I’m a small time scraper compared to you guys it’s always interesting to see how the big boys do it Can’t say enough how much I appreciate you focusing on the safety aspect of doing the job Great job Thanks
I worked for a Chrysler Plastics plant that made plastic parts for your Jeep. The parts we made on first shift went on Jeeps on third shift. If we shut down the Jeep line because we didn't get parts to them JUST-IN-TIME, we had to pay ALL the wages of the Toledo plant for one day. We didn't care what that breaker cost, we needed it NOW. Thanks to guys like you, we never paid that penalty to Toledo.
The factory (Rantoul Products Inc.) was opened in 1984. I started in 1985 as Maintenance Helper. We ran miles of 4-0 wire throughout for the overhead crane and 10 injection molding machines. We were Textron's No.1 supplier of injection molded parts and were considered world class. The automotive industry tanked in 2002 and we closed the doors in 2007. I had been there 22 1/2 years, 7 years short of retirement.
Another great video. You go into such great detail. I really learn a lot while staying engaged because of the filming and story telling. If possible it'd be nice in another video to update us on how much you were paid for all the copper. I understand it may be private but to even get an aprox amount would be nice. Regardless thank you for another amazing video!
I'm sure there will be a part two of what the copper was worth... how much do you think it was worth? Let us know maybe we'll see who's the closest to the actual retail price LOL
I love the many options you are exposed too. Learning a little at a time. Out of work, I help a scrapping friend. We would process the easy stuff daily for cash flow. His step van was set up as he was driving, that I could strip wire on the way to the next pick up. Fun stuff. Learning at every age! Thanks
In my years in residential/commercial building maintenance, I was always on the lookout for scrap wiring and metals. Most contractors couldn’t be bothered taking what scrap they had to the yard; but over a few months I would have a very worthwhile load. Good fringe benefit!
I'm in the UK and we have old power lines made from bare copper that's either single core with no coating or 6 core twisted no coating. We stumbled upon over 4 miles of dead cable of this while out walking and ended up getting permission to remove it all as long as we cut each pilon down as we went along . In the first week we weighed in 20k UK pounds and eventually split 80k between 5 of us then we returned to find armour cable below ground the same distance but this had to be stripped but all in all we split around 120k in less than 4 months off one job and didn't pay a penny for it also all your big breakers contain solid silver contacts inside them
I have put more than a bit of that stuff in over the years! You can get a ratchet cropper (hand cranked so you guys might not like it too much, but perfect for site work) that will crop through 200mm copper, no problem! We use them on UK underground distribution systems all the time!
Ive been scrapping for 2 decades. Its like christmas to me and i enjoy the hard work of it. Brother that is an amazing pile of gold!!! Flipn jackpot!!! Thank you for sharing this and all your other videos as well. AMAZING! One day maybe ill find a jackpot too. But until then, ill keep at it. Thanks again brother.
@removeitprosdemolition I can't wait to see them!! I'm currently refining sterling silver in nitric acid to purify it to .999 and have about 2lbs of sterling processing now. So it'll be good to have something to watch while I'm doing this purification!!
Invest in a Stripmeister. The industrial size machine would run between $1100.00 to $1800 depending on the largest possible insulated copper wire, thing is easy as just dialing it in and letting it self feed while it strips. I'm a very small scale so i bought the small model for $150 and it's paid for itself with bare bright ten times over.
@@removeitprosdemolition Once you have it dialed in, it's like using a paper shredder. Get the end settled so it self feeds while just cutting the plastic and it'll just go. It really is the way to go. Less wear on your tools, no constantly replacing blades/disks. It's worth the money.
The best scrap job I ever did was a butcher shop that had to come down for highway construction it was 3 55 gallon barrels of number one copper and 750 pounds of aluminum from windows and doors and I got 1250 concrete blocks but I only had 12 hours before the bulldozer came
I'm over here with my liitle waist high trash can full of mixed insulated, three aluminum rims, and a few totes of E-scrap in my gold scrap pile wondering if i have enough to bother taking in lol
Really depends on how far the yard is and how much time you have on your hands. Yard I go to doesn’t really care how big your load is, they break everything down into specifics anyway.
Try bringing it in and see how much you get. It will give you an idea on how much you will get for the next load. Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment!
I seen in the comments you mentioned maybe a part two with a weigh and pay. I really hope you do that. It looks like you may have a ton or more of bare bright, which in my area near London, Ontario, Canada is just around $4.50 a lb. That would be $9000 and quite a nice payday.
Sodium hydroxide bath for the bus bars to remove the aluminium coating will also clean light oxidization from the cable as well bringing it back to bright
@@removeitprosdemolition just sit in the bath till stops bubbling then all the aluminium will be dissolved use a weak solution as will get warm ..sodium hydroxide is sold everywhere as caustic soda drain cleaner hope this method works for you best of luck
me too:) regards from Germany. some time ago I have seem a video from a German company who specialised in buying metal. Sorting metal is some kind of art.and requires a lot of wxperience
Check with the electrical contractor if you know him those transformers if he wants to get rid of them they can have 1000s even 10,000 more dollars of copper in them also I have gotten some in the past. Great video Thank you
I love breaking machines down to their base, recyclable pieces. Every aspect of it, from finding, toting to the shop, tearing down, talking to the guys at the yard, watching the scales, and ultimately, looking at that number on the receipt. This scale blows my mind though. I’d love to come work with a company that does this.
Love the old Reddy Kilowatt ad! I remember them from when I was a kid. Our power company used him in all the ads, billings, billboards etc. (Mn did I blow the initial spelling, fixed now..) Also found out I can get t-shirts of good ole Reddy!
