I have been scraping for a long time. Just small scale not like some of you guys. I might pick up a couple tons of iron and tin scrap every couple months or so and pile it up until I run out of room or just need some cash. I don't weigh this material before I carry it in but I do weigh all my copper, brass, alum cans and other things that bring more money. I have taken scrap to pretty much every scrap yard in town at one time or another and after a few years I figured out which ones treated me the best and they were the ones that got my scrap.

I don't have to tell any of you about how hard you have to work to pick up, sort, store materials then haul them in for what you get out of it in the end. I have a certified electronic scale that will weigh up to 200 lbs that I weigh my copper, brass and other big ticket items on before it goes into 55 gal. drums and sealed once they are full. Sometimes it might take me 6 months to a year to get a full barrel of stripped romex and then I would sit on it until the price went up enough to cash in.

Over the past 5 years I have been using the same place because they always treated me fair in the past. Well it was about Christmas time and I needed some cash to get my wife some Christmas gifts and I had one barrel of stripped romex that had 255 lbs in it and it was just under 3/4 full. I ran my wire stripper for a day and a half to level off the barrel but I got in a hurry and didn't weigh that extra wire because I just figured it was holding right at 300 lbs like they usually do with the barrel topped off and tightly packed with 14 to 8 ga solid wire. I knew there was 255 lbs already in the barrel before I topped it off and that was enough for what I needed to do and the top off would be some cream on top. I don't usually sell my copper wire when it's under $3.00 but it was Christmas and I needed the cash and at $2.90 lb I figured it was close enough.

For all those years the same two guys were at the scale when I pulled up but this time there was another guy there working the scale. Normally I would roll the barrel off the tail gate and roll it over to the scale but they insisted I dump it into this large medal container that the fork truck pulled up to the back of the truck. I thought about it for a second but I was busy throwing off some insulated alum wire into another container and before I knew it they had dumped the whole barrel of wire into their steel container and put it on the scale. They have two smaller scales there and one had my insulated alu wire on it and the other had my copper. The weights flashed on the screen but it was the container weights with material total and happened so fast I and before I knew it everything was gone and the guy came over with my ticket and said please move away from the scale so these other people can weigh in. I pulled off and went to the window and the guy handed me a wad of cash and yelled next please. I was out of the building before I even counted the money and when I did I knew I had been had. They paid me for 205 lbs of #1 bright copper and when I went back in to question it all they would say is that they have certified scales and there was nothing they can do. My problem was that I didn't know the exact amount because I didn't weigh what I topped the barrel off with but I knew I had 255 lbs in there before the top off as if that would have made any difference anyway.

I never have liked to dump my stuff into those containers that they haul up for you to put stuff in. once it's in there you have nothing to go on and are at their mercy. I know there can be small differences in how stuff is weighed I always figure a +/- 10 lbs one way or the other but this was almost 100 lbs. I still ain't got over that one yet. How do you keep those guys honest or is it even possible?