Dear brothers,

You've probably heard the same kind of shit over and over, so I'll be brief.

I need to make up to 2000 dollars fast (that is in the next 4 following months), and I heard that some people pay handsomely for scrap metal (be this aluminum cans, pipes, etc...)

After some research I realize that they do NOT pay anithing good that is not copper.

So my question is: Could anyone tip me on where the fuck may I acquire copper scrap?


What I've done so far:

I've got some abandoned places where chances are I may find copper, but obviously haven't got the time to be ripping off pipes (but due to circumstances I might have to). Also I've given up any hopes of makng cash through alum cans (here are paid very poorly, plus, they buy them on big weights...)


So, will &T dwellers help me out?

Stealing copper is still stealing, and you get done for burglary's same as any other job..

So go steal something worth 2gs and hock that shit.

Enjoy GTA:your life.

Ok, maybe I wasn't very clear.

I was asking any source where I can acquiere copper. Of course I do not plan to steal anithing.

In any case, what did you mean with "worth 2gs"?

do you know how easy it is to make 2k in 4 months with a job? If you found a job that paid 6.50 you'd have to work 20 hours a week, that's it, that's a reliable source of income, whereas cashing in scraps isn't. anyway to answer your question you can find alot of copper in old ac units.

I think a good place to get ahold of some copper would be a junkyard(cars) Get ahold of any kind of electrical device you can find. Starters, alternators, wiring harnesses, etc.

im 100% sure you could find a minimum wage job somewhere and make that in 2 months

don't waste your time with wire or other small crap like that. you really need tons of that to make cash. copper pipe is heavy, you get a lot more cash per hour of theft

Well thank you people.

For those who reccomended me a job, hell, thank you too, but I had resorted to getting money through metal scrap because lets say I didn't want anybody of my peers knowing I need to gather money so quickly, mostly becacuse I would need to justify why (and I don't want to say why, neither online (paranoia?)).

In any case thank you all.


I think I'll have to *sigh* resort to beating whores, again.

Oh, and to Major of Monkey Town: I liked he "GTA: your life" quote. I think I am going to take it as motto. Bad you don't own the copyright, lol.

Just tell them you want to start saving money. They shouldn't have a problem with that response unless they're retarded lazy niggers.

I started to do one of my long writeup & 80% thru it,
it crashed.

Search my threads for the info.
Best get old cars & whiteware & old electric moters & transformers & lawnmowers to get the metal.

You need lots of them, get them from Whiteware dealers & ask around, drop circulars in peoples letterboxs asking to take away metal rubbish, cars, fridges, washing machines, TV's, microwaves, dishwashers etc etc.

Its best to have some way of transporting it, like a Car & trailer, do it legit as if you get fined for something, then you just wasted a LOT of work & got nowhere.
Don't chance it, its not worth it, double check.

The more you do the better, use gloves as scars on the hands aren't nice & don't go away.

You will need to be able to burn the insulation off the wire so you need a good safe place to do it without getting busted by police or Firefighters. Its better to ask permission first or even notify them.
Being caught out isn't nice, trust me.
It involves lots of smoke that will black out a city block area & has 6 foot high flames.

You are going to spend lots of time doing it, but that time flys by.

You need-
Gloves, sledge hammer, screwdrivers & plyers & levers (from the cars tool kits is nice)
A small sledge hammer & normal hammer.
Punch pins to drive stuff out, small electric motors have a spindle thru them that do a good job.
A workbench with a sturdy Vise.
A small electric drill with a phillips screwdriver bit in it, a old 12volt one connected up to a car battery is bloody handy & saves lots of time.
Crowbars & garden loppers to cut wire & stuff.
Anglegrinder with earmuffs & glasses. You need to be taught how to use one as they can harm you to the point of not being worth doing scrapmetal, or resenting that you did.
Sacks to put the metal in.

You should use Earmuffs as it WILL deafen you over a short time, I have ringing in my ears.
Also you will then have no reason to not bash hard where you want to, when you want to.
Time goes faster as you get into your little 'bubble' & work like fuk.

You need to clean all the iron off the Ali & copper, that gets pretty fiddly towards the end of the scrapping

After scrapping,
A Microwave is worth NZ$8+ (tranny is 1kg,
Copper part from magnatron 90gms, (needs work!)
Ali fins from magnatron 30gms,
Burnt off wire 30gms+,
Theres two strong magnets that are worth about $2 each for a bunch on Ebay etc.
Little transformer 50+gms.

