Hey fellow scrappers, I was told to introduce myself, so here goes: I mostly scrap by bicycle for small items and to spot larger ones for pick up. I focus mostly on Cu, Al, Brass and Stainless, but also e-scrap. I get money from the metals, but am on a mission to make a gold ingot from the computer and flat screen tv's. I have more recently been selling TV boards, power adapters and mics. parts that are small and have value on ebay. It sure floats my boat to sell stuff that I got for free.

My goal is to recover enough gold to make an ingot, maybe silver too. I am amassing gold pins, fingers, BGA chips and CPU's. I just got a decent deal on a Bernzomatic TS800 torch. Now I just need to get some glassware, decide on which method to use, chemicals (leaning towards hardware store stuff) and a crucible, resperator and safety glasses. This is going to be one expensive ingot, but that's what the metal scrapping money is for.

I am doing this on the side of my regular job, and am struggling to not let it take over my life. I love the hunt and gather, like the use of tools to manipulate the material to increase its value and believe in diverting from the landfill. I have been increasing my accumulation rate and am down to as low as 1 month turn around time for successive loads to Aaron's Metals in Hayward. I have a small car, so my load size is limited. So far I am gotten as high as $285 for one load. I would like to do a $300 load, but that will depend on what I have at the time.

I have sold a 2 lots of small gold bearing boards and RAM on ebay, but now, as I say, I am saving the Au for my own processing. I have found a e-waste yard in Fremont that pays for e-waste, but did not find the it to be very lucrative. They do pay for CPU's, HDD, DVD Drives and whole computers, Li batteries, etc. The best thing they do is take for free ABS plastic. I need to find out what he does with it, but am glad to not have to throw it away.

Enough rambling on, that's an intro, I just love making $ from curbside junk, well some dumpsters too. The more I look, the luckier I get!