for someone to sell to, let me know. Industrial or I-Scrap many times, is never recovered and if it is, it usually sells for far less than what it's true value is. 5% of 4000 lbs is a lot of silver, lbs and lbs, yet you purchased it for the value of the copper.

Scott

WOW that would be like $100,000 worth of silver in 4000 lbs of scrap metal.

This all sounds really great, and where I am, I am sure there is several companies to contact, but now here is what is probably the dumb question. What companies would even have this scrap?

Well i was just gonna grab some uranium fuel rods from the nuke plant, but the problem is the guards walk around with m16's so i dont think i would make it very far. =0

yes do tell us what companies use this type of material, i know where i can get some tig filler wire

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

WOW that would be like $100,000 worth of silver in 4000 lbs of scrap metal.

Actually, including the value of the copper, I believe the grand total value came to $127,000. However the company who generated the scrap, sold it to a recycle company. The person who owns the recycle company knows what the material is worth, and wants as much of the value for himself as possible. It doesn't leave very much room for a refiner to make any money.

Scott

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

This all sounds really great, and where I am, I am sure there is several companies to contact, but now here is what is probably the dumb question. What companies would even have this scrap?

Any company that manufactures brazing rods is going to end up with scrap. It's part of the process to produce a brazing rod that will work for whatever intended application it is intended to be used for. The ends are cut off because they are bulbous, and would not work in their intended application unless cut off.

I guess you could think of it as cutting off the ugly excess to make it pretty.

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

Any company that manufactures brazing rods is going to end up with scrap. It's part of the process to produce a brazing rod that will work for whatever intended application it is intended to be used for. The ends are cut off because they are bulbous, and would not work in their intended application unless cut off.

I guess you could think of it as cutting off the ugly excess to make it pretty.

Scott

Scott,

That is pretty much what I was getting at, is what type of companies would manufacture brazing rods?

I have done quick searches, but as I have material to process I haven't seriously pursued it. I would assume that you could do a search on google for brazing rode manufacturers, and come up with something. Or look for brazing rods being sold, find out what the company name is on the packaging, and contact their asset recovery department directly.

I believe most likely you are going to be asked about a business license and federal ID number. That is at least the case when I contact Silicon Valley companies asking about their production wastes of chips that didn't pass QA, or gold plated pins that were cut off, or gold plated punchouts, etc.

Scott

Originally Posted by stephenholseberg

Scott,These are ideas that belong on the scrap roomforum,so you want be asked for the info to be handed to you on a Silver Platter.

I thought it seemed that way, but then I thought I was just jumping to conclusions and that it couldn't possibly be what was being asked. Information in the scrap, and refining industries is hard won and often times has taken not days, weeks or months but years experience. I also don't want to think that people have that kind of sense of entitlement. I truly believe in the give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime. But if I took that same analogy and applied it as it seemed to have meant in this thread, I would say it something like, if you teach a man to fish, tie his hook, bait his hook, cast the line, wait for the bite, set the hook, reeled in the fish, everyday, he would eat for a lifetime.

I can only do so much, I post here while I am working, I end up working 10-14 hours a day not to mention phone time, etc. I am more than happy to help and suggest and have equally learned a lot being on this forum. But I can't hold anyone's hand and personally teach them. And honestly, if I had that contact I would be working it, not giving out the information for someone else to make money off of. How would that make any sense. I hope it's enough that I point out there are these types of contacts out their waiting to be harvested by someone willing to invest the time, effort and energy to cultivate it.

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

I have done quick searches, but as I have material to process I haven't seriously pursued it. I would assume that you could do a search on google for brazing rode manufacturers, and come up with something. Or look for brazing rods being sold, find out what the company name is on the packaging, and contact their asset recovery department directly.

I believe most likely you are going to be asked about a business license and federal ID number. That is at least the case when I contact Silicon Valley companies asking about their production wastes of chips that didn't pass QA, or gold plated pins that were cut off, or gold plated punchouts, etc.

Scott

Thanks for the information. Something to definitely keep on the mind for sure.

Originally Posted by stephenholseberg

Scott,These are ideas that belong on the scrap roomforum,so you want be asked for the info to be handed to you on a Silver Platter.

Stephen,

Regardless of who this might be directed to, I will say this. Regardless of where he posted this at on the forum, anyone would still have questions. He talked about the type of scrap to be on the lookout for, but not where it could come from, and unless you might know what the terminology is, then the easiest thing to do is ask the one who seems to be in the know.

That is what this forum is all about...asking questions, sharing ideas, tips, and tricks, and networking.

HVAC companies end up with a lot of braze scrap. It's difficult to deal with unless you understand how it should be smelted, melted, parted electrolytically, refined and recovered. It's better to get the ends of the rods cut off during their manufacture. It's far easier to separate copper from silver if they are not alloyed together, than it is to do so after they are an alloy. Once alloyed, one metal protects the other from being attacked and the wet process of separation becomes almost impossible.

This is a case where the same exact type of scrap will bring totally different numbers from a refiner like me because one is far easier to recover and refine than the other. I would encourage anyone who is going to invest the time and energy in finding this type of scrap, to do so more on the manufacturer side than the end user side just because you will be paid more for the scrap. That is not to say you should pass any good offer up on any scrap. But if we are talking about good business sense, I believe it's better to focus on the material that will bring a better price.

Scott

Originally Posted by sekscrapper

Its not all that difficult it'll cost most of you more than what you'd sell it for there's restrictions and red tape only the larger companies can turn a profit the small recyclers are better off digging it or govt liquidation auctions

Sounds like something one of the yard owners that i know and don't sell anything to over here would say. " dont waste your time, let us handle what to do with it when you sell it to us" Direct quote from a yard owner when I started scrapping and was asking about computers and if it was worth it to break them down. This was before I found this forum.

Since this thread bumped, I figured I would post some pictures of the material I was using as an example.

There is a difference between these types of brazing rods, and the regular rods that most people are familiar with. Most rods are an alloy, these are actually two tubes that are spun weld together, not alloyed. So where the normal brazing rods can be melted, and re-used, these cannot be because of the type of brazing rods they are. I am not sure what applications they are used for, but for whatever reason the copper needs to be separate from the silver.

If you look, you can see where the silver meets the copper, and that they are two separate metals, and not alloyed.









If you notice they are not consistent, this is the reason they are sheared off the ends, because they are not perfect or anywhere close.

Also notice they are different sizes, they make several different sizes with different percentages

The last time these came up, they assayed out at 5.62% silver and the rest copper at almost 5k lbs of total material.

Imagine how many places produce i-waste in volumes like this.

Scott