I realy understand wat you mean about the little pice that brings down the hole lot I live in Holland and the scrap yard here do not have to many diferent type 's of grade Copper we have like 3 diverent grade 's Nice load of cable you got there though Gr Sam
If you sold it as used wire instead of scrapping it you would get 5x your money. Especially for long runs like 100-150 feet. That wire is about $20 a foot new. Even if you sold it for 1/4 of new price to move it fast… @ $5 a foot x 10,000 feet that is $50k instead of $10k.
I'm a buyer/ ticket writer at Auto Shred of Louisiana,we are a big scarp yard in N. Louisiana and I would never deduct from green tarnished copper that is clean, whatever yard your dealing with is full of it with that BS. Man I wish you were closer,we would give you a Hella good deal on all that weight, anyway injoy your stuff and I get it about you getting mad over down grades over 2lbs in a 500lbs load.Man I only wish I was closer to you cause all that copper.
We are shopping new yards, this yard is telling they are going to trespass us if we film. And we are going to film for our purposes, its all about showing people what we do. Its fun.
So solid no.1 bright cable yields about 5-10 bucks a pound. You need to cut into prepared length and speedbox at a broker weight of even ton(s). When you do this you can tell that middle man scrapman to go smoke his own hog!
@@removeitprosdemolition sell directly to the metal processing company. You will need to declare yourself as a scrap co. However your not open to the streets. If you want to take in the "Ghetto Gold" aka: copper and other precious, you can petition other company's for their rabbit, but keep it under the lid. Just pay more for your top four: CLEAN, copper, brass, aluminum & structural grades. It's time for you to chomp the cigar and talk out the side of your mouth. Get ready to come up with a affiliate name, and possibly you may need to license yourself in your state. By becoming a broker you have inserted yourself to a level, where you will be checking the days scrap prices in the Wall Street Journal. Wait till we go to war, you know it's gonna happen. The price of the top four will skyrocket. View how Nicholson Demolition (Chicago, Il.) does it.
The scrap yard I use to work at called the copper wire bright and shinny it was like 3.25 a lb for that but the buss bars is copper 2 because it's coated
@@removeitprosdemolition ,,, You know the saying..... similar to--- I love the smell of money in the morning... LOL.... Well Copper is $ So there is nothing like the smell of copper in the morning. :D
Cool video! It says you guys ended up with over 2 miles of copper wire. How much did you guys get paid for it? Or is that going to be shown on another video?
No warranty its and experience thing, you factor your odds when you purchase based on your own experience. New breaker at 100 percent of cost, used breaker at 50% cost or less. Older system....ect. ect.
Me and my ex used to scrap a lot here in Michigan where we live and we had permission to scrap out a few different places that had loads of this copper we called mcm. Did the same things you guys are doing here. A lot of money we made those few years ago
I know some people who use to go into the old gm plants and take copper out and before i knew where it was coming from i would help them prep and strip the copper.. if you take the copper with the green shit and burn it the shit comes right off.. and its kinda cool cuz you can take it from the fire and slam it on the ground and the coil of wire will flatten and make a nice little pile of wire cuz its so hot from the fire.. they use to get like 8 foot plates of copper too that were encased in plastic and fiber glass looking wrap with like three 1/2in thick plates in each one.. after i found out i stopped but justified it in my head as gm giving a little back to the people of the city it destroyed
Great video I love watching you guys. Demo seems like a license to print money. I love finding mains cable, I used to work on film sets and used to take any mains that was left behind. What did you do with all the plastic sheathing though $10,000 worth of copper did you have to deduct how ever much it cost to dispose of the sheathing you cut off?
the cartoon lightning bolt guy, his name is "REDDI KILOWATT " i worked at ARKANSAS POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY AT ONE OF THE POWER PLANTS IN THE 1970'S. MY FATHER WORKED FOR THE COMPANY FOR OVER 20 YEARS!!
Any copper with a coating on it is #2 copper, like those huge bus bars, not bare bright. With that much volume I wouldn't be surprised if they'd pay bare bright price to get it.
We build gas processing equipment. We have used some panel boards that have cost $20,000 just for the cabinet. The internals come separately. But, yeah the breakers cost $$$. Some of them even have a computer built into them.
When i worked at a ford building doing demo. I would spend a 8hr shift pulling out old wire. It was all copper. After 8hrs I would fill an 8ft bed (f150) with copper. I couldnt wait to go to the scrap yard in the a.m😂
The breakers are Square D I line series. Their top brand ! And priced accordingly . A lot of the wire will weigh 2 lbs per ft stripped. So do the math Have a good time & BE SAFE !
I bought a pair of baloney cutters, and a wire stripper for under $800 at auction. It took me about three hours of scrapping to pay for it. The pile of copper you have on the ground there I could do that in a day. By myself Tools are out there, and they are worth having😉 just saying
Yes. If we continue to get big jobs with a lot of scrap at a time like this we will look into a wire stripper for sure. Just makes sense. What part of the country are you located? Thanks for watching.
I’m demo a 14 story building in Michigan in Southgate The building had Westinghouse transformers $32,000 brand new next time you get towers like that post it as is and you will get more for it than you would stripping the copper we had 25 different transformers and got a pretty penny plus 200feet of aluminum 1600 amp bus duct $$$ lot of money in that electrical stuff
On a side note. I strip wire for my boss on my own time at home. I get a percentage of what I strip and what pipe I clean to get the highest price. We are currently doing demo of an old retirement home and one third through I have taken $14000 . We haven’t even gotten to the basement where all the heavy wall copper pipe is yet.
