I want to expand, approaching a bank for a loan. - Page 2

Well I'm not trying to make it appear anything other than what it is... a trailer full of shred is barely worth the two hours and 35 miles to the yard to get rid of it. Especially since steel seems to be taking an unending dive.

I know this thread is about approaching a bank for a loan. It seems like you have the material flow to consider a granulator. I would 1st check that you have a buyer for chops. Not as easy to sell this material as insulated or clean copper(many grades will evolve from chopping). Also consider finding a buyer for insulated wire(another wire chopper). It may be not worth the investment if you find the right price for well separated material. For the time spent separating similar size wire for chopping you may be able to bale or fill Gaylord's and sell on recovery. Also consider electric,dedicated indoor space,and a lot of your time. Good luck and keep us posted

IDK. If you don't have the money on hand for a new wire granulator why buy one? I deal mainly with auctions. I have come across 3 different used granulators under 3k over the last 2 years. I have recently come across compactors and balers for under 500.00. Same with forklifts (from WalMart auctions). While this equipment may be 5-15 years old, it was working. It is going to take a long time (years and years) to get in the black grinding wire to cover 20K, not the case with 3-5k.

Your right, but where are you seeing granulators that have a 99.5 or better chop purity for three grand because I do have three grand...

Keep in mind I'm asking because I've been looking and not seeing. From what I've gathered doing extensive research and talking to yard bosses is that certain granulating operations just did not have good pure chop and or copper found in the waste bin. These are both bad things.

Now, I'm a fabricator of sorts and develop my own solutions to problems and maximizing my profits. I've considered building my own granulator or purchasing just the granulator drum and knives and using a wet shaker table for separation. One thing I know for sure, metal coming off a wet shaker table is going to be 99.999 percent metal and the waste is going to be 99.999 percent waste. It also means the chop can be smaller or bigger and isn't subject to being so uniform. Take the additional fact that your not running high horsepower pans and filters doing a chaff separation too, the operation would be significantly quieter. On this I found only ONE wet separator granulator and they are a chinese company. I have to face the real fact that when it comes to recycling solutions the chinese probably are better at it than we are.

[QUOTE=armygreywolf;222173]Your right, but where are you seeing granulators that have a 99.5 or better chop purity for three grand because I do have three grand...

I really didn't look into the models to see if it had a 99.5 or better chop purity, I wasn't in the market for these machines, but I suspect the newer machines do a better job than the old machines. My point was crawling/walking/running. I'd rather have a granulator that is at 90% for 3k than one that was 99% at 20k starting off. ANY granulator is better than NO granulator if you are processing wire. You may have to do a little more work, but it is about getting into the black as quick as possible. Most business fail because of too much debt/overhead. You can always upgrade with the profit which is why there is always a market for used equipment.

On a different note, a local buyer ewaste buyer near me has a granulator and pays a premium for cat5 wire. I'm getting .90# for number 2 insulated at all the yards around me but he is paying 1.15# for cat5. I do wonder the recovery. Cat5 is everywhere.

I've decided on a few things.

First it's more like baby steps.

I will get a granulator however I need to address a few issues before that happens.

I ordered a 100 ton electric/hydraulic press today, used. It will replace my 40 ton air powered shop press because that press when I've got the wedge on it just barely is not strong enough for the larger transformers (splitting).

Second, baler first. For practicality reasons a baler will reduce my space requirements and save me money. I also intent to expand on my plastics intake after speaking my my former father in law on the subject over the weekend.

Lastly, improvements to my refurbishing workspace, including new lighting, benches, storage and security.

This should make my year close out just fine and give me a chance to address the needs I listed possible two at a time next year.

omg the olympis is so much fun to play with or should I say proper analysis of material. the readouts are great and fast to use, I don't own one since I really have no need for it but my buddy does for his own work which fyi was a nice write off lol but hand held xrf or xrd's can be very helpful to max profits

Here's the thing:

Chops requirement, 99.5% purity, with very little waste allowed. That means little to no tin or brass connectors and absolutely no insulation. At the advisement of a forum member I made sure I had a buyer for chops lined up. He's willing to pay top prices but absolutely will not accept trash or other metals in the chops or it's a big dock for that.


Soooo, long story short, no 90 or 95 or 98 percent are unacceptable margins.

Cat 5e is 8 solid core wires bundled together, with a recovery by weight similar to romex. Lots of commo and parralel cable wire is actually high grade wire but some yards try to play it off.

Some, though I should do more, a water shaker table seems to be the best bet.

The most logical thing to do would be math and since I am very interested in this I am going to do it!

Just focusing on the granulator you said $20,000 for the cost, and you also said in a later post you put out 12,240 lbs of wire in a week so lets focus on that for a second

Say 1/3rd of the 12,240 lbs is plastic just for easy math and the rest is copper so you have....

