Copper is King

[miniroo]

I remember a lot of people saying how bulky copper was to stack, a scrappers gold etc etc.
But once again, today I went and sold some copper for my silver fix.
and my old reliable is still same price as it was when silver was $35 oz, still $6 kg ish.

So whilst I did work a bit today to off load 390 kg's, some scratches and bruises along the way, I can buy 50% more silver with it today.
selling it is a pleasure, no fuss and as convenient as going to the fish shop, scrap yards are everywhere.

Brass is even better, cheaper than copper but holds value really well.

 

[miniroo]

Scrap yards have been busting their chops to hoard as much lead, aluminium and copper as they can get for quite some time now.
Competition's hot with more yards opening up in all major cities, everyone wants a chop in the scrap metal caper,

The vibe towards those metals are very high yet the metals considered precious, like gold, platinum, rhodium, palladium & silver are opposite.

Copper is still around the $6 kg mark, a little more maybe and whilst it's not going to the moon or even up a hill it's been rising steadily.
It seems some scrap yards haul it in massive qty's and sell it when they got like a thousand tonnes, for top dollar.
They don't seem to be concerned with how much or how long they hold it for, I don't really understand it as they need to store it and copper is bulky.

But it made me think about why they do that with copper, aluminium, lead, brass etc. why store money like that and not just cash it in and move on?
Looking at the current kitco gold chart, gold has dropped $470 kg, just like that! looks like it may even go lower so I can see now why all the scrap metal guys
put it all into the base metals, solid as a rock it is.

 

[Jislizard]

Is there any point in collecting old food cans? I usually just chuck them in the recycling bin and we don't eat much in the way of canned food anyway but they don't take up much space.

I am collecting aluminium drinks cans but that's only becaue I want to melt them into a bar, I will probably take the bar to the recyclers when the novelty wears off.

 

[miniroo]

I call food cans tin cans, I don't know where the expression comes from, maybe they used to be made of tin but tin is 3 times more valuable then copper, it'd be awesome if my baked beans came in a tin can, would almost be worth more in scrap metal then the actual beans.

But yeah steel cans can be sold as light gauge steel @ 20c kg, maybe find a bigger steel can or bucket to chuck 'em in.
If your keeping other metals like aluminium, brass taps etc then maybe once a year take the lot in to make it worth the trip.

It's funny that we pay for a recycling bin so we can fill it with valuable commodities every week, the recycler gets paid to empty these commodities into his truck
which he takes back to get sorted and sold, getting the population to all be consumers is one part of the game, getting the population to then pay to give it back is the next,
a perfectly closed loop.

I'm doing exactly the same thing with aluminium cans, I have a boozer mate that drops off about 40 empties a week, I don't drink much but I do like the smell of an empty beer can for some reason, would taste like crap but smells nice. I want to melt 'em too and make a bar from cans as well as a bar from other grades of aluminium just to see how each turns out.

I got cans, extruded alloy, sheet alloy, cast alloy and alloy pots, yep I want a bar from aluminium pots
What do you think is a good size for an aluminium bar? 5kg or 10kg? how big would a 10kg bar be?

 

[whinfell]

I call food cans tin cans, I don't know where the expression comes from, maybe they used to be made of tin but tin is 3 times more valuable then copper, it'd be awesome if my baked beans came in a tin can, would almost be worth more in scrap metal then the actual beans.

Historically, tin cans used to be made of tin-plated steel - the tin provided a corrosion resistant surface for the contents.

 

[Jislizard]

I call food cans tin cans...

I got cans, extruded alloy, sheet alloy, cast alloy and alloy pots, yep I want a bar from aluminium pots
What do you think is a good size for an aluminium bar? 5kg or 10kg? how big would a 10kg bar be?

I had to delete my reference to tin cans as I know they are not made of tin and I didn't want to get caught out

I have some old hard disk drive cases as well but they looked harder to melt than cans. I also have bags of recovered screws from electronics, shame to scrap them but finding the one you need is too much of a pain, they all seem to be the same anyway.

I wasn't going to go for a specific weight for the al bars, just make a mold that looks like the old type silver bars about the right size and then just fill it up.

 

[gooby]

how big would a 10kg bar be?

Density of Al = 2.70 g/cm^3 (1 cm^3 = 1 mL)

density = mass/volume
<=> volume = mass/density
So, for 10,000 g of Al
v = (10000 g)/(2.70 g/cm^3)
= 3704 cm^3
(i.e. 3.7 L)

For a sphere:

Volume of a sphere = 4/3 x x r^3
<=> r = (3V/4)^(1/3)
So, for a volume of 3704 cm^3;
r = ((3x(3704 cm^3))/4)^(1/3)
r = 9.60 cm

i.e. a sphere with a radius of 9.6 cm


For a cubic bar:

Volume of a cube = a^3
<=> a = V^(1/3)
So, for a volume of 3704 cm^3;
a = (3704 cm^3)^(1/3)
a = 15.5 cm

i.e. a cube with a side length of 15.5 cm


For a rectangular prism bar:

Volume = length x width x height
<=> w = (V/(l x h))
So, for a volume of 3704 cm^3;
Let's arbitrarily decide to make it 40 cm long and 6 cm high:
w = (3704 cm^3)/(40 cm x 6 cm)
w = 15.4 cm

i.e. a rectangular slab that is 40 cm long, 6 cm thick and 15.4 cm wide

 

[sammysilver]

I have a mental image that a 10kg bar of aluminium will be a lot lighter to carry than 10kg of steel.