I find that strange they try and charge less for the oxidized copper. Isn’t it still considered bare bright? You could mist it with Coca Cola or vinegar 🤷🏻♂️
They can kind of make their own rules and we have to deal with it best we can. We could clean it up a little better like you are suggesting but the amount of labor it would take for them to spot a little part that isn't cleaned to downgrade the whole load isn't worth the headache. Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!
Nice scrap, i would get a set of cable cutters (battery powere). Which shear the cable in about 1.5 seconds cleanly. Then a electric stripper that could be built or bought for removing the jacket from the cable. Just FYI as commercial electrician (past tense) those cables are around $7.50/foot when it was put in. I bought a good number of used breakers in those sizes, prices usually about 1/10 to 20% of new prices. Thing being the OLD breakers and buss bars had silver coating or solid silver beads. VFD silicon fuses had solid silver ends. 😮😮😮 have a bunch that blew and i keps the blown fuse bits. Same w high voltage fusing lots of silver there too.
I borrowed one from one of my electrician friend the last time we did this, this was busy work we a little slow, would rather keep the guys working. Smaller wire the amount of time to strip it is not a good use of time or money when we are normal busy.
you need big wire cutters $170.00 Cable Cutter cuts 1000 MCM copper and 1200 MCM aluminum cable Features replaceable hook jaw blade and employs shear-cut action 32 in. cutter has forged tool steel jaws in black oxide finish I use to cut copper pipes up to 1in. faster and easy.
There are way better and safer ways to do what you are doing. Home Depot Model# 2672-21S wire stripping machine, Milwaukee cable cutter Model# 2672-21S Pricey but way better than two guys holding wire while another guy uses a gas powered saw to cut through it. And pliers to remove nuts? get some real tools. Also to pull the wire out of the floor they make cable pullers, think Chinese fingers, gripping basket on one end pulling loop on the other. Many different sizes available.
Will keep this in mind. If the big jobs continue with a lot of scrap wire I will look into getting a wire stripper. This much wire at one time is unusual for us. Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!
This much scrap at a time is a little unusual for us. If the big jobs with this much volume continues then we will look into getting a good wire stripper. Are you in the scraping business? Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!
SHould really look into a stripper, you can make one yourself that can strip and cut any size wire you want. I used to do it with my old man and he made one that could cut up to 1" wire with no issue and we would cut out 10' [ieces and feed them through the stripper. He worked in demo and his company let him take any wire he could haul so we would spend entire weekends striping and he would split the $$ with me so I didnt mind. You can find plenty of safe homemade examples of stripers/cutters online and having 2 of them would save you soooo much time
I think you're right. If these big jobs continue with all this scrap we are going to look into getting one. What part of the country was your dad working? Thanks for the comment!
@@removeitprosdemolition Randomly ran into this while surfing YT, I looked it up and its $150 new and can strip upto .78" wire so not bad for the price th-cam.com/video/S_MRyZuPXD8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6rPwpVcYhFm0_Ckk
Why didn’t you just buy a wire stripping machine. I bought one from vivor for less than 200 and I can strip half inch wire and they have them even bigger. They save a lot of time
Hey sir they make this mesh metal device that looks like a Chinese finger trap that goes on the end of cables e like that and then you tape it to the cables and pull the cables out and it sinches on the harder you pull the tighter it gets around cables like you pulled out and pulls that stuff out like a dream it's safer then the chain your using. And they sell something called a tugger for pulling out or in massive electrical cables and no need for a fork lift to pull it out and will pull copper cables out like that with no problems using the finger trap type device as well and those breakers are very expensive and you offering to sell the used equipment is helping the environment and making it cheaper for companies to build new construction plants and buildings and pay the workers more money. I have installed massive breakers and energized massive extreme high voltage breakers and it's a weird feeling knowing it could blow you to pieces of there is a big enough piece of dust on that buss bar even though I'm wearing a flash suit and ppe. You inspired me to open up my own demo company I do small jobs like demo of homes and really small buildings that are getting renovated and have a crew of 10 guys so we do small jobs and we get paid for the job but most of my money comes from scrap metal. And I started scrapping when I was 10 by getting old electronics and computers ppl was giving away for free and stripping them all down into separate piles of each kind of metal and then saving up the electrical boards that have gold and sell the computer and electronic boards and eventually worked my way up to my own business of junk removal when I graduated highschool and now I'm 32 and have my own demo company that I started 5 years ago and growing and getting bigger every year and I sell everything I can like breakers and even buss bars to electrical companies including electrical panels ECT. And also small companies will buy the sprinkler pipes and and cable tray pieces that are still whole pieces and offsets and connections and will pay you 2-5 dollars more then the price for it in scrap per pound they save money and I make more. And my friend I race with is a scrap yard manager he runs the whole scrap yard on the bay and they are the main buyer who buys from all the smaller places in town he gives me the best price possible I get about 10 cents per lb less then what they get from the main buyer from China and India that buys from him and they won't down grade my barrels and trailer if metals they will just take out the piece or two that isn't the right metal for that stack and give me the correct price or will tell me hey this pile you need to do this like hit it with a sander and brighten up the copper buss bars so I get the bare bright price for it. And I also own a store where I sell old but still good used stuff for homes like light fixtures doors, light switches like the old brass and bronze and porcelain stuff that ppl like to be able to keep their old vintage homes looking the same or a certain design basically a store where you can get stuff that is good and reuse for your house to save money when remodeling. I have tons of light fixtures beautiful ones antiques and modern ones chandeliers worth thousands, and thousands and thousands of different styles of light and outlet covers made of brass porcelain and cast metal from old homes, brass sinks and metal sinks and tubs vintage doors and beautiful front doors and wooden and concrete columns, ECT basically anything that can be reused for another home I put in that store. Just a idea for you to open a store where you sell to the public anything that you remove that is still good that can be reused for another house or building ECT.