A sack of Ali is worth NZ$20-30. extrusions from fridges,ovens,washing machines, bits of castings, ali wire from electric motors, cooling fins, tubing etc.

A starter motor is worth about NZ$6 or less.
Copper wire & Ali housing & brass contacts.

A TV has copper wire around the back of the TV screen yoke. 1LB copper.
Another around the edge of the screen for the degauser (which can sometimes be Ali wire)
Transformers & wiring loom.

Caution with handling TV screens, they WILL EXPLODE if they are not devacuumed.
Simply wear glasses/gloves, take off back of TV, unplug the plug on the back of the screen, find little melted end of tube, stick end of screwdriver in there & pop off the little melted bit.
Air will rush into the screen so don't have anything close to it - like your hand -as it will suck the blood out of you.

I nearly blinded myself by smashing a old screen that I thought was safe, really heavy sharp glass shards for 10 foot around me.

So, yeah ask away...

Thanks eesakiwi. I think I'll take a try.

Dude don't kill your back breaking shit open, it's not worth the money you'd get in the US. You can try wire but most places it's a pain in the ass pulling it out the walls. You have to pop open every box and cut the wire loose. The real cash is in ground wire, bus bars, breaker boxes, and fat copper mains in abandoned commercial buildings. You're lucky if the crackhead hobos didn't get there before you though. I work in a lot in abandoned factories and such and I run into those shitheads all the time. They make thousands off the tons of copper pipe and 1/2 inch fat copper wire in these places. Bring a sawzall.

There's loads of copper in live transformers.

You can find lots of rebar in old buildings and in the foundation of torn down houses. If you can actually drag away those big chunks of metal from an abandoned railroad then that would net you something.

I found 2 small 21 inch Tvs on the side of the road in the last few days.
Both the same sort, weird?.

There wasn't a big transformer in it but the 4 odd shaped copper windings around the tube weighed only 200gms. (I have weighed the bigger ones & got 450gms - almost 1 Lb.)

The Degausing coil around the outer edge of the screen weighed 225 gms & I had to unwind the insulation tape from it, sorta messy but it was painted with red varnish (real thin layer, like normal wire) & looked nice.

There was another transformer inside where the high voltage is made, it weighed 100gms, it had a ferrite (black magnet sorta style) chunk thru it & was wrapped with a thin copper foil.
That ferrite stuff is good to work with as you only have to bash it with a hammer for it all to breakup & drop off.
All the wire was cut out.

I have a 10litre bucket of bare copper wire &
a 10Litre bucket fill of plastic coated wire that needs to be burnt off.

I'm going to use these standards to figure out the returns.
ie, 10 litre plastic coated is equal to ?Kg burnt wire.
& 10Litres copper wire = ?Kg.

Theres a few car wire looms that I will cut out of cars over the next few days.
Its getting harder to find stuff now...

How much do you think you'll make from that t.v.(total)?
You're in New Zealand, right(if you are I'll have to convert the total to US dollars)?

Well Copper has gone up too NZ$7 Kg.

To convert to US$ just (x by 80%) or ( x by 0.8)
Our $1 is worth US$0.79cents

I use only Kg here 'couse a Lb is a small amount & takes some figuring out with the 454gm thing...

The TV was about 500gms (but I have found TV's with much more copper than that) so thats about NZ$3.50+ or US$2.40 each.

Since then I have found 2 Microwaves on the side of the road, so thats another NZ$14.00+ for easy copper.

I convinced a shop to recycle Ali cans too, they get to save on rubbish bags, no real work for me, just pickem up!

But I have found a source of car bodies with the looms in them.
Thats hard work under the dash & under the bonnet, theres no motor & the roofs crushed in.
Cutting hands all the time, & its in the dark with a little single LED torch.... & moonlight.

I noticed that my lymph glans (small bumps under the armpit) have swelled up a bit, thats because of the cuts etc.
So I'm gonna have to wear gloves now.

But I did find a car stereo, once it was home I figured out that it had a CD changer plugged into it, so thats gotta be found.
I guess its under the seat & I'll have to hacksaw thru two window pillars to lift it off the car seats to get to it.

By fitting a rechargeable battery with leads & a inspection torch I hope to have small bright light now.

