OMG awesome way to make an extra buck at christmas time...
 

this is the coolest... ok so i know i havent been around for a long time but i had to share this with you guys... those of you that have read some of my other stuff (probally none lol) know that im in construction.

so right now im demoing out this building for a new store. and in my contract i have to "gut" it. well im tearing it out and hit a jackpot. not like a hidden treasure from the 60's but kind of. this was an old grocery store so it had sevral fuse boxes. anyway i pulled the old service wire out of the ground and got 183 pounds of it...

so now you guys are saying yeah so what.. thats kinda what i thought i almost threw it away.. but then i thought about all the people i see saving it so i kept it and burned it off ( the coating around the wire) wich left me with pure #1 GRADE COPPER. heres the good part. copper is worth a $1.11 a pound here right now so i turned a 183lbs of copper into 203.13$

WOOO HOOOOOO

what a nice little bonus..

it was my first time "junking" but shit that was a hell of a way to start. the guys at the scrap yard said i would be an addict from now on lol.. i dunna know about that... but it only took 15 min and 40$ spent on the right tool to get the stuff.

so do any of you tfp'ers junk??

got any good places to find stuff worth junking?

maybe i am hooked... :thumbsup: :crazy:

I do alot of copper too, alot of the time I get equipment that isn't worth anything besides the copper, just take a sawzall and kaboom extra $$$. My dad back in the day used to steal lighting rods wires, hook up the truck and pull. Alot of people I know collect bits and chunks of wire and burn off the insulation...easy money.

As long as you don't get carried away and start taking copper from electrical sub-stations you'll be fine. A guy "poped" a couple of years ago while trying to steal some in this area..not a pretty picture when he was found.

I used to collect chunks of lead from power poles I was working on. I'd melt it down for fishing wieghts rather than for cash.

thats awesome...i dont know why but that completely fascinates me. i always love turning other peoples trash into my treasure

My Dad is into contruction. He started out with primarily electrical. This means that he ends up getting a lot of copper wire scrap. Wire from taking out old service boxes and bits and pieces left from running new wires. Growing up as a kid it was one way I made money. My brother and I weren't given any allowances. If we collected cans or found odd jobs around we made plenty of money that way. Our Dad also let us take all his wire scrap. If we stripped it he'd take it in and give us the money for it. If we waited to long to strip it then he'd do it and we'd loose out on the money. It taught us diligence and thriftiness. I'm not as careful with stuff nowadays but every now and then I find something with quite a bit of value that I either save or turn in for scrap. Just last month I saved a piece of carnival ware from my Mother-in-laws. My SIL hated that old green chicken bowl and I had seen them in antique stores. MIL offered it to me saying that she'd just throw it otherwise. I told her of it's value and she was surprised but gave it to me anyway. I love finding treasures and making money from trash. It's amazing what can be done.

I used to pick up walnuts to cash. Does that count? LoL.

I go dumpster diving. I went a few days ago, I found a bunch of CD's and a small bag full of cigar ends. Sweet.

TRUE Story
 

I used to work for a Electrical Utility Company before I quit to be a teacher. This guy used to Steal Copper from our Substations. The police were trying to catch him. One day after a trouble call one of my buddies found the gate open at a downtown substation. No one was there except there were footprints leading to a "garbage bag" laying at the foot of the barbed wire fence around the south end of the Station.

He called the police after he noticed that some of the ground wire had been stripped from the structures. As he waited for the police to arrive he walked through the snow towards the Bag when he realised it wasn't a Garbage bag at all but the charred remains of the man who had tried to steal the copper ground wire.

It turns out that as this guy was unbolting the wire from the structure above when he dropped it into a large 66 thousand Volt Transformer. He was burnt in the fireball above and then climbed down and died from exposure to the elements when he got to the fence. They figure that he was blind from the burns and since his clothes had burnt off he froze to death. It was pretty ugly... my buddy needed counselling for months afterward.

Down where I work, a soap factory, we used to do all of our printing using aluminum sheets with the designs printed on them and separated in brown paper bags by company. Well, about six months ago we switched to a completely digital system and decided to clean out all of our plates, meaning they all got thrown outside by the dumpster. Since nobody else was going to use 'em, and I saw no reason to let money go to waste, I made multiple trips in my car and ended up with about 1526 pounds of alumnum sheets in paper bags in my garage. More importantly, I ended up with about 1200 bucks in pocket.

I did, by the way, ask my boss if I could have the sheets. He was happy to have me take 'em away. But I think I got the better deal. ;)

...fascinating thread.
cool stories, all.
thanks!

My dad worked (and still does) for Nashville Machine and always had spare copper around the place, he'd let me have it and sell it to scrapyards. It was worth it, 'cause I always ended up with quite a bit of cash. It was tough getting the copper to the scrapyards because the stuff was so heavy.

I used to work in construction and I was doing a remodel on an elementry school. well they were going to demo out all aluminium blinds as part of the remodel, so a coworker of mine spent about 2 hours after after work tearing them all down to recycle. The worst part was that it was a real bitch getting them down, they were frickin stubburn. Well after all the work and time, he takes them out of his way to the recycling station and they gave him $15 for it! I had a good laugh about that one. He was one pissed off dude.

What a great story and a great way to reuse materials that are already there...nicely done!

I've always been a fan of scrapcraft and have made a few pieces of my own...like windchimes from metal pieces pulled from old computers, but mostly I come up with ridiculous things like umbrella holders and very odd lamps.

