Advice/feedback on my sorting...

First, sorry if this is in the wrong area.

Second, I hope I don't sound like a dumba** asking this.

Would you guys mind giving me some advice and feedback on sorting? I've read alot on here, from different members/posts and would like to have everything sorted as properly as i can before I go to the yard with a load of stuff and look like a dumba** there...lol.

First, I have my buckets of "steel"...screws, vcr/dvd player cases, VCR "decks" (minus motors, big shiny head, and copper components), curtain rods....basically anything magnetic. (Big items get stashed on the side of my garage...washing machine tubs, filing cabinets, bicycles, etc"

Then theres the "brass" bucket...obviously brass components/fittings/spent shell casings.

"number two copper wire"...stripped wire, mainly from TVs and the windings on electrical boards.

A small bucket for copper tubing from dehumidifiers, ends cut off of copper/aluminum radiators, etc...I don't deal with much of this right now, so small bucket lol.

Two different aluminum buckets, for "cast" and basically anything else...heatsinks, mop/broom handles, etc.

Bucket for "motors" off of boards, including the big one on the corner of a tv/monitor board that has one wire running to the top of the tube

Bucket for bigger motors...ones that can have the copper cut and pulled...fan motors, dryer/washer motors, etc.
a garbage can full of boards with motors, copper components, and aluminum removed, but nothing else...so they still have steel heat sinks, and basically anything not aluminum or copper...will a yard take boards like this?



A garbage can of power coards with the ends clipped off

A garbage can of all other wiring, copper and aluminum mixed together, all the "tiny" wires, coax, phone coards

a container of plug ends. I began pulling out the connectors and putting them in a small container ofter clipping off the copper tails, proven very tedious and trying to find a differnt way, was told these were brass

Bucket for "stainless"

Bucket of batteries...no LI-Ion...alkalines, don't know what to do with them

Thats about it so far. Any advice/or feedback? If misplaced feel free to move....if stupid feel free to delete...thanks again....

call your local yards about the al sorting, cause all the yards local to me by al. as sheet or cast thats it, there is no differnt price for extruded al.

Originally Posted by ilovejunk

call your local yards about the al sorting, cause all the yards local to me by al. as sheet or cast thats it, there is no differnt price for extruded al.

Yards by me have you sort by...
Ext
Paint
MLC
Cast

Electric motors by me, all pay the same no mater what size. As for brass on cord prongs I just cut or pull them off and leave the rest on the cord as long as there is no steel on the cord end, and they all go in with the #2 ins wire

Mechanic...I by "copper components" I meant...and I forget the technical term...anything with copper wire, thats not a motor, that gets hit with a hammer and separated from what the wire is wrapped around (usually plastic)

Hypoman...Maybe like...10 spent casings...just found in my hunting stuff from when I used to hunt...I will take them out tho.

dmm...I will be sure to separate from now on. I've seen alot of people say they mix the copper and alum together, and get a "mixed" price...and i didn't know coax would be different. Do phone cords get mixed in with coax to then?

And thanks to everyone else on the aluminum...I will find out for sure how many catagories there are, and separate from there. If a heatsink is aluminum, but "colored"...is it still extrusion?

Phone cords can go with the low grade copper wire. Coax is different. If you hit it with a magnet you will see it sticks. The middle really isn't copper just plated.

Sorry didn't catch what Filthy said until after I wrote.

Originally Posted by Hypoman

Also, how many spent shell casings are you putting in your brass bucket. Most yards won't take them. They probably wouldn't say anything about a few, but too may and they reject them. Give them a call and find out. If they don't take what you have, gun ranges usually buy them.

Hell, don't sell shell casings, you can make things from them & sell them for a lot more than the scrap value.

Well, I can bring up the old addage of there are no dumb questions. I can also add that there ARE lazy questions. Yours is neither of those. We can tell that you have done a good bit of reading here and obsorbed a lot of the information.

With that said, you are talking about garbage cans full of various types of insulated wire. I would suggest a run to the scrap yard with maybe ten or 15 pounds of each to get the feel of your yard. You may get there and they throw it all on the same scale and give you number one insulated for all of it. Then you know what to expect. Same goes with the various types of aluminum. Have it all split up and see how they want to weigh it up. Of course a phone call can tell you if they will give you a difference for extruded or not. Hope this helps.

Good luck and keep on scrapping.

Originally Posted by ilovejunk

call your local yards about the al sorting, cause all the yards local to me by al. as sheet or cast thats it, there is no differnt price for extruded al.

It's the same at my local yard.

The last word in sorting is knowing what the yard buys and how they want it prepared, I think a test run is a great idea. Sort and clean everything as much as possible. It easy to combine things at the yard but the yard I go to will not let you sort once you're there.