It seems a sack full of leads/looms equals about a 10L paint bucket full of burnt copper wire, which equals 15Kg or less.
Which works out to be about NZ$100 for a fukload of work.

Walking to cars, rip out wire, walk home.
Cut off plugs, cut off outside layer of plastic tubing & insulation tape.
Walk to safe wire burning site, burn off, walk home.
Use garden hose to clean off wire & then pick out any clips & plastic/ash.
Place in bucket, squash, add lid.
Bus to scrapmetal place & bus home.
(by putting the wire in plastic bucket I can use the bus now which saves more money because its free during the day)

The bucket I took had 12Kg of copper in it, thats NZ$84.00.
Most of that was electric motor & transformer copper wire & its dosn't squash down as easy as burnt wire.

I have two buckets with about 14/15Kg burnt copper (from looms) in them.
Thats really money in the bank @$100 a pop

http://www.metalcorp.co.nz/pricelist.php
NZ scrapmetal prices

I started saving up Magnesium, its found on the outside of electric motors sometimes.
It looks like a dull Aluminium but its lighter & has different 'ring' to it if you hit it with something, it rings longer too.

But then I found the prices are less than Ali, so it would be easyer to just chuck it in with the Ali anyway
( Ali Alloys mostly about 10% magnesium or silicon)

Then today I find out that over the last 6 months its gone up are far bit, not worth as much as Ali but...

But it might be fun to put some on a fire outside & let it burn real bright for a while...

Sometimes when I have pulled apart something I have found the reason why it was dumped. (& the last sound it made!)
Like washing machines, theres a 'burnout' on the printed circuit board.
It might be a faulty part like a resistor or Capacitor, or a break in the board or a bad soldering joint etc.
Its a lot more common than I thought.

One had a burnt out motor wire (F&P Smart drive)
www.tomw.net.au/blog/2006/02/submarine-resear...
All that would have taken was one hand tightened plastic nut & 4 metal screws with a hex head on it to fix it.
But I'd already scrapped the rest.

You might be able to sell the whole unit, as people use them to generate electricity thru windpower.

Those machines have a large diameter electric motor, direct drive to the impeller part inside the machine.
Each one of those has 1Kg of copper wire in it.
It needs to be unwound or the wire cut out.
I found I could unwind two at a time (on top of each other) while its sitting over a peice of bar placed in my benchvise.
Or hang it by the wire & let it unwind itself, you need to jiggle it when the wire gets caught on the plastic.

You can chop the drive shaft out of the plastic bin with a axe, use glasses & gloves, theres plenty of chances to get hurt here.
Then burn a bunch of the alloy housings to get the Ali out.
The shaft is magnetic Stainless steel but theres a small nonmagnetic collar in there too.

--------------------
Ferrous means steel/Iron, anything a magnet sticks to.

Stainless steel> two sorts
1/ Nonmagnetic,
A magnet will not stick to it because theres so much Nickel in with the steel.
High nickel content makes it resistant to corrosion & tougher.
Nickel is worth lots of money so that makes the stainless steel worth money.
The $/Kg value is not high But because the metal is heavy you can get a good amount (weight) for a small volume.
I have been suprised the amount of money I have got for a small sack of nonferrous SS.

2/ magnetic, not much nickel, this metal goes in with all the plain scrap iron. (NZ$50 - $150+ ton)

-----------------------
If its not too late you might be able to find the replacement part & fix the washing machine, then sell it for even more money.
Oh, I found that the washing machine hoses with Stainless steel braid around them are 250gms SS each, thats with the ends (brass & or stainless fittings) cut off & the liner removed. So 4 hoses = 1Kg stainless steel.

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Car engines are hard work, you need to be able to strip down several to its basic parts, like.
Head,
Gearbox
Motor housing
Manifolds

Then attack several at one time.
ALL the metal needs to be taken off, every stud, insert etc.

To take out the studs (double thread ended bolt) you can first use plyers sometimes,
Or then a monkey wrench (on the unthreaded part)

Or then screw onto the thread a nut, then another, then use a spanner to tighten them both together & then put the spanner on the bottom nut & undo it.
Giving the end of the stud a sharp tap with a hammer will dislodge the steel away from the Ali (they sometime weld together a bit)
Do the hitting bit After threading on the nuts (it expands the end of the stud & you then can't thread the nuts on.

