OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Off Topics Shredding

Imagine what this would do to hundreds of mowers at once
http://www.chonday.com/Videos/schredcareng2
Ian

Thats one mean piece of gear

That thing is awesome!

I could use one of them.

I was surprised to see them mixing the scrap like that. A shredded car body consists of pure steel, once the plastic burns away in the furnace, and steel scrap is worth a lot more than cast iron scrap. Most likely the scrap yard owner knows what he is doing, but it seems odd.

Ive seen that vid before... Anyway, any scrap yard I have cashed in at has thrown cast iron and steel in the same pile, at the pathetic price of any ferrous metal at the moment I am not surprised, last time I cashed in I got 4 cents per kilo for steel.

As the dollar drops though prices have been recovering, at the moment we are likely to pull 12c/kg on the next haul. I generally use steel as an alibi to get accses to the metal pile at the tip, what I haul out of there is generally worth a lot more than the pittance of metal I take in.

I havent traded scrap since I somewhat blew the gearbox and wore out the rings in my ute, (towing many cars 100's of kilometers will screw a 30 year old 4cyl japanese ute.) however we have purchased something much more powerful and