8,160 lbs of copper #2 and you have 4,080 lbs of plastic coating and what not

For time sake say you throw the plastic away so you earn no income from that and your left with 8,160 lbs of #2 copper for that week, also say your yard is paying $2.50 /lb for it that week....


So you bring the copper in and earn $20,400....... This is a no-brainer if your stats are how I said them


You could have this thing paid off in 1 good week if your getting this all for free, but if you are paying it may take a little longer but still 3 weeks you are sure to make all your $ back. Present these stats to a bank and than see what they say... If they don't want to give you a loan for that it sounds like you are getting a lot of wire so just save the $ you get from that and invest in it yourself



As for the x-ray gun I would not buy that it is expensive and will just sit around like 19 said. Space sounds like a necessity if your processing this much


Good luck

Another word of advice on the XRF. This machine has a small radioactive core and ownership is regulated by the federal government. There are applications that can take up to 6 months to a year to get approval for. There is a $2-3k licensing fee each year. You also have to have proper safety training to run it and where a badge that measures your radiation exposure. There will also be a yearly inspection/audit by the federal government to make sure it is being secured properly and proper records are being kept. It sure is a neat little toy, but there is a lot more that goes into it besides the initial capital investment. Nice to hear you are ready to move on up though. Good luck.

To answer the queries. Yes I am operating as a sole proprieter, yes I carry a full insurance package, yes I maintain a lawyer on retainer. Yes I have a host of documents that cover the range of activities I endeavor on as a business from hard drive wiping, destruction to on site operations tearing out server and raceways. Yes I have a complete and detailed business plan which includes my growth steps, goals, achievements thus far and a detailed activities and processes memo so at a glance lenders and insurers can see what I am doing and fill holes for me if I'm missing something.

Now about wire output: I am at a point where I can do more than one ton a month every single month all by myself in power supply wire alone. I participate in a variety of auctions to increase this amount if I feel it prudent to do so. Additionally I also deal in more than a ton every single month in non power supply, computer related wire that is not ribbon wire, I classify as communications wire. In ribbon wire I still do 500-700 lbs every single month. So all together all by myself I could in a worst case scenario be able to maintain a payment AND profitability on a SMALL granulating operation that I could BUILD upon over time and not be forcing my hand into buying wire for very low turnover. If it be known I get screwed over on wire I know is much higher value but classified as low grade commo wire, it is commo wire but solid core...and pretty high recovery, I get paid terribly on alot of this stuff. My only outlet for a better price is most of a day's drive to and from.

I can realistically support 3000 pounds a month of material in house that is worth granulating for recovery. If you wish to crunch that math, add this, a 3 year loan on the machine, expected expenditure 20,000. Expected ongoing expense for knife and drum replacements, about 4 cents on the recovered pound. Electricity costs about 9 cents on the recovered lb (it will be less but lets call it that). I am planning for a wet table at this time but want to see one in operation, this is difficult to arrange. Wet shaker table recovery rates are 99.5% and higher as opposed to the best air shaker tables at 97-98 percent. Theres also an unrealistic complication from blowers, screens, filters, conveyors and so on. A wet shaker's main component is simply the granulator, the output screen (which can be changed for chop dimensions such as when doing smaller wire) and the wet shaker table itself, no blowers, no filters, no additional components, just the table, the tank, the output trays and the plumbing. What makes it better still is you can adjust the table while it works and actually see if your missing anything or not right there on the table. Also, such a table can also be used to separate any material of different weight, such as aluminum and copper...some thoughts to that im sure. I would probably spend extra money on a pre processor (A cable chopper) that pretty much chews down the granulator input material to bite sized pieces so it can work faster still...

Anyways...any e waste guy knows his largest output is usually going to be shred, boards and wire in that order. Wire outnumbers my aluminum most of the time. I posted another thread about maximizing your aluminum prices, this is my personal effort to maximize my wire, it is after all one of my biggest outputs and that would make sense.

Lastly for everything I've put on the table, that xrf gun STILL nags at me, I visit quite a few machine shops these days and while carbide is easy to identify by weight and with a magnet, some of the other lucrative alloys are not. Keep in mind im not purchasing labeled bar stock, that would be too easy, no this is a mix of who knows what rejected parts, not all of them identifiable enough to figure out what alloy was used to make it. Even then, it's troublesome to have a partially made reject looked up in the computer to see what alloy it's made of, it bothers my customers and I'm less and less comfortable doing it. I should also say it takes away buying power leaving the identification to the yard because then I have an even harder time storing and sorting the most valuable stuff and planning for intake of material based on grade. Lots of times I take a sample and come back for a buy only to find out someone threw the rest in with the iron dumpster. Can you imagine hearing about that with M1? Either way both of these high dollar items have their merits and I will have to consider it as the year closes out.