If a bolt or stud breaks off inside the Ali casting you can chisel away the Ali between the stud & the outside of the casting & then punch the stud out with a chisel or punch.

If it goes right thru the casting you can sometimes punch it right thru the casting with the punch again.
Or using a electric drill & bit, drill out the stud or weaken the alloy around it with the drill, then punch.

Rubber seals & round tube (locating) inserts can be picked out with a cold chisel or a round rod/punch.
Valve seat inserts can be punched out using a cold chisel from the 'Inlet' side of the seat. (bitchy)

Its easyer to use a valve removing tool to get the valve/spring/boss/collet out of the head.

Its possible to put something under the head to hold the valve in place & then use a metal tube or even the end of a ring spanner placed over the boss, then hit it with a hammer & the collets will drop out.

Trouble is, is that its all under pressure & that spring will shoot out & hit you, normally in the eye, quite violently.
So be bloody carefull with your eyes.
Use proper safety glasses.

Then you need to take out the valve guide/insert, they move on one direction easyer than the other & you need a punch to do it, a electric motor armature spindle (the rod going thru the motor) is good for this.

So is a glove on your left hand 'couse if you hit it the bone in your finger/hand cracks a bit & by fuk that hurts, I can't even tap it hard & it hurts for days now.

Heads are about 8Kg+ each

In the block there are metal tube sleeves (the bores) that need to be taken out.
I have a big angle grinder with a cutoff disc in it to do that, the block gets split in two & the sleeves fall out.
The other way is to bash it with a sledge hammer or axe the thing apart.
Be carefull, missing causes accidents.

------------------------
Brass, NZ$5 Kg
Theres brass everywhere, electrical connectors, castings, copper pipe fittings are brass, brass taps, radiator tube fittings etc etc
Most of its small stuff but it all adds up.
I had 7Kg in a shopping bag @ $5 Kg = $35

--------------------

Lead,
Leads worth fukall maybe NZ$.50 - $1 Kg

I was suprised how little considering how much effort I went to to get the old lead gas pipe out of a house once.
Most of the lead is lead weights off car wheels, lead headed nails, roof flashings etc.

I met someone who pays a lot more (NZ$2Kg) for lead.
He has some lead molds & makes divers weight belts & sells them to a diving/second hand store.
The divers loose them all the time so they always want them.
Fishing sinkers too, I've seen molds in hardware stores so you can make your own.
I got a peice of wood & drilled 3/4inch dia -1inch deep holes in it, then put a old bike spoke across the holes, then dangled fencing staples (horseshoe shaped nails) over the spoke into the holes.
Then I poured molten lead into the holes & made sinkers.

-------
Car batterys have lead in then & they pay per battery.
Be carefull with the car batterys as they have acid in them.
That acid will eat into material & then when you wash it all the little holes appear.
That will cost you good money $$$, for little return.

I tip them upside down on gravel or such, so the acid drains out, then I pour water over the battery & kick it back up again, clean battery with water & leave it there to dry.
The acid will fuk your eyes too. Be carefull.
Wear safety glasses

being a sparky i know from experence. A lot of people go into construction sites when the mains arnt hooked into the board yet and cut them off.

Its very annoying haveing th emains 3 m short.

Make sure its not live.

By steal something worth 2g's i meant 2 grand, unless you meant by target in which case theres plenty around - but alot of that depends on being able to shift it.

No point stealing a picasso if you cant shift it - your better off jacking a case of beer.

'GTA: your life' is a good one, im glad its appreciated.

Making 2 thousand in a month you could easily do it with a job, to know all your options though we need to be able to say what kind of city/town your in, do you have a car - if so what kind?

Shit, going door to door with a ute with the right tools in the back offering to do gardening could make you 2gs in a month or so - but if your in a place like NYC it aint going to happen.

where buildings are being built, electrian's scarp alot of copper wireing , gather it up and bring it too ur nearest buyer, ( ive seen it be done)

Viper

Well a 10Litre paint bucket packed fill of clean burnt copper wire weighs 14Kg.

They took off 1Kg for the weight of the bucket which made it 13Kg.

At NZ$7/Kg for copper, that made the copper worth NZ$91.
I took the bus which made the travel free (off peak & weekends)

I would rather get it weighed without the bucket 'couse I think they don't weigh a full 1Kg. I'll check how much they DO weigh to make sure.
There wasn't anything to put it on near the weighing station, its a bit messy staying close to the scales as theres normally machinery working close to it.

