So What First Got you into Scrapping?

There may be other threads on this I haven't been able to find; if so, I am not offended at all if an admin/mod were to elect to merge this with such or move it to a different board/category.

What first peaked your interest in metal recycling? Let's hear your stories. I'm curious if there are general trends...

Here's my story: I grew up in rural Alaska. Was disposing of my refuse in less than environmentally responsible ways, but what else are you gonna do in such a situation? I was looking into what it would take to get our community to ship its trash out of there to someplace else.


Later, I got into old army trucks. Stories of these beasts being scrapped had me thinking "Can they even crush that thing?" Granted, I later considered cutting one up myself. So in a way, I was just curious to see the processing end of it. I'm one of those types who has always enjoyed watching "destruction" of any type, so the processing end fits in with that...

Anybody else have their stories?

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Originally Posted by M923

There may be other threads on this I haven't been able to find; if so, I am not offended at all if an admin/mod were to elect to merge this with such or move it to a different board/category.

What first peaked your interest in metal recycling? Let's hear your stories. I'm curious if there are general trends...

Here's my story: I grew up in rural Alaska. Was disposing of my refuse in less than environmentally responsible ways, but what else are you gonna do in such a situation? I was looking into what it would take to get our community to ship its trash out of there to someplace else.


Later, I got into old army trucks. Stories of these beasts being scrapped had me thinking "Can they even crush that thing?" Granted, I later considered cutting one up myself. So in a way, I was just curious to see the processing end of it. I'm one of those types who has always enjoyed watching "destruction" of any type, so the processing end fits in with that...

Anybody else have their stories?

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What Proton said. The plant I worked at got closed down and I couldn't find other work so scrap was a hustle to get by.

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Originally Posted by M923

There may be other threads on this I haven't been able to find; if so, I am not offended at all if an admin/mod were to elect to merge this with such or move it to a different board/category.

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Your obviously Gen X and want everything done for ya.

Bet you never even used the forum search feature, there are plenty of stories on how we got started or introduced into the scrap industry and its merits.

I started picking up soda/pop bottles when I was 7 or 8.

After retiring from my profession, I wanted to be my own boss. I was a millwright working my way through college and when a family member wanted a farm cleaned up I jumped at the opportunity. This project took over a year and I still have some large machinery to remove. The lifestyle, freedom, and challenges were addictive and the rest is history. This is my eighth year and I would not trade it for anything.

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Originally Posted by Patriot76

After retiring from my profession, I wanted to be my own boss. I was a millwright working my way through college and when a family member wanted a farm cleaned up I jumped at the opportunity. This project took over a year and I still have some large machinery to remove. The lifestyle, freedom, and challenges were addictive and the rest is history. This is my eighth year and I would not trade it for anything.

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This is indeed...addictive! I can sense it already! What all do you still have to remove?

I spent two decades working in electronic security. The second one, I worked at a college in the lock shop and was also the backup locksmith. We used to toss all the retired keys into a 5 gallon bucket that we would turn in every few months for a nice little un-taxed pizza and beer money bonus.

My addiction started this past Jan. I was injured on the job. I pulled my bicep muscle right off the bone and it curled up towards my shoulder. After surgery I didn't have much to do so i watched YouTube videos. I came across someone melting brass and copper and putting it into molds. I was hooked, I bought a furnace. I had some scrap metal laying around and I took some things apart for the copper and brass. I had a good melting down metal. Then I realized I have to get rid of this other scrap. Went back on YouTube to see what to expect at a scrap yard. Then I was hooked. It was easy and fun. I never did cash in my brass or my copper. Maybe one day I will. Mostly light metal.

How did I get started?

A late nite internet search for an after hours flexible part-time job besides Uber or Lyft. I have a career in IT and I cannot commit to a set schedule on weekends or after hours because of being on call periodically.

This was my thought process during the search after discovering there was a such thing as metal recycling besides aluminum cans... "What? I can just pick up free metal and drop it off and get $$ for it? No... where do I take it? Right down the street? There's 4 of them around me? People are always leaving free stuff on CL and on the sidewalk... I have a good running truck just holding the street down in front of my house, a newer dolly, straps and a bunch of tools including power tools.... an angle grinder, reciprocating saw, Dremel tool all from being a gearhead... it's as if I am supposed to do this after hours "

So I bought a new pair of leather gloves, gassed up the truck and started finding things... then I joined this forum shortly afterward.