A co-worker beat me to getting all the scrap heatsinks at work (computer factory)...he separates the parts and gets about 37 cents a pound for the aluminum.

hehe

a good thread

im proud.....

The price for scrap metal around here has risen to the point, that some ass-hats are going around stealing manhole covers.

Talk about a pothole. Damn

I really like this idea: turning "trash" into money, reusable resources etc. I always tell environmentalists the same thing; if you want to get your message accross, show them the money! Where do you go to cash it in though?

Great synergy; recycling for profit. Stealing's not cool though.

How do you remove the copper from the plastic etc?

I have a bunch of computer monitors, cables, wires, cell phones, routers etc (you get the idea). I've been reluctant to just toss it in the trash but I don't think I could get much for them on eBay or whatever. What can I do with all this stuff? Any ideas?

I used to slice it down the side with a utility knife like I'd do if I was peeling a carrot. Then the rest of it just pulled off.

Thanks raeanna74,

Now for the "million dollar" question: Where do I take the copper to get $$$?

Interesting thread.

Recycling old computer and electronic parts is a cottage industry in some Third World countries. A lot of companies (and Western countries!) dump their electronic waste in poorer nations with less stringent environmental protection laws. Lots of mercury and other nasty heavy metals... Just let the poor sods in the Third World deal with it...

Sad but true.

A common method of recycling is to burn off the plastic and then melt the resulting slag. Of course, the fact that this produces highly toxic gasses that damage the environment and poison the recyclers is an unfortunate side effect.

Having said all that, I like this thread. Just don't go throwing your junk on a fire. It's dangerous for your health!


Mr Mephisto

I find things at garage sales that are worth more money than people think they are, turn around, and sell them on Ebay. :) Right now I'm selling a sterling silver Tiffany money clip that I paid $1 for for $45. It'll pay for me to go to a concert this week ;)

oww, this is a great idea, i certainly agree with you completely.

if you look in a phone book look under salvage or junk or recylcle.

all these place may take metal and give you money.

im prety sure salvage yards are the most common.

like i said in my 1st post it was 1.11$ a pound here i would be intersted to hear the quote they give you where you are. that was for #1 copper (#1 meaning it was free of solder rubber plastic and such things.

yes i burnt the coating off my wire. apperntly thats what most folks do where i live. as 3 of the places i called recomended that as the best way to get the copper out.

my next misson invloves "radiator screens" out of old air conditioners.

they said that stuff was .63$ a pound. ill let you all know what it brings when i get it.

When I was a kid, I remember my grandfather taking me to a friend of his, or maybe it was my uncle (I was really young). The guy took old car parts and put them into a barrel with a hole and a sluice cut in the side. He then turned on this turbo pump that torched the inside of the barrel, kind of like a miniature blast furnace. Within a few minutes there was aluminum pouring down the spigot and into molds that formed the metal into ingots.

I thought it was pretty cool, and I can only guess it was pretty profitable.

That's pretty cool. Never done it before but I'll have to keep my eye open.

In our retirement park we have over 300 homes---that produces a lot of aluminum cans.....so we built an automatic can crusher---we load the garbage cans on the trailer and make about $100 every 3 weeks....

I've never done anything on quite as grand a scale, but last summer I pulled caps off of mountain dew bottles in the recycling bins at school and used the codes off of them to get a free x-box, controller, x-box live, jersey, and hooded sweatshirt.

that could be cooler than anything in this thread.....

how many caps any idea???

During a commercial construction renovation I was able to save aluminum storefront window frames. One load in a small S-10 pickup got me $300.00 at the metal recyclers.

But what ass-hats are paying for the manhole covers? Or do the thieves melt them down first? Anyways, the renovation of our local railroad line was delayed several months because people kept stealing the soon-to-be air wires. Until the brilliant railroad guys put it in a locked and guarded storage that is. Thank you for saving taxpayer money, railroad people!

I had around 1600 points altogether, but many of them probably came off of the cases of soda that I restacked for my local Salvation Army emergency shelter. They let me keep the points. Probably several hundred caps by the end. People at school would look at me funny until I explained that I got an X-Box for the $8.75 shipping charge.

that is funny shit.....

i do quite a bit of comercial tear out... i guess i need to find out what all you can cash in...

so far ive loaded out 5 dumpsters in 2 weeks and only got the storefront windows service line. and the coils fromthe air conditoners..

i hope they are profitable ( they are heavy sunof guns)

How much of an air conditioner could you sell? I know theres always a bunch at tag sales near the end of the summer, would it ever be profitable to buy it, strip it down, and then sell it? And where could I find a somewhat at-home process to melt down different kinds of metals and form them into ingots or w/e?

I am the Director of Real Estate for a national restaurant chain. We have to remove the AC units off the roof of our closed stores while they are for sale because inevitably someone steals the copper coils off our AC units.

My dad is a plumber, so he occasionally brings home scrap. Usually, he brings brass, copper, and aluminum. Then, once in the spring and in the fall, I'll go take it in - for about $80 each time.

Grayman
- nice job ! The local recycling bins do pay - At my school [1350 kids] we have a huge dumpster for paper [goes in separate trash bins]. I've found most of my school supplies that way [people putting that stuff in by accident] and as well as a few music cd's [just relient k and some other ones].

At work, I've had about ten free movie rentals in the past month, people leave on the coupon on the large cups after the movies, and some of the cups have free movies on them, others with BOGO's.

/heads off to lesser known movie recommendation thread