The other option I like if its a smaller amount is to have it in plastic shopping bags, thats good for brass too as its normally small stuff & lots of it.

Another thing is to have some smaller chunks (100gms/200gms) of copper in my pocket & when the stuffs being weighed up, once the scales start to show the weight, is to then chuck on the chunks, one by one, till the scales then tip over up to the next KG.
I guess that metal weighed in the USA, is by the Lb, which is 454gms, a too small amount to worry about 'tipping the scales.

I've gotta get some more wiring looms so I'll try to figure out the size of the sack 'o looms needed to get the paint bucket filled.
So it'l be like this,

1 ?Kg coal sack fill of looms weighs ?KG. Which gives you
?Kg of looms without plugs. Which gives you
?Kg of looms without outside wrapping plastic/tape. Which gives you
?Kg of dirty burnt wire. Which gives you
13Kg of burnt wire @ NZ$7Kg. Which gives you
NZ$91 or about US$75. Which took you ?hrs.
-------------------------

Scrapmetal dealers fullful tenders of metal.

Like one company in ? China/Asia/anywhere else wants "200 Ton of grade2 copper scrap for electroplating refining".

They say they will pay "X amount of $ for it to be delivered at X date"

The dealer looks at his stock & says "Thats a good price, we have 172 ton of copper & could almost fulfull that Contract"
"except we now would need an extra 38 ton of copper"

So the dealer starts calling up other scrapmetal companys to ask if they would sell some of their stock to him at a slightly above market price, so he can 'do the deal'

Now this is where you can make some extra $ by saving up lots of metal, once you have , say 100Kg copper.
Call them up & say you have that amount ready & ask what you could get for it.
Say that you are getting more in soon & will be adding to that 100Kg & if they like they could call you back if the price moves up or if they want to get that amount suddenly.

They think, {Ok, its there, I don't have to pay for it right now, but its essentialy 'In stock' & I can use it to make up a contract, so I will pay a certain %$ more than the current market price} & you make extra $$, they will also pick it up for free.

I saw a guy the other day bring in 3 tons of mud covered metal, bulldozer tracks/wheels/engine etc. He got NZ$700 for it.
I asked what the story was with it?
He said "Oh the farm I'm on, the last owner bulldozed into the ground a old farm tractor/bulldozer & the other day I had some contractors putting in a ditch for a irrigation pipe & I got them to dig up the tractor steel & dump it on my trailer"
"You should have seen what I got for a huge pile of railway iron last week..."
"Fukkin 'Money in the bank' eh?"

All he had to do was drive a trailer to the scrappers twice for $3000.......

you could whore yourself off to 1000 fat chicks for 2 dollars a piece

In a reservation near my house there's a few unused telephone poles just chopped up and laying on the ground. All of the wire was just laying in a mess on the ground, so I coiled it up and took it. Its not the big stuff you'd picture on a telephone pole, but its all copper. There's still more that I'll go back for.

break into a museum.

steal the bronze canon.

by means of a blowtorch, cut them to pieces.

now you have tons of bronze.

google ways to break bronze into cooper and tin.

now you have tons of cooper, which actually worth less than the canon you had stole.

profit.

Just carshop at peak times.

I been collecting car wiring looms for a while now, bloody messy & bloody bloody too.

Made a deep slice thru LH fore finger, put plaster on & changed it 2 times a day & then cut off flap & plaster again.
Hardly see able now thru all the other cuts etc.

Was using a blunt scripto knife, blunt isn't good.

Been cutting off the plugs from the looms as well.
Didn't relise that its a copper/brass mix & thats what radiators are made out of & they get $4 Kg, only have about 1Kg after the plastics burnt off.
I'll pour them into a radiator core & bash the end over.

The big sack of cleaned but plastic coated wire is as much as I can lift, while the small sack is over 10Kg.
I want to burn off 10Kg wire to see what the returns are for burnt wire.

Gonna spend some time setting up the burning off plastic too. Think that its not ideal conditions.
Want to heat up the wire so its hot & then start the flames in the plastic, leave plenty of space in thru the wire so its burns then cools fast.
Otherwise the wire gets too hot & oxidises a lot, yeild killer.

Theres been some shitty weather here lately, nice time to do the burn off, but not the collecting, want to get as much as possible before burning off.
C/yah