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Originally Posted by Proton

Your obviously Gen X and want everything done for ya.

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Are you an old crotchety fart? I'm just asking... and am joking.
:lol:

Gen X'er

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Originally Posted by M923

This is indeed...addictive! I can sense it already! What all do you still have to remove?

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There are two combines, three tractors, three cars, and a chisel plow. At the time I only had a tub trailer that I built from an old stock trailer and could not load the heavy machinery. Someday I will get back over there to haul them out.

Back in my youth, my father suffered a heart attack. At that time there was little “public assistance.” After these funds ran dry, he had to support a family of four. We had a pickup truck. Some days he would come home with a load, some days he just came home with a few $, sometimes empty. I started to go with him. We drove around a lot looking for dump sites, slag piles, construction sites, abandoned buildings, or any where metals could be had. He told me if you have a truck you can always make money. Have had a truck pretty much always since.

I learned a lot at an early age probably being 8-10 yrs. old. Magnet, hand tools, hammer, chain, and truck were our tools. Knowing where to look , identification of metals,and sorting/processing(or not)were learned. Life lessons of Responsibility, integrity, hard work,knowledge, and perseverance were a valuable by product. He eventually found work and we still made our rounds on Saturdays.

In high school my 65 Impala served as a scrap truck as well as transportation. After it died, I bought a truck than and filled it every Sunday and Tuesday with curbco items, plentiful back then. Always had $. Been scrapping off and on ever since. Now scrap money goes into a kitty. In the past it was for necessities.

My dad passed away in 1981. I was 21 at the time. It’s amazing what you can learn from an immigrant with a 4th grade education. Thanks Dad. I love you.



Sorry got a little long winded.

Heres how i started, I was going to to get gas and around the corner from my house was a pile of air ducts, conduit pipes and a braker box. I knew of 2 guys who scrapped, scrapper Dave and my buddy Goon. Thought i should bring it in and see what i get. Well i rounded up some other stuff and brought it to the place i brought my cans to as a kid with my mom. Got a whole $17. Figured i will do this again. So the next time i went i wanted to beat my $17 from last time. Next load i brought in was $36, Man was i so excited for $36. So i was hooked. 9 years later and still at it.

I was a contractor for years and had made a few trips to the yard. After our youngest graduated I needed a break from building stuff and our suburb was having a Spring Clean Up where folks were stacking all kinds of material on the curb with much of it being metal. I spent several years relieving stress by breaking stuff and turning it into $$$ until I took a liking to the HVAC biz and now I fix, install and remove equipment...so I still get to the yard a couple times a month.

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Originally Posted by KzScrapper

our suburb was having a Spring Clean Up where folks were stacking all kinds of material on the curb with much of it being metal

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Broomfield? <--- that's my guess. Erie? Westminster? Thornton? Having lived there I know Northglenn doesn't have that, well they have a spring cleanup but it's a "free dump day" twice a year and you have to haul it yourself not just set it out.

I understand if you don't want to post on this forum your more specific location.

:recycle:

As a kid cleaning up the desert buy our house, cans and bottles, then when I moved away from home started to scrap on my apartment balcony as people were tossing away good stuff. lost my job in 2009 so scrap got us buy for a few years as the prices were good. I will scrap until I die, I figure even when I am older and cant get to the scrapyard, I will put it out for other scrappers to get better than it going to the dump.

My story starts when I was assisting a friend of mine replace all the thermostats and exit signs in the church I attended when I lived in Panama City, Florida. Not only did I get all the junk wire (which was a large amount, 50+lbs), but there was an entire 1000' spool extra ordered. I received that as well. With it all being CAT3 cable, essentially telephone wire, I didn't bother to strip it. The Romex I got I did strip. I also got some copper pipe, copper connections, and brass plumbing bits. When I took it to the scrap yard, I made about $450. I was 9 y.o. at the time. Ever since then, I've been carrying on scrapping. About the same time, I realized electronics held more value than just simple metals. Been doing electronics since that point as well. I'm 19 now, and absolutely love what I do. Working at a computer repair shop also helps bring in junk electronics on a weekly basis.

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Originally Posted by SKWrapper

Broomfield?

