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**forgive me if this topic has been posted, I searched but didn't find anything**
What suggestions would you have for someone new to the business taking in buckets of various coppers, brass, Al and metals and trying to not get taken advantage of?
I'm thinking I should clean any materials, weight them, seperate them and call various yards in advance for pricing. Anything else?
If you want to double check the yard for honesty weigh your buckets before hand and weigh them loaded and that should match their weigh ticket. My buckets have the weight written on them in black marker so the yard does not have to weigh them each time. If you have something unusual your bringing in (like extruded that looks like cast, certain kinds of stainless) then tell them or have them shoot it with their gun.
make sure you correctly separate,clean, and identify all your materials you want to sell. If you are unsure put it separate container and ask. If you are unhappy or uncomfortable with the grader, go to the counter and ask for a different grader ( even an owner or manager) stating you have questions about your materials. When you meet the owner/manager introduce yourself and tell them you are in the business looking to establish a regular relationship with a yard. Loyalty pays off with an honest yard. Also try to sell as much as possible, let it build up, that helps your "yard cred." Scrap on!!
HMMMM how to not get ripped is basically what your asking? I always say deal with the biggest yard around they didn't get that big by screwing there customers out of there scrap. Call ahead of time and ask for prices or go one step above that and ask for a buyers email address and email them the material you have and approximate weights and ask for a price for each one. Print it out then when you get to the yard there's zero confusion and all you have to do is show the person running the scale your prices straight from the buyer. No getting screwed there. Other advice I have is know your material don't show up and expect number one copper when you know you aren't going to get number one be realistic yards change buyers all the time and every buyer demands something different as far as packaging and grading of materials. One month they might take something as number one that's number two but don't expect it all the time. Its a learning process and takes years to perfect and have it down to a science.
Sometimes calling around every time you take material in helps to you can show up at the scale and say I know you are paying x amount of dollars for this material I had another yard tell me they would pay me this amount I brought it here because I deal with you every time I just want to know if you can give me a few more cents on it sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but it never helps to ask. If you have material that's questionable and you don't know what it is but you have allot of it bring in a sample piece and have them price it. Don't unload a whole truckload of it then find out its not the price you expected and tell them to load it back up you will burn your bridges with that yard pretty quick if you do that. Just a few pieces of advice I hope it helps.
Thanks for the tips everyone.