They do that because they forget their lunch or they don't know which crew they are going to be on......if they forget their lunch its a problem because once we park the truck in the morning it stays parked until the end of the day.....its part of our culture.
I do instead of sending them home while we are slow I will keep them working so they can don't get behind. We make money in five areas and this is one of the five.
I’m a small time scraper compared to you guys it’s always interesting to see how the big boys do it
Can’t say enough how much I appreciate you focusing on the safety aspect of doing the job
Great job
Thanks
I am learning everyday, thanks for being part of this? Where are you from?
Chicago
@@paulneron375 From Cincinnati!!
I worked for a Chrysler Plastics plant that made plastic parts for your Jeep. The parts we made on first shift went on Jeeps on third shift. If we shut down the Jeep line because we didn't get parts to them JUST-IN-TIME, we had to pay ALL the wages of the Toledo plant for one day. We didn't care what that breaker cost, we needed it NOW. Thanks to guys like you, we never paid that penalty to Toledo.
Wow. That's very interesting. How long ago was that? Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!
The factory (Rantoul Products Inc.) was opened in 1984. I started in 1985 as Maintenance Helper. We ran miles of 4-0 wire throughout for the overhead crane and 10 injection molding machines. We were Textron's No.1 supplier of injection molded parts and were considered world class. The automotive industry tanked in 2002 and we closed the doors in 2007. I had been there 22 1/2 years, 7 years short of retirement.
Another great video. You go into such great detail. I really learn a lot while staying engaged because of the filming and story telling. If possible it'd be nice in another video to update us on how much you were paid for all the copper. I understand it may be private but to even get an aprox amount would be nice. Regardless thank you for another amazing video!
I'm sure there will be a part two of what the copper was worth... how much do you think it was worth? Let us know maybe we'll see who's the closest to the actual retail price LOL
The Scrap was $ 11,500
I love the many options you are exposed too. Learning a little at a time. Out of work, I help a scrapping friend. We would process the easy stuff daily for cash flow. His step van was set up as he was driving, that I could strip wire on the way to the next pick up. Fun stuff. Learning at every age! Thanks
Thanks for being part of the channel
In my years in residential/commercial building maintenance, I was always on the lookout for scrap wiring and metals. Most contractors couldn’t be bothered taking what scrap they had to the yard; but over a few months I would have a very worthwhile load. Good fringe benefit!
I'm addicted to it!!
I'm in the UK and we have old power lines made from bare copper that's either single core with no coating or 6 core twisted no coating. We stumbled upon over 4 miles of dead cable of this while out walking and ended up getting permission to remove it all as long as we cut each pilon down as we went along . In the first week we weighed in 20k UK pounds and eventually split 80k between 5 of us then we returned to find armour cable below ground the same distance but this had to be stripped but all in all we split around 120k in less than 4 months off one job and didn't pay a penny for it also all your big breakers contain solid silver contacts inside them
I have put more than a bit of that stuff in over the years!
You can get a ratchet cropper (hand cranked so you guys might not like it too much, but perfect for site work) that will crop through 200mm copper, no problem! We use them on UK underground distribution systems all the time!
Thanks for the tips! Brand name?
Ive been scrapping for 2 decades. Its like christmas to me and i enjoy the hard work of it. Brother that is an amazing pile of gold!!! Flipn jackpot!!! Thank you for sharing this and all your other videos as well. AMAZING! One day maybe ill find a jackpot too. But until then, ill keep at it. Thanks again brother.
Got two more videos coming today and tomorrow, amazing loads we are taking down some big stuff right now........
@removeitprosdemolition I can't wait to see them!! I'm currently refining sterling silver in nitric acid to purify it to .999 and have about 2lbs of sterling processing now. So it'll be good to have something to watch while I'm doing this purification!!
Lots of copper but labor sure adds up, Nice to your guys working
You got that right!
I’m learning a ton from these videos , thank you
Glad to help
Your team are really efficient. A great filler job in the slow season. And they get to have some big boy toys demolishing fun.
We try to be efficient as possible. Demo can definitely fun also. Perks of the trade!
Invest in a Stripmeister. The industrial size machine would run between $1100.00 to $1800 depending on the largest possible insulated copper wire, thing is easy as just dialing it in and letting it self feed while it strips. I'm a very small scale so i bought the small model for $150 and it's paid for itself with bare bright ten times over.
Thanks Looking into it!!! Been changing my mind about the way we are doing the wire.
@@removeitprosdemolition Once you have it dialed in, it's like using a paper shredder. Get the end settled so it self feeds while just cutting the plastic and it'll just go. It really is the way to go. Less wear on your tools, no constantly replacing blades/disks. It's worth the money.
@@sleepybadtzmaru Thanks
The best scrap job I ever did was a butcher shop that had to come down for highway construction it was 3 55 gallon barrels of number one copper and 750 pounds of aluminum from windows and doors and I got 1250 concrete blocks but I only had 12 hours before the bulldozer came
That's awesome I love the repurposing. Where are you from?
