I had 106 pound of sealed units. And 14 pounds of Megatrons. The rest is some what readable

This is probably one of the most interesting subreddits. I'm curious how did you get into scrap metal?

I've only seen copper cable so I'm confused. Is it aluminum

As a kid, I was into coins, and wound up doing the whole coin roll searching thing for junk silver… did really well with that until the early 2000s, when the internet sort of screwed it up, and you’d have a couple dozen people in your area looking for it.

I got into apartment maintenance in my early 20s, and would constantly be replacing old worn brass plumbing fixtures, copper lines, wiring, etc… there was an old guy, that was our parts delivery person, who asked me to save the old shit. He kind of clued me into the value of stuff.

One day, I was thinking where I could possibly find a ton of scrap metal, and remembered there was a ton of abandoned housing, that was part of the military base that closed around 1990. With the exception of most normal vandalism - graffiti, busted out windows, holes punched in sheetrock, smashed toilets - almost none of the scrap metal had been touched. The local police had even once used it for training/paintball. I wound up spending many nights in there, carefully/quietly ripping stuff out, breaking it down, and hauling it out in buckets. One night, we had a helluva wind storm, and it took down a lot of the power lines remaining in there…I cut and grabbed as much of that as I could. I left A LOT of larger shit, like hot water tanks, furnaces/HVAC units. At first, I thought it was almost a shame, because these buildings probably could have been revamped into decent housing again, but then I thought, “well, there’s probably some issue like asbestos, that’s too cost prohibitive to abate.”

Soon enough, there was an article in the local newspaper, about how everything in there was slated to be demolished, to make way for an industrial park. That’s when I think other people realized, “Oh there’s got to be a treasure trove of scrap there…” Well, I beat them to all of the copper and brass, but noticed the larger stuff slowly disappearing. Think I probably hauled $10,000 in scrap out, over the course of about 6 months.

I was never concerned about police. All of the scrap looked like scrap recovered from demolition/repair work. I didn’t have my car parked nearby, so there was no real indication that somebody might have been in there. It was dead quiet in there, so I’d hear a Caprice/Crown Vic idling no problem…but never saw one, despite rumors that they patrolled through there looking for kids screwing around.

So I got these today… I’m new to scrapping and trying to figure out the material. They silver when I scratch them, heavier than aluminum and non magnetic. I was thinking zinc, but I’m not sure because I haven’t had any

So I had some scrap pieces of gold. Gold filled, electronic pics etc and melted that all down and poured in a bucket. My question is this. Can I add those pieces to nitric acid and let it eat the base metals, and be left with the gold. I would do the whole aqua Regia and eat the gold there after but I have no meta bisulphate to precipitate it back. Any tips any one can give me I'd appreciate.

We have several loads needing to go and we're looking for some advice. Basically we don't know what we're doing but we collect a lot of metal and sort of see it as a hobby that we could potentially make some decent money from.

What is the best way to learn how to scrap?

It's been sitting there since the day after hurricane Milton. Does it still belong to the electric company?

My best friend works with security and fire alarm systems. Ive been telling him about my side hobby, he tells me he's got a bunch of batteries piled up and will split value with me if I haul them off, sweet.

Last time I visited his house, noticed a broken smoke detector and a wire spool with a tiny amount leftover in the trash...so I grabbed them too.

Smoke detector has electronics board in it, popped right out without a screw. wire is obviously valuable to greater or lesser degree.

What else should I ask my friend to separate out for me when he cleans his work vehicle out each day?

I usually grab it & get old painted siding price. Just wondering if anyone else scrapped it or leave it behind if the wire is already gone? Thanks!

Hi, I replaced my oven fan motor & before I just dump this I wanted to see if it was worth to recycle or even if y’all think someone would pick it up to recycle

Finally posting as have been lurking and small time scrapping for year or two but recently stepped up to start bringing few loads a week in. Have been separating but not to much breakdown and not reselling really as don’t have storage or time with my regular job. Anyway I recently started advertising scrap pickup and got a bunch of inquires and have done 1 big job already with a bunch of smaller ones set for this week. I don’t have a trailer yet so just in my pickup. Have a good relationship with my yard and they said if I have a really big load they will drop a 30 yard dumpster to load up and will cost $100. Question is is this load enough to get a roll off to fill? I would separate on site as I could into my truck anything worth more than light iron if I can.

New to scrapping and went to the scrap yard with some 304 stainless cages. Was told stainless welds make the product dirty stainless. This drops the price from .44 to .21 a pound. Is this true or was I ripped off?

I used a grinder and the metal is super hard and the interior looks to me like copper or possibly 10k gold ( I wish)