Scrap Metal - Two Questions

Aren't these the scrap yard's problems, not yours? :-)

GWE

Scrapyards are like courtrooms. Never ask a question you don't already know the answer to :-)

Scrapyard I've been using appears to assume I'm an idiot and gives me however much they want to give me for my scrap. Time to change dealers.

They won't pay you a penny more whether it's shiny or not. the black copper oxide will probably reduce to copper in the smelter.

And unless there's a different price between the brasses they're gonna pay one price for it too.

There are about 10 different yellow brasses, nothing that is commercially called "red bronze", but maybe 50 possible alloys that are sorta red and sorta bronze. Some of em have zinc in em, or nickel, or lead, or silicon, or aluminum, or any of 10 or so other common alloying ingredients.

There are well over 100 common copper alloys out there, and the only way to really id em is spectrographic analysis- unless you can trace it back to the manufacturer, its all just "copper and something else".

In other words, "brass", and "bronze" are just sort of generic terms for stuff that is sorta yellow, and stuff that is sorta red or brown. But unless you actually know the 5 digit number of the alloy, its all worth the same price, which is mixed copper scrap price. At least, thats the way it is at my junkyard.

Just from personal experience I will tell you that contrary to what they might tell you, when push comes to shove, they will pay you less for scrap with stuff on it. Do your research on scrap buyers, they will also tell you that a certain material is not a certain material. Two cases come to mind, First case was a car grille that was very heavy and non - magnetic, found out it was stainless, but the scrap yard told me it was aluminum. It went down the road to the next scrap buyer. Second case was a pickup bed full of copper pipe sized from 1/2" to 2", no fittings or solder joints, totally clean material, and they tried to tell me it was Number 2 Dirty that was only paying out about one third of what Number 1 Clean was. It went down the road too, to get the Number 1 Clean price. Also if you have never done business with them before, get a Written sheet with the company letterhead or something else that they know officially came from their office, detailing what they take and how they classify it. You would be surprised how quick policies can change, when they are faced with somebody that brings in a couple hundred pounds of material. A small plastic bag full of cans, they hand you your dollar and say "run along", back in there with a 40" semi trailer loaded and see how quick they try to turn the sign around to read closed. I haven't been burned so to speak, but I have been very aggrivated with scrap men. Some have even gone as far as to close when they would see me pull up.

Bronze?

What sort of forms are they in?

Gunner

"The importance of morality is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. There are not enough cops and laws to replace personal morality as a means to produce a civilized society. Indeed, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Unfortunately, too many of us see police, laws and the criminal justice system as society's first line of defense." --Walter Williams