@@removeitprosdemolition I was born in Arkansas but I have lived in 5 different states and I am now retired and living in Florida for the last 7 years
I'm over here with my liitle waist high trash can full of mixed insulated, three aluminum rims, and a few totes of E-scrap in my gold scrap pile wondering if i have enough to bother taking in lol
Really depends on how far the yard is and how much time you have on your hands. Yard I go to doesn’t really care how big your load is, they break everything down into specifics anyway.
One time I took a jar of brass pins in and got $3.00 lol
Try bringing it in and see how much you get. It will give you an idea on how much you will get for the next load. Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment!
I seen in the comments you mentioned maybe a part two with a weigh and pay. I really hope you do that. It looks like you may have a ton or more of bare bright, which in my area near London, Ontario, Canada is just around $4.50 a lb. That would be $9000 and quite a nice payday.
$3.05 to $3.35
Sodium hydroxide bath for the bus bars to remove the aluminium coating will also clean light oxidization from the cable as well bringing it back to bright
I am going to try that. Where can I get it and how much should I use do I need to scrub or just dip?
@@removeitprosdemolition just sit in the bath till stops bubbling then all the aluminium will be dissolved use a weak solution as will get warm ..sodium hydroxide is sold everywhere as caustic soda drain cleaner hope this method works for you best of luck
It’s “Draino” but be careful it is very dangerous, i.e. don’t trust your hourly workers to it😅 will end up costing you more than you get in return.
Love these videos! Keep em coming. The editing on these videos is awesome.
Thanks! Will do! Glad you like them we are trying to get better on each video!!
Interesting 😊 watching from my sofa in Germany 🇩🇪
Awesome! Thank you!
me too:) regards from Germany.
some time ago I have seem a video from a German company who specialised in buying metal. Sorting metal is some kind of art.and requires a lot of wxperience
@@ralfo1704 I have a video coming out soon about how we do it.
Check with the electrical contractor if you know him those transformers if he wants to get rid of them they can have 1000s even 10,000 more dollars of copper in them also I have gotten some in the past.
Great video
Thank you
Thanks for the tip! How so? I want to learn!!
Check out project shop Florida channel he does some crazy scrap
Thanks for your videos
I love breaking machines down to their base, recyclable pieces. Every aspect of it, from finding, toting to the shop, tearing down, talking to the guys at the yard, watching the scales, and ultimately, looking at that number on the receipt. This scale blows my mind though. I’d love to come work with a company that does this.
Another load today I will put a picture of the long strands in our community page, here.
What a super boss I’ve just subbed it’s nice too be nice and you are a nice guy Thankyou for making my day more enjoyable.
Thanks for the sub!
Thanks for posting
Your are most welcome have you watched any of our other videos?
8:00 whys he wearing a backpack though lol
This was in the morning and he just didn't put his stuff in his truck yet.
I’m from Pennsylvania about half way between Pittsburgh and Lake Erie
Originally from Cincinnati!!
Interesting just learning about your industry.
Its a fascinating thing its like Christmas everyday!!
Love the old Reddy Kilowatt ad! I remember them from when I was a kid. Our power company used him in all the ads, billings, billboards etc. (Mn did I blow the initial spelling, fixed now..) Also found out I can get t-shirts of good ole Reddy!
I love it too, my editor Kenny came up with that, its my first exposure to it.
Why are you counting the plates copper bus bars as bare bright? With the plating on it should go as #2?
We don't do much of this type scrap.... your are correct, I learn everyday.....
The bus bars go for bare bright price??
I got $.30 off
$.05 more then #2
I have been corrected the bus bars are # 2 and I will fight for more when we get there however who knows.....
Aren't some of those plates in the breaker box plated with silver?
That's what I have been told. How can I maximize that?
I realy understand wat you mean about the little pice that brings down the hole lot
I live in Holland and the scrap yard here do not have to many diferent type 's of grade
Copper we have like 3 diverent grade 's
Nice load of cable you got there though
Gr Sam
Thanks
By any chance, do you still have the breakers in the switchgear? It’s worth a lot of money.
Yes they are on my ebay account removeitpros.
Wow interesting video
Glad you think so! Hope you're going to be part of the community
@@removeitprosdemolition I am surprised you acknowledged me. Most big u tube biggies do not. Not just me. Thank you
If you sold it as used wire instead of scrapping it you would get 5x your money.
Especially for long runs like 100-150 feet.
That wire is about $20 a foot new. Even if you sold it for 1/4 of new price to move it fast… @ $5 a foot x 10,000 feet that is $50k instead of $10k.
Holy crap what a great idea, is that something that is done?
Enjoyed Thanks !!
Thanks for watching!
I'm a buyer/ ticket writer at Auto Shred of Louisiana,we are a big scarp yard in N. Louisiana and I would never deduct from green tarnished copper that is clean, whatever yard your dealing with is full of it with that BS. Man I wish you were closer,we would give you a Hella good deal on all that weight, anyway injoy your stuff and I get it about you getting mad over down grades over 2lbs in a 500lbs load.Man I only wish I was closer to you cause all that copper.
We are shopping new yards, this yard is telling they are going to trespass us if we film. And we are going to film for our purposes, its all about showing people what we do. Its fun.
@@removeitprosdemolitiongarden street isn’t it?
So solid no.1 bright cable yields about 5-10 bucks a pound. You need to cut into prepared length and speedbox at a broker weight of even ton(s). When you do this you can tell that middle man scrapman to go smoke his own hog!
Sell directly to the buyer?
