Buying scrap wire at auctions

**eesakiwi** · 10-16-2011, 07:26 PM

I have found out that, after stripping wire from car looms & household appliance wiring.
That the final weight of the burnt off wire is 2/3rds of the plastic coated weight.

Ie, I strip car looms down to the individual wires & cut the brass clips off & weigh it.
If it comes up as 15Kg, I know I will get about 10 Kg of copper after burning the plastic off.

One thing I notice here (SMF) is that the US of A uses Lbs, & that = 454gms here.
We, in NewZealand, use Kgs, thats 2.2Lbs.
That leaves a huge margin of error compared to using Lbs.

Ie, I can have a weight of 15.9Kgs & it comes up on the scales as 15Kgs. That means I have just lost 2Lbs of weight......

**injunjoe** · 10-16-2011, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by eesakiwi

I have found out that, after stripping wire from car looms & household appliance wiring.
That the final weight of the burnt off wire is 2/3rds of the plastic coated weight.

Ie, I strip car looms down to the individual wires & cut the brass clips off & weigh it.
If it comes up as 15Kg, I know I will get about 10 Kg of copper after burning the plastic off.

One thing I notice here (SMF) is that the US of A uses Lbs, & that = 454gms here.
We, in NewZealand, use Kgs, thats 2.2Lbs.
That leaves a huge margin of error compared to using Lbs.

Ie, I can have a weight of 15.9Kgs & it comes up on the scales as 15Kgs. That means I have just lost 2Lbs of weight......

That's a great point about the rounding down of weight, but I'm not sure where this fits in here. I must have missed something again.