If you are starting from scratch.
Microwaves are your friend. The older the better. They give you a good compact chunk of Copper (2Lbs), some plastic coated wire, some electronics and some more Copper.
Now thats the older ones, modern 'Invertor types' don't have a transformer and give you about 1/5th Lb Copper.
The sort with a 'grill feature' for heat cooking food have a Aluminium wire transformer, so do some modern cheapo microwaves.
In that case, just save them up and sell them as 'Irony/Aluminium' you get a better price than you would if it was solid Iron and you don't have to waste any extra time on them.
Take out the big transformer. They are pretty unique as the Iron laminates are 'stacked' rather than 'interlaced' as most transformers are.
If you have a close look you will see where the stack of 'I's are welded to the stack of 'E's.
If you bash the corner of the 'I's near where the weld is, the weld will crack and you can bash the whole stack of 'I's off the transformer.
That leaves you with the 'E' stack with the 2 (hopefully, scratch the coils with a screwdriver first to make sure at least one of the 2 coils is made of Copper, if its Copper, the scratch that goes thru the varnish will show you the actual colour of the coil. Reddish/Gold is a Copper coil. $$
Whitey-Silver is a Aluminium coil, uh, no $, more like 13 cents (US cents).
Now balance the transformer on something, I use a bench vise, so its resting on the bottom coil and the Iron core is pointing upwards (fingers up, like Enron,or a double U, I ment W. - Question, isn't a M a double N?) anyway.
Using earmuffs (becuse you can't close your ears like you can your eyes, and safety glasses
so you don't loose your hearing or sight.
Use a largeish hammer and a steel rod as a punch, wrap some cloth around your left hand incase you miss, actually, use leather safety gloves if you can. Bash the 'E' down and out of the 2 Copper coils, theres a small bunch of flat Iron 'I's and a open plastic or cloth coated Copper wire in there too.
Once thats done, put the 2 coils aside and later on cut the the tape and roll the cardboard insulation off the coils.
Theres a bunch of varnish on there too, just chip off enough to keep you interested, once you feel a bit silly to be picking off the small amounts of varnish, you have gotten to where everyone else stops plucking off varnish. This is a good 'rule of thumb'.
All microwaves have a small motor driving the glass turntable around, in it is about 25gms of Copper wire.
(Sorry about the mixed metric/imperial. I was born during NZ's Imperial measurement and a couple of weeks later we changed to Metric. So I state my birth date to the Police as a mix of decimal and fractions.... Confuses the hell out of them. Some 'get it'. Some are not so happy. Some will figure it out later....)
All microwaves have a fan in them, thats easy. Bash it with a hammer where the round bit-shaft is. This opens up the other end that holds the Copper wire, pop-slide-or bash that part out and the Iron core will slide out, leaving you with 1/9th of a Lb of Copper wire on a plastic bobbin. (50grams 0@m17...50grams Copper wire).
Where the cord goes into the
microwave, theres a small electrical board with a donut shaped (ssssshhh, the police may be listening) coil on it, theres Copper wire wrapped around it. I just break the dxxxx, ring shaped thing in half with a pair of pliers and unwrap the Copper wire from it.
A warning about this black ceramic stuff, the magnets made of it too. If a small chunk of it hits proper 'Safety glass' like car windows or such. It smashes it into tiny peices. Soi never do scrapping close to cars if you don't own them, or like windows.
The plastic control panel has Silver contacts on the two sheets under the facia. Someone buys these, the same guy who buys computer keyboard mylar. Its not worth much (?cents), but save it up anyway. The Silver containing ones have white-Silvery patterns on it. The brown track ones are a mix of Silver and Carbon, not worth as much. But save them anyway.
The control panel sometimes has a little transformer inc Copper wire. Some have a digital clock on a Gold plated silicon board, save them too.
The relays on the board have Copper wire and Copper/Silver contacts. I dunno where you can sell the contacts to (or how much they are worth) but you have more chance of finding someone in America, than in NZ who will buy them.
The switches, someone on this site SMF buys them for 25 cents each. Which is fantastic. I have a bucket full of them... In NZ.....
After that you might be able to sell the glass platter and the rollers and drive shaft part for some $ on a buy/sell website. Write the model on the platter after cleaning it and before storing it.
The Steel box like thing with the Aluminium fins on/in it is the Magnetron. Extra points for you if you can include it in a random conversation.