@@removeitprosdemolition sell directly to the metal processing company. You will need to declare yourself as a scrap co. However your not open to the streets. If you want to take in the "Ghetto Gold" aka: copper and other precious, you can petition other company's for their rabbit, but keep it under the lid. Just pay more for your top four: CLEAN, copper, brass, aluminum & structural grades. It's time for you to chomp the cigar and talk out the side of your mouth. Get ready to come up with a affiliate name, and possibly you may need to license yourself in your state. By becoming a broker you have inserted yourself to a level, where you will be checking the days scrap prices in the Wall Street Journal. Wait till we go to war, you know it's gonna happen. The price of the top four will skyrocket. View how Nicholson Demolition (Chicago, Il.) does it.
@@removeitprosdemolition yes u would make 22k ish per load not 11k
The scrap yard I use to work at called the copper wire bright and shinny it was like 3.25 a lb for that but the buss bars is copper 2 because it's coated
You are correct. What do they pay for #2
MMMM I love the smell of copper.. I know Mike does too :)
The smell of copper never heard that before
@@removeitprosdemolition ,,, You know the saying..... similar to--- I love the smell of money in the morning... LOL.... Well Copper is $ So there is nothing like the smell of copper in the morning. :D
Cool video! It says you guys ended up with over 2 miles of copper wire. How much did you guys get paid for it? Or is that going to be shown on another video?
Thanks for watching. It was about $11,000
What kind of warranty you give with a use breaker seems like the liability would be great
No warranty its and experience thing, you factor your odds when you purchase based on your own experience. New breaker at 100 percent of cost, used breaker at 50% cost or less. Older system....ect. ect.
Is demo usually done with taking the scrap priced in? Or is that just because there was a lot of stuff you wanted to take ?
Usually we wait a few weeks until stuff gets piled up but we've had a few big jobs in a row with lots of scrap.
Me and my ex used to scrap a lot here in Michigan where we live and we had permission to scrap out a few different places that had loads of this copper we called mcm. Did the same things you guys are doing here. A lot of money we made those few years ago
It's fun!!
Im very happy to see that you stripped all that before taking it, im not at the end of the video yet, but id say you get $15k out of it.
You were close on the price....
I watched tons of c&d material being buried in landfills how long do you think it will be before they start mining these sites?
I bet they will don't have any idea when.
I know some people who use to go into the old gm plants and take copper out and before i knew where it was coming from i would help them prep and strip the copper.. if you take the copper with the green shit and burn it the shit comes right off.. and its kinda cool cuz you can take it from the fire and slam it on the ground and the coil of wire will flatten and make a nice little pile of wire cuz its so hot from the fire.. they use to get like 8 foot plates of copper too that were encased in plastic and fiber glass looking wrap with like three 1/2in thick plates in each one.. after i found out i stopped but justified it in my head as gm giving a little back to the people of the city it destroyed
Wow. That's really interesting. How long ago was that? Thanks for the comment.
Many the older circuit breakers have silver in them too !
How do you get it out to recycle it?
Fantastic…❤
Thank you! Cheers!
Great video I love watching you guys. Demo seems like a license to print money.
I love finding mains cable, I used to work on film sets and used to take any mains that was left behind.
What did you do with all the plastic sheathing though $10,000 worth of copper did you have to deduct how ever much it cost to dispose of the sheathing you cut off?
We cut if off and trashed it, if we didn't use this as fill in work the profit would not be as much labor is expensive, as you know. What are mains?
@@removeitprosdemolition mains like big electrical power cables, cam locks and power locks.
I wonder if one of those milwaukee rebar cutters would cut that copper wire. A little easier and safer if it worked.
Good suggestion. I will check them out. Thanks for the comment.
the cartoon lightning bolt guy, his name is "REDDI KILOWATT " i worked at ARKANSAS POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY AT ONE OF THE POWER PLANTS IN THE 1970'S. MY FATHER WORKED FOR THE COMPANY FOR OVER 20 YEARS!!
Very cool! What did you do there? Thanks for the comment!
Can somebody please get my guy a wrench at 10:36 😅 I don't think I've ever seen anybody try to get a nut off with cutting pliers
Not enough tools in the scrap area for everybody. I like he was trying to add value.....help.
Any copper with a coating on it is #2 copper, like those huge bus bars, not bare bright. With that much volume I wouldn't be surprised if they'd pay bare bright price to get it.
Good to know.
I found that lopping shears for tree branches cut right through thick bare bright copper with almost no effort.
Thanks, I remember doing that before and it worked on a set I got from a junk removal...keep that in mind we get them regularly.
We build gas processing equipment. We have used some panel boards that have cost $20,000 just for the cabinet. The internals come separately. But, yeah the breakers cost $$$. Some of them even have a computer built into them.
Have you ever sold the electric equipment? Like on ebay.
@@removeitprosdemolition nah, we build stuff. I ain't real fond of evil bay
It’s more about ozone and refrigerants . Being able to remove the refrigerant safely and recycle it is why
😇
When i worked at a ford building doing demo. I would spend a 8hr shift pulling out old wire. It was all copper. After 8hrs I would fill an 8ft bed (f150) with copper. I couldnt wait to go to the scrap yard in the a.m😂
Yep. That's what it's all about. When and where was that? Thanks for the comment!
@@removeitprosdemolition Redford mi 2001
I am jealous....like mining for gold!!!
@@removeitprosdemolition I was surprised when I noticed it was copper and not aluminum
The breakers are Square D I line series. Their top brand ! And priced accordingly . A lot of the wire will weigh 2 lbs per ft stripped. So do the math Have a good time & BE SAFE !
Sounds like money! Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching! Are you in the industry?
Retired now .@@removeitprosdemolition
As a former scrap collector it was Always a good feeling to hit paydirt
It's a good feeling....
