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So...I went to turn in a bunch of aluminum, and the scrap yard guy pulled my harddrive casings out and tried to pay me 20 cents a pound for them, because they are die cast, not cast aluminum.
Anyone know what they are, and what I should be getting them paid out as? As far as I knew, cast aluminum is poured into a mold, while diecast aluminum is injected into a mold.....not understanding why one would be worth less......
My yard pays me cast alluminum for them.
This doesn't answer your question but I just had to show it, I think the answer might be that the top is usually stainless and the bottom section is extruded alum, we throw ours in with the block heat sinks from the computer motherboards.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ormFactors.jpg
Quote:
Six hard disk drives with cases opened showing platters and heads; 8, 5.25, 3.5, 2.5, 1.8 and 1 inch disk diameters are represented. Thanks to Wikipedia
They are extruded AL.
Thanks you guys.....that's what I thought. I took them back home with me, instead of getting paid at .20 a pound for diecast. The guy at the yard wasn't hearing it when I was telling him they weren't diecast though, so maybe I just need to find a new, more knowledgeable yard.
You did exactly the right thing. Might be because you are a girl person or perhaps the guy just likes to rip people off. I find it hard to believe someone in this business more than a short time can not recognize Al( I am referring to the buyer at the yard you went to). Go to a place that respects their customers and cultivates a good relationship. These guys should be teaching you what to look for. Many of the buyers on this forum go out of their way to educate members on what materials to look for and how to process them for a maxmimum return. Real success will come to those who work for it and are honest.
One of our greatest undocumented rights we have is, we can vote with our feet. Best to you, Mike.
Other than the cover being stainless, are most of the metal parts in these aluminum of some sort? The platters, read/write arms and such? A few wires and some screws that aren't. The rest seems to be aluminum to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mechanic688
So do they all go in one pile or is there value in segregating them in some way?
Bill
Guess ill have to make my yrd start paying me extrusion prices for them. Thanks easy.Quote:
Originally Posted by easyrecycle
some are extrusion, other hard drive enclosures are cast... some yards call it al breakage.
o.k, I thought they were cast, then machined. The manufactuer cost of machining them from billet, or large extrusion would be alot higher??Quote:
Originally Posted by easyrecycle
Thats what I thought anyway, particularly as you can see the wide casting mark along the side of many of them??
i stand to be corrected though... :)
As stated some are cast..but most of the ones I have seen are not. Either way if you take them apart they should sell as extrusion
OMG! They are diecast Magnesium!
Ok, some could be aluminum, but the ones I find are much lighter & so I think they are magnesium.
I think Magnesium is US$0.07cents a Lb
(from this site- http://www.recycleinme.com/scrapreso...9/2011&cnty=us)
Hell, thats cheap, dunno if thats correct by the look of it.
Most Ali has magnesium in it but I do separate out my magnesium if I'm sure it is Mg.
Otherwise I have been putting the stuff I'm not sure about into the Ali bin, whoops....
I do know the little arms in a harddrive are Mg.
The stuff is soo light, has a different 'ring' to it when you tap it, sound goes forever, well 15 - 30 seconds.
I notice or scrapmetalers don't have a price for it.
I'd like to see all metals that are cast or diecast, have a symbol on them indicating the makeup of the metal.
Just like plastic has.
My yard pays me 53 cents a pound for them.
Also asked about the motors and they said they would take them as alum due to the high amount of alum around the motor
I throw mine in with my cast and haven't had them pulled out yet.
my yard told me these ceiling fan blade brackets were die cast this morning. I had to pull them out of my cast AL bucket. they came to $0.20/lb when i saw my ticket. im not sure what the deal with that is, but i thought they were plated AL. i asked him to explain it to me and the guy showed me the markings on the inside from the casting process... sounded strange to me since cast AL has similar markings. i will have to learn more about this die-cast situation