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Everytime I take something in they always write it out even by the pound. I'm worried that they might be rounding down. I don't much mind about ferrous stuff but with non-ferrous I might be losing some dollars. Do any other yards weigh out and figure more precisely. I need to get a scale of my own to weigh things out even before I take stuff in.
I go to 2 - one has a digital payout ticket and one writes out by hand. The only concern I've ever had is when I turn in copper, I use gallon ziploc bags and they take a tare off -uh, how much does a ziploc bag way??!! I can see if I used a bucket but a bag that weights nothing?? the bins have their weight painted on the side so i can always subtract while I'm standing there but I have to trust they are honest about those bin weights........
^^^ my dad has one but I dont' know how accurate it is since those never match the Dr.s offices ones! lol. I do recall using it to weigh my copper once and it was close so thats ok for me but I'm still wondering why the yard takes a tare off and boy do I hate to speak up for fear of .....oh I don't know, getting on their bad side or something.
If you don't want tare dump it out on the scale! I would complain about tare on a plastic bag though....
At my yard they weigh the container after they dump out whatever was inside to find out how much tare to take off. I usually only weigh my copper and brass before hand and I'm not sure if they round up or down.
Make sure you get a good scale, don't use a bathroom one. I weighed myself on one before going to the scrap yard it read 183 lbs then I stood on the scale at the yard and it read 185 my bathroom scale was off by 2 lbs!
My scrap yard is small and the prices suck. What I have determined is the scale reads in whole pounds. So if there isn’t enough weight to flip to the next digit it is rounded down. Sometimes a little and sometimes nearly a full lb. Now fortunately, for me, most people bringing in scrap there don’t separate it very well. So the guy running the scale (almost always the same guy) likes my loads. He does a quick check then weighs it up. He regularly gives me container weight or even a few lbs of something I didn’t bring in!
Back to the rounding issue, let’s say you bring in 10 lbs a week, fifty weeks a year, for a yearly total of 500 lbs. Now some weeks it is 10.1 or 10.2 so you get 10 lbs. Other weeks it will be 9.9 or 9.8 so you get 9 lbs. On average you will not be getting paid for ½ lb per trip. ½ lb x 50 trips (1 year) = 25 lbs non-paying material. Do this for 20 years and you have lost out on 500 lbs!
Now change that to 20 lbs every other week for a year. 20 lbs x 25 = 500 lbs. In this case you are still losing ½ lb per trip, but your total would be ½ lb x 25 trips = 12.5 lbs non-paying material.
How about bringing in 50 lbs 10 times a year. Still 500 lbs for the year and still losing ½ lb per trip on average. ½ lb x 10 trips = 5 lbs non-paying material.
Finally 500 lbs once a year. .1 - .9 lbs non- paying material. 20 years loss of about 10 lbs.
So at my location it is better to make bigger loads of fewer categories. I can still go every week but I usually bring in four categories or so. AL, irony AL, irony brass, electric motors. Or Copper/AL fin, insulated wire, stainless, #2 brass. The higher dollar per lb the less frequently I bring it in. Losing a ½ lb of irony AL isn’t the same as losing a ½ lb #1 copper.
J
I know what you mean about those bins. When I take a large load into my yard they want me to go to the back were they have these 800 or so pound metal dumpster/bins. I don't trust what they have written on then as far as what they weigh. So I limit what I bring in so that I get to weigh in at the front small scale, that seems much more accurate. Up front I am hands on with my goods. It gives me a chance to check there tare numbers. Before I dump my goodies in the small bins I toss them up on the scale.Quote:
Originally Posted by newattitude
To answer your question I do believe the gallon zip-locks weigh about 5 grams. Lol
I'll have to start doing that. Still gonna go ahead and get me a scale though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrap Master J
Go on ebay an buy a shipping scale. They are cheap an they are dead on the weight part. But you should get one that will go from 0.01 to 400 pounds.
http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/
They also have a good selection of scales, might not beat ebay's prices tho.
Most yards round down to the nearest pound indeed. They say it stops awkward numbers coming into the process.
Scales on the way. Digital fish scales. Perfect for my buckets.