I bought a pair of baloney cutters, and a wire stripper for under $800 at auction. It took me about three hours of scrapping to pay for it. The pile of copper you have on the ground there I could do that in a day. By myself
Tools are out there, and they are worth having😉 just saying
Yes. If we continue to get big jobs with a lot of scrap at a time like this we will look into a wire stripper for sure. Just makes sense. What part of the country are you located? Thanks for watching.
The bus bars in the switch gear where i worked were silver plated
I think they should pay more not less for that what do you think?
I’m demo a 14 story building in Michigan in Southgate
The building had Westinghouse transformers
$32,000 brand new next time you get towers like that post it as is and you will get more for it than you would stripping the copper we had 25 different transformers and got a pretty penny plus 200feet of aluminum 1600 amp bus duct $$$ lot of money in that electrical stuff
I will keep that in mind....
Love the grinder stripping ✌️
its fast when you don't have an industrial stripper handy!!
You really need a wire stripper. Stripmeister has machines big enough that will save you a ton of time
Have been thinking about getting one to deal with all the scrap we've been getting from these big jobs. May reach out. Thanks for the comment!
On a side note. I strip wire for my boss on my own time at home. I get a percentage of what I strip and what pipe I clean to get the highest price.
We are currently doing demo of an old retirement home and one third through I have taken $14000 . We haven’t even gotten to the basement where all the heavy wall copper pipe is yet.
@@5667hall Heck yeah!!! That's what I am talking about....
That switch gear has huge copper bus bars.
Yes
I remember that old advert vividly.
I have never seen it before....................I love it!!!
I find that strange they try and charge less for the oxidized copper. Isn’t it still considered bare bright? You could mist it with Coca Cola or vinegar 🤷🏻♂️
They can kind of make their own rules and we have to deal with it best we can. We could clean it up a little better like you are suggesting but the amount of labor it would take for them to spot a little part that isn't cleaned to downgrade the whole load isn't worth the headache. Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!
Nice scrap, i would get a set of cable cutters (battery powere). Which shear the cable in about 1.5 seconds cleanly. Then a electric stripper that could be built or bought for removing the jacket from the cable.
Just FYI as commercial electrician (past tense) those cables are around $7.50/foot when it was put in.
I bought a good number of used breakers in those sizes, prices usually about 1/10 to 20% of new prices. Thing being the OLD breakers and buss bars had silver coating or solid silver beads. VFD silicon fuses had solid silver ends. 😮😮😮 have a bunch that blew and i keps the blown fuse bits. Same w high voltage fusing lots of silver there too.
Thanks for the info, interesting.
They make wire stippers for large wire,cables.
I borrowed one from one of my electrician friend the last time we did this, this was busy work we a little slow, would rather keep the guys working. Smaller wire the amount of time to strip it is not a good use of time or money when we are normal busy.
sand off the aluminum coating from the copper pieces with the holes in it that came out the electrical pannel.
I'm not sure what you're talking about ?
😂 two guys holding a half inch wire while the other guy uses a chop saw😂😂😂 good God get you a 4 x 4 with a notch
I hear you, we are slow normally that would be the case. Busy work!!
We call it bright and shiny around L.A.
The buss bars?
Would love to find that much copper wow
it's amazing to us....rare....
Where im at bare bright has to be wire .
I have misspoken about that I know a bunch but learn more everyday!!
you need big wire cutters $170.00
Cable Cutter cuts 1000 MCM copper and 1200 MCM aluminum cable
Features replaceable hook jaw blade and employs shear-cut action
32 in. cutter has forged tool steel jaws in black oxide finish I use to cut copper pipes up to 1in. faster and easy.
Thanks for the info!!
I will be thinking of all this wire while I strip the wire that came off my toaster lol.
😇
.500 copper, it weights 1.7 pounds per foot. Bare copper is bringing around 3.40 per pound. Great Payday
Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching. I love this stuff. Are you in the scrapping business?
All those breakers bigger small carry silver
Enough to scrap?
There are way better and safer ways to do what you are doing. Home Depot Model# 2672-21S wire stripping machine, Milwaukee cable cutter Model# 2672-21S Pricey but way better than two guys holding wire while another guy uses a gas powered saw to cut through it. And pliers to remove nuts? get some real tools. Also to pull the wire out of the floor they make cable pullers, think Chinese fingers, gripping basket on one end pulling loop on the other. Many different sizes available.
Will keep this in mind. If the big jobs continue with a lot of scrap wire I will look into getting a wire stripper. This much wire at one time is unusual for us. Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!
Q😅
buy a good wire stripper pays for itself in no time, buy a MCM wire cutter same thing
We have one, it get lots of use.
I do remodels and do this type of scrapping for extra gas money
😊👍
Man thats a lot of copper!
See picture in the community page...
Even the plastic coating is worth recycling
I interested how?
a decent large roller blade wire stripper would do wonders for you guys. Turns 60 guys labor hours into 10 guys
This much scrap at a time is a little unusual for us. If the big jobs with this much volume continues then we will look into getting a good wire stripper. Are you in the scraping business? Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!
SHould really look into a stripper, you can make one yourself that can strip and cut any size wire you want. I used to do it with my old man and he made one that could cut up to 1" wire with no issue and we would cut out 10' [ieces and feed them through the stripper. He worked in demo and his company let him take any wire he could haul so we would spend entire weekends striping and he would split the $$ with me so I didnt mind. You can find plenty of safe homemade examples of stripers/cutters online and having 2 of them would save you soooo much time
I think you're right. If these big jobs continue with all this scrap we are going to look into getting one. What part of the country was your dad working? Thanks for the comment!