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Little further south by the controversial G Line...they have stopped doing the clean up now because it was costing too much money to get the junk to the landfill.

My story started when I was a little tot. I've been scrapping since I was 6 or 7 years old. My family owned an electronics manufacturing facility. As a result I got a lot of wire, components, and circuit boards. It became a very small hobby for the next several years until about a year and a half ago when I really started pushing hard on the scrap steel side of things and running it more like a business. After that first year and 33,000 pounds of metal I realized that there was serious competition in my area for scrap and it didn't make sense to compete for $15 per truckload so I started looking into appliance parts. It started small with just dishwashers and microwaves, but very quickly expanded to washer and dryer parts. I now do very little with scrap and deal mostly with appliance parts and similar items. A lot has changed in the past 2 years, but the new direction is looking to be a good path to take for years to come.

There used to be a thread about music but my Google man chu seams to be off today...so here you go about pickin stuff up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i4on_B2Nx4

My story started when I saw a frayed extension cord sitting on top of a garbage can on trash day.

As I've posted before, my "day job" is driving around to 30-50 houses every day and scooping dog poop.

I'm already getting paid to drive a truck around to neighborhoods where people clearly have more $$ than sense.

One morning I was drinking my coffee and reading the intenetz when I saw an article about how copper was $4/pound and some people were saying that it was going to go up to 10 or more.

Obviously, this has been awhile. But that day, when I saw that frayed extension cord, I knew that there was copper in it. And I just knew that someone, somewhere would pay me for that copper if I got it out of the extension cord.

So, I loaded that cord, and when I got home that night I found a website called ""scrapmetalforum.com""

Amazing the journey & what I've learned along the way.

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Originally Posted by 406Refining

My story started when I was a little tot. I've been scrapping since I was 6 or 7 years old. My family owned an electronics manufacturing facility. As a result I got a lot of wire, components, and circuit boards. It became a very small hobby for the next several years until about a year and a half ago when I really started pushing hard on the scrap steel side of things and running it more like a business. After that first year and 33,000 pounds of metal I realized that there was serious competition in my area for scrap and it didn't make sense to compete for $15 per truckload so I started looking into appliance parts. It started small with just dishwashers and microwaves, but very quickly expanded to washer and dryer parts. I now do very little with scrap and deal mostly with appliance parts and similar items. A lot has changed in the past 2 years, but the new direction is looking to be a good path to take for years to come.

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Moving into appliance parts IMO was a good decision.

If I lived in the USA I would do the same.

When I was do appliance repair years ago the timers were all mechanical and with care you could rob a good set of contacts from a donor to replace the burnt set.

With your electronics background are you replacing any chips that are burned out on these newer electronic controls.

im a qualified plumber & thats what got me first into scrapping
i completed a big plumbing job & had a lot of old copper pipes & brass valves etc- i scrapped that and just lost interest in plumbing and began focusing more on scrap.

im sure i would have made much more money by continuing with plumbing but i dont like working in peoples homes & according to their timetable/availability.
with scrap, i just have to pick up whatever they have & after that im free to do as i please.
not to mention that i just HATE rush hour traffic.

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Originally Posted by Proton

Moving into appliance parts IMO was a good decision.

With your electronics background are you replacing any chips that are burned out on these newer electronic controls.

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I started looking into that since I have access to the chip replacement equipment at the place I work. I brought up the idea to the boss and he said "as long as you aren't doing it during work hours and record what parts you use we have no problem with it." Ok! I've started small on board repairs doing simple relays and transformers replacements, but am very seriously looking into replacing regulators, transistors, IC's, etc. It is absolutely mind blowing how many of these boards are thrown out every year because a $0.15 component broke on the board.

I deal with commercial roofing. For several years we just tossed the old metal flashings and any old equipment in the dumpster with the rest of the tear off. In 2006, my son was born and the wife stayed home to raise him. I was looking for additional income streams. I decided on a warehouse reroof that I would just load all the old gutters and downspouts on a trailer to see if it was worth my time. It netted $150 and I was hooked. Before long we were doing projects with multiple old HVAC units, I-beam supports, and decking along with the standard metal. I have been doing it ever since through the good times and bad.

I have a junk removal business. Didn't take me long to discover that I could be paid for metal instead of throwing it into the landfill. $$$