Inside there there is 2 nice grunty round magnets. They are the best magnet to check other metals for magnetisim. Or sell on your buy/sell website.
Honestly. One work job I was on, they had needed magnets to hold the spotlights onto the steel walls so we could see what we were doing..Down a pitch dark tunnel.
They spent hundreds $$ buying big magnets from the supplyer, and finding out who sells magnets... And I turn up and mention how I get free magnets from dud microwaves and have a box with several hundred of them in it....
I think they wanted to punch me in the head at that point.
The box, oh yeah, theres two thick Copper wire coils in it too. Bash the connector into the box and rip out the finned Magnatron thing with one hand.
(See, "MAG-NA-TRON"... 2 points to me) The Copper coils will unwind dropping out 2 little cylinders of Ferrite which goes with your steel screws etc, worth nothing.
Now see-saw it for a while and the two Copper wires will break off where they used to connect to the connector plug.
Now, that finned Magnatron (haha, 4 points to me now) Theres a thin Steel plate that holds the magnet on, lift a edge with a screwdriver and remove it, there may (or may not) be a Brass woven disc on there too. Its made of Brass, it has other Brass friends, so put them all in a Brass containing bucket.
There may be a Aluminium tubey thing too. Into the 'Aluminium bucket' with that. (I may have pronounced 'Aluminium' wrong, but thats how we spell it here in 'Metricville, NewZealand.'
Now, (again?) The Aluminium finned thing with a cylinder thing on each end. Its Radioactive !!
He he, scared you! I'm not joking though, it is radioactive, sorta about the same as a smoke detector. Theres no big deal about putting it in your rubbish bin. BUT! The pink Ceramic part on each end of the Magnatron (6 points..) has a compound called Berylium (spelt wrong so you should search for it on google) in it.
Its dangerous to breath in particals of dust or chips of it. It won't hurt you but it will take twenty odd years to do some damage to you if you inhale it.
So if you are aged 80 or under and want to live to 100, never break, chip, scratch, fold, or mutilate it.
In fact, just chuck the whole thing, fins and all, into the rubbish bin. Or if you live in California, they have a dedicated team of 20 Hasmat people who will pick it up for you and dispose of it safetly.
I'm joking about that. But they probably do.....
The radioactive part inside the Magnatron (Ah ha! 8 points) I won't describe to you as you don't need to see it anyway. Has Thorium in it, Propane gas camping lights also have the same radioactive Thorium in them too, so does 'Thorated Tungsten TIG welding rods, so its around in different forms anyway. Not that anyones going to inhale a welding rod.
BUT, scrapmetal yards have Radioactive sensors at their gates. If you take one of those parts thru the gate it will stop everything and rings loud bells and sirens while flashing yellow lights and everyones going to run for cover as they think you just brought in a long lost nuclear bomb or something.
Well that might be stretching the truth a bit, but its good for a free shower and 4 hours of overtime and you will have to fill out more sheets of paper than is in a Ann Rand paperback. (1049pgs)
Whats left? You can screw the case back on and flip it so the doors upwards and fill it full of screws from a Plasma screen (455 screws) and crushed steel cans and lids (depends on how many cats you have. I have 1, and feed another 4 strays)
You can take the plastic off the door. I do. But if they accept the Steel with a little bit of plastic you can put it back on.
Sometimes theres a glass sheet in the door. Mostly its some sort of safety glass, which is ironic as it can still cut you when it breaks.
The last couple of weeks I have been saving these sheets of glass up as they have a nice edge to them and possibly be used for picture frames.
In reality, its a small sheet of glass.
Its not easy to get out if its glued in place. And they break on a 1 to 5 ratio, so every 5th ones going to break. Soon you will loose count so possibly every one is the 5th one.
Wear safety glasses, and earmuffs as bashings loud and causes deafness and if you are smashing steel cans, tinnius.
I used to do all of this in a couple of minutes using a claw hammer.
After scrapping a decient microwave I end up with about NZ$7.00 worth of Copper.
At Burgerking I can buy a Double cheeseburger combo with a supershake instead of a softdrink, med fries, caramel sundae and a free cheeseburger if I fill out a questionaire thats on the reciept. For NZ$8.50
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P & M Recycling - Specializing in E-Waste Recycling. 
Originally Posted by FLScrapperGuy1
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