So I took some scrap in yesterday. I had some compressors I had pulled over the past few months. Looked at my receipt and shred is 160 p/ton so about 8 cents a pound and the "sealed units" was .0825 per/lb!
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So I took some scrap in yesterday. I had some compressors I had pulled over the past few months. Looked at my receipt and shred is 160 p/ton so about 8 cents a pound and the "sealed units" was .0825 per/lb!
My yard doesnt take the sealed units as a separate amount. They only take it as lite iron. I cut them apart personally. I get my cutting wheels for free so why not? Takes me about 5-10 minutes to cut them open. sometimes there are even parts made of brass inside. Found a couple like that. they arnt too messy but if your yard takes them like that then by all means keep them sealed
Depending on where you are located, there are buyers of compressors. You may have to drain the oil to get the best price though.
i get 0.16 / # on them drained.
i have to remove them anyways to get some goodies and make some appliances scrapable as very few places take them intact due to regulations reguarding coolant.
just a suggestion most are still good and you may be able to sell a few to appliance repair stores /ebay.
although you will need to leave a bit of copper on them and they rarely go bad, they resale for around $40-75 easily for a new replacement.
just a thought.
also not many people find it worth the hassle but 98% of fridges just need a recharge on coolant. a small investment may return a usable / salable item worth much more than scrap.
My yard pays Shred price with oil, and 0.2 more drained.
I get 13 cents a lb for them, don't have to drain them. I used to get .20 and then .15, finally went down to .13 with the low prices now. Light Iron is 5.5 a lb now so it's worth it for me to pull them.
I don't remove them anymore.
Yards are different , depending on purchasing stiles of given yards correlates scrapping stile for scrapper .
I pull them but I don't cut them open any more. I found any profit of the copper was eaten up by the grinding wheels to open them. they are pretty thick and sometimes it takes 2 wheels to open them. Now I just turn them in whole for 10 cents a lb.
You might look at the way you are cutting them open. When I first started cutting them open I would just cut straight thru the shell, and it would usually take around 1 1/2 wheels to cut them open, but then I started looking at other ways. Now what I do is make a shallow cut about one fifth of the way around, then make a little deeper cut, one more a little deeper, and the fourth cuts thru the thin metal left easily. Then repeat for the rest of the way around. Now I can usually cut two compressors with one wheel, instead of one compressor with 2 wheels. And this is with the cheap Harbor Freight wheels (10 wheels for 8 bucks, before the 20% coupon I usually use).Quote:
Originally Posted by newattitude
Are you letting the grinder do the work, not forcing it?Quote:
Originally Posted by newattitude
I can usually do about 10 per disc. With a 7 inch.
I usually buy what ever is cheapest.
I have a old stack of abrasive cutting discs that I received years back with some railroad lights. The lights are long gone, but I still have the cutting discs. They are about 20 inch or so wide discs.
They were used for cutting RR track. That is what I mostly want to use them for. I have some 10 foot sections of track that I had cut down from 30 foot with a cutting torch as a friend needed a 10 foot piece of track. I want to cut pieces of track to 1 foot as they can sell for much more then scrap as hobby anvils. RR track is not that hard to cut, grind or drill. But it will take a good beating. Some people will take a 8 foot or so piece of heavy track and stick about 4 feet of it into the ground of their shop and cement around it. You can hit the end and it won't "flex or give" a bit. SOLID... Look it up anvils made from rail road track. Check out the eBay sold listings. It brings $25.00 or so for a foot of it. Been holding that price for years.
I have thought of making a cutter set up to use them as I have all the parts to do it. Even the proper materials for safety features and such as I wouldn't want to be any where near the cutting discs when they were spinning as I realize that it's a dangerous machine that I would end up with with the proper RPMs. Figured for cutting the track I would have a moving bed to clamp it to so that I could slowly feed it toward the cutting disc and use oil or water, what ever would work best as I have the required parts to make most anything around the yard, and what I don't have I'm sure I can get in trade or for a fist full of dollars.'
Sorry to bud in on your topic, but it got me thinking as I read over this thread. That if I could cut RR track with it, that I can cut other things with it until I ran out of cutting discs.
I'm just putting my plan together as it gives me something interesting to think on.
Compressors: $.06
Shred: $0.03
That's what I got last time I went in... It's different for everyone
Plus my yard won't take appliances with compressors
And they must be drained.
I have a place that will take compressors drained for 10 cents per. The last couple I have cut open with a 4" angle grinder and did two no problem. I don't understand the difficulty of what guys are doing to get compressors open. I thought it was pretty easy and quick. I just cut around the unit just above the joint and let the wheel do the work. I will keep cutting them open and collecting the copper instead of getting a buck or two for a whole compressor.
Not to knock on your advice but in regards to the statement that 98% of refrigerators just need a recharge of coolant. First that might be true about certain brands like frigidaire and old amana's. But refrigerators do not naturally leak. the entire system is soldered shut. they shouldn't ever leak. It might be more appropriate to say that 98% of refrigerators need either a fan of some sort or a relay.
The fridge compressors are often being sold to India etc etc.
They have high import tariffs on new steel and copper.
But no tariffs on fridge compressors as metal.
So there's people in India who import fridge compressors by the tons.
They get them, probably check to see if any are good, then they scrap them down to Ali, Copper, Steel.
The metals then sold on to refinery's and used to make stuff.
Basically its a way the government can make jobs for people, or gain from higher tariffs on 'new build - new steel projects.