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Ok, I started buying insulated wire. I've been reading old post on insulated wire to c what kind of formula others use to come up with a fair price. Found threads about recovery rates for different types of wire. Not sure what is meant when someone says "i pay for 60% copper conent rate" 60% of what, #1 ? Where's your profit?
I think they are refering to what percentage of actual copper the insulated wire contains or "yields". For example, I believe insulated Romex has a 62-65 percent content of copper. So if you purchased 1000lbs of insulated Romex, you could safely estimate a copper content of at least 600lbs. 600lbs of bare bright wire times the going rate per lb of #1 your yard is paying would give you an idea of your payout. Adjust your price accordingly as to what you would wish to profit. Keep in mind that stripping wire means your time and labor. You could also find a buyer of your insulated wire and make a small profit, but would involve minimal time and labor on your end.
Heres a link that I hope helps:
http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/disma...breakdown.html
Best wishes.
The first thing to consider when purchasing wire is whether the wire is insulated #1 or #2 copper. Just like any other copper material, if the copper wire is plated it is considered #2. Once you have determined that you can calculate what the wire is worth by multiplying the recovery rate by the current #1 or #2 price. I would knock 20% off that price if you are not stripping that wire to be on the safe side, typically the processing fee for wire is taken out of the price at the scrapyard and it can range from 10-20%. If you are stripping the wire, make sure you knock enough of the price to pay for your time.
I have a wire stripper and I'm buying insulated wire from others then stripping it, selling it to yards. I'm trying to figure how much to pay people for insulated wire.
Feet per lb info... American Wire Gauge, AWG Cable Size Description for Copper Wire Cable
Ty for everyones help. Just trying to b fair enough with my pricing for both me and customer to b happy with. Hopefully picks up a little, just spent $300 on portable bench scale.
Here is what you need to do: Get a gram scale, cut a piece of wire, weight it, strip it, weigh the copper and diveide the weight of the copper by the weight of the wire before you stripped it. That is how you find your copper recovery from ICW. I have always used formulas and spreads off the market, but if you dont have that information i guess a good way to estimate prices would be to use the barebright price multiplied by your revovery percentage for an estimate of #1ICW and use your #2 price instead of barebright to find the #2 ICW price. Hope that helps you.
Ty for helpful info
I have been toying with the idea of offering slightly higher than the local scrap yard for wire, if that idea helps