understanding UK copper scrap grading?

[angellonewolf]

yes they sometimes ajust the prices as they see fit does not matter much when its steel but when on copper and wire can make a differance

i only use one now i trust him to give me the right price i only have a choise of 2 in my near ish area but never known him to chip the price i when i first moved in to my house few years ago i was remiving copper, rads etc not worth taking down on its own but friends family used to give me a nod when a washing mechine etc needed to go i would pickup and scrap it and take my pile at the same time never much but used to buy a cheap dinner or a few beers

the other one i took one load in there and the price was stupid low i asked they said scrap was low at the moment

i went home rung the other place he said it was 50 per ton (cant remenber the price exact but ) i rang them they quoted 45 per ton i looked at my slip looked like they paid about £30 per ton as the weight i scraped was low was not worth the bother chasing it but just used the other one now dont go there often few times a year but only if i got copper or ali to scrap even a washing mechine scrap is about £4/5 ish so not woorth getting my car dirty for unless there is a good amount there

 

[8ob]

Most of the copper core rads off trucks and plant I take in go as " braiziery" which I think is a scrap dealers term for a kick in the nuts for not separating it out for them, not that much difference in price.

https://www.greengatemetals.co.uk/scrapmetal/prices/

 

[taxi ray]

I worked in a non ferrous metal merchants for a good few years, they will normally grade scrap as what it is.

Heavy copper is 98% and includes pipework with soldered joints.
Braizery copper is typically copper pipework that includes brass joints, this also includes copper tanks that still have the element in them.
A copper tank that has no element or brass fittings is still heavy copper.

There is probably 20 or more different copper, brasses aluminium and stainless steels, but unless you have a decent amount the difference in the price is not worth worrying about.

I would not bother chopping the joints off copper pipe in order to make the price better, as the difference in price compared to the effort is not worth it.

 

[taxi ray]

Most of the copper core rads off trucks and plant I take in go as " braiziery" which I think is a scrap dealers term for a kick in the nuts for not separating it out for them, not that much difference in price.

https://www.greengatemetals.co.uk/scrapmetal/prices/

Getting a braziery price for rads is not a bad deal.

 

[julianf]

I would not bother chopping the joints off copper pipe in order to make the price better, as the difference in price compared to the effort is not worth it.

That has, surely, got to be a function of the length of the good section?

I mean, if i have a kilo pipe, with one fitting on the end, im going to earn, what, 50p for that single cut? I reckon i could cut 1 per min, so that would be a £30/hr job. If you could do it full time, that would be £64k / yr, or about 2.5x the average uk salary.

Obviously this is just nonsense, as you couldnt do it full time, but somwhere between that extrapolated £64k and zero is a point where it changes from being worth someones time to not being worth their time. That point will be different for everyone, but i am 100% certain its worth doing for some people! : )

 

[Kayos]

When the price is down the gap between braziery and clean is bigger so it’s wirth it, I remember getting 80p a kilo for clean, every fitting was chopped off in those days

When the price is decent, over £3 a kilo I just bang it all in

 

[Pete.]

Chopping the fitting off a copper tube is a moment's work with a recip saw. Definitely worth doing if it means sending a couple hundred kilos out clean.

 

[brightspark]

I have about a £1000 worth of scrap copper cable to strip when I can be bothered to sort it then run it through my home made cable stripper clean top grade cable worth a fortune

 

[Pete.]

Even quicker with a decent pair of snips.

I'd like to see you cut 40mm copper tube with snips.

 

[brightspark]

a crappy rage chopsaw would sort that

 

[Pete.]

Can't imagine using a 36" compound hand shear all day let along lugging them about. Recip saw cuts everything and you can carry it in one hand. Tube, pipe, tanks, busbar.

 

[dannyp]

i rember winding the locl scrappy up quite a lot used to separate everything but then the advertised price and the actual price seemed to get radicaly diffrent. so the steel, stainless and ali all went in the same skip, sadly we don't seem to be allowed to fill old cars up anymore.

tho for a while the small amount of worshop scrap ive been makeing has just gone in the skip that costs money to have emptyed but wye vallye in hereford is puncture central so not really worth going in there with a trailer

 

[julianf]

I have about a £1000 worth of scrap copper cable to strip when I can be bothered to sort it then run it through my home made cable stripper clean top grade cable worth a fortune

I saw someones numbers once - im going to make some up as an example, but they kind of went along these lines -

10kg of unstripped - £1kg so a tenner

or

3kg of pcv - £0 (would have been £3 if sold with the copper!)
7kg of stripped - £1.40kg (ie 40% more money per kg), but now only £9.80

Again, these are just made up numbers, but they used the right ones (at the time) and they worked out they actually lost by stripping.

I kind of find that hard to really believe, but its certainly worth doing the numbers just to be sure, as you might find that you do a whole load of work for minimal gain.

 

[dannyp]

got a couple of bulk bags full of automotive wire wonder if thats worth anything ? or is there a specal price for that ie zilch

 

[julianf]

Ive found that wire is an odd one. Things like computer hard drive cables - at some places the are worth nothing at all, but specialist places will pay good money for them. Same with PCBs - massive money, but only at specialists.

Yards seem to have a "household cable" class, which, i guess, theyre hoping is 32a ring main stuff, but ive certainly put all my wire (but not ribbon cable) in the same bag, and just emptied the sack on the scales without saying what it is, and its been "household wire" on the ticket.

 

[Kayos]

Ive found that wire is an odd one. Things like computer hard drive cables - at some places the are worth nothing at all, but specialist places will pay good money for them. Same with PCBs - massive money, but only at specialists.

Yards seem to have a "household cable" class, which, i guess, theyre hoping is 32a ring main stuff, but ive certainly put all my wire (but not ribbon cable) in the same bag, and just emptied the sack on the scales without saying what it is, and its been "household wire" on the ticket.

Wire is worth money when it’s proper sized cables, 16mm plus. Anything less is household

 

[brightspark]

got a couple of bulk bags full of automotive wire wonder if thats worth anything ? or is there a specal price for that ie zilch

yes worth taking in what most big scrappies use on copper cables are put them through a granulator shredder it seperates the plastic from the copper and ends up in 45 gallon drums https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxEfnmSD0nE this is a small one the larger ones are loaded with a crane using a grab to feed the machine

 

[ukracer]

If i cut them open and take out the anode (or cathode, i cant remember) is there any reason why they should not take them as the grade that has solder?

I dont have the quoted prices in front of me at present, but their tanks price was lower than their "pipe with solder" price (which i think is "heavy", or #2?)

Obviously they have entire control over what they buy, so my real question is "is there some proper reason for this, or should i go to another yard"?

My lad got over 50 notes for a copper cylinder removed from my system recently....

 

[julianf]

they come in different sizes though... : )

 

[rtbcomp]

I stripped my copper cable with contaminated Methylene Chloride I had left over from paint stripping.