@@removeitprosdemolition mainly NY/East coast but he would occasionally have to go to the West Coast for a job but he avoided it when he could.
@@removeitprosdemolition Randomly ran into this while surfing YT, I looked it up and its $150 new and can strip upto .78" wire so not bad for the price
th-cam.com/video/S_MRyZuPXD8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6rPwpVcYhFm0_Ckk
That's a crackhead dream right there. Lol
Crack heads bosses dream too!!!
why don't you invest in a large wire stripper?
because we don't get much of this I do have a small one.....
The labor is the problem....you know spend $10 to $10. The way we do it works and makes us money.
I hear you brother@@removeitprosdemolition
Lucky dog
Thanks.....
A little vinegar will clean a lot of that copper.🎉
Thanks for the tip
Why didn’t you just buy a wire stripping machine. I bought one from vivor for less than 200 and I can strip half inch wire and they have them even bigger. They save a lot of time
Have one......we were using it and they guys were working it too. keeping the guys busy in a slow period.....
Hey sir they make this mesh metal device that looks like a Chinese finger trap that goes on the end of cables e like that and then you tape it to the cables and pull the cables out and it sinches on the harder you pull the tighter it gets around cables like you pulled out and pulls that stuff out like a dream it's safer then the chain your using. And they sell something called a tugger for pulling out or in massive electrical cables and no need for a fork lift to pull it out and will pull copper cables out like that with no problems using the finger trap type device as well and those breakers are very expensive and you offering to sell the used equipment is helping the environment and making it cheaper for companies to build new construction plants and buildings and pay the workers more money. I have installed massive breakers and energized massive extreme high voltage breakers and it's a weird feeling knowing it could blow you to pieces of there is a big enough piece of dust on that buss bar even though I'm wearing a flash suit and ppe. You inspired me to open up my own demo company I do small jobs like demo of homes and really small buildings that are getting renovated and have a crew of 10 guys so we do small jobs and we get paid for the job but most of my money comes from scrap metal. And I started scrapping when I was 10 by getting old electronics and computers ppl was giving away for free and stripping them all down into separate piles of each kind of metal and then saving up the electrical boards that have gold and sell the computer and electronic boards and eventually worked my way up to my own business of junk removal when I graduated highschool and now I'm 32 and have my own demo company that I started 5 years ago and growing and getting bigger every year and I sell everything I can like breakers and even buss bars to electrical companies including electrical panels ECT. And also small companies will buy the sprinkler pipes and and cable tray pieces that are still whole pieces and offsets and connections and will pay you 2-5 dollars more then the price for it in scrap per pound they save money and I make more. And my friend I race with is a scrap yard manager he runs the whole scrap yard on the bay and they are the main buyer who buys from all the smaller places in town he gives me the best price possible I get about 10 cents per lb less then what they get from the main buyer from China and India that buys from him and they won't down grade my barrels and trailer if metals they will just take out the piece or two that isn't the right metal for that stack and give me the correct price or will tell me hey this pile you need to do this like hit it with a sander and brighten up the copper buss bars so I get the bare bright price for it. And I also own a store where I sell old but still good used stuff for homes like light fixtures doors, light switches like the old brass and bronze and porcelain stuff that ppl like to be able to keep their old vintage homes looking the same or a certain design basically a store where you can get stuff that is good and reuse for your house to save money when remodeling. I have tons of light fixtures beautiful ones antiques and modern ones chandeliers worth thousands, and thousands and thousands of different styles of light and outlet covers made of brass porcelain and cast metal from old homes, brass sinks and metal sinks and tubs vintage doors and beautiful front doors and wooden and concrete columns, ECT basically anything that can be reused for another home I put in that store. Just a idea for you to open a store where you sell to the public anything that you remove that is still good that can be reused for another house or building ECT.
www.reuseitpros.com is our store.
Wow thanks for all the good information my email is Dave@removeitrpos.com if you want to interact at all!!
That Square D switch gear could probably have been resold for reuse for much more than its scrap value.
Not sure what you mean?
sorry - did not get to the part of the video where you talk about reselling them. my apologies...@@removeitprosdemolition
@@chickenwing111 Happy Saturday!!
you need a wire stripping machine
Yes, we do.We have three of them now
I did this to my neighbors house
Nice! How much did you get?
300 pounds but the scrap yard only paid me for 200 because it was "oblivion stolen"@@removeitprosdemolition
@@removeitprosdemolition 200 pounds but I only got paid for 100 due to it be "obvious stolen"
Why the hell would you work with a backpack on
They do that because they don't know which crew they are going with and don't want to forget their lunch.
I turned in 498 pounds of copper, and signing your life away
Nice! Where do you go to turn in your scrap? Thanks for the comment.
Trash to CASH BABY!!!
That would be a great motto!!!
I love stripping that wire which I strip all my wire
I like it too it has a beginning and an end, I like that I don't get to scrap usually I am busy doing other things.
You can better sell today for 600 instead of waiting to get 750 next week..
Hey, thanks for watching.This video is from a few months ago
I pulled 3800 pounds of fat anaconda wire and stripped it, made 17k in 3 days
Nice haul
anyone that has a back pack on while working , is an accident waiting to happed , let them go A.S.A.P.
They do that because they forget their lunch or they don't know which crew they are going to be on......if they forget their lunch its a problem because once we park the truck in the morning it stays parked until the end of the day.....its part of our culture.
Everything you will got for the copper you will give to the workers. 🤔
I do instead of sending them home while we are slow I will keep them working so they can don't get behind. We make money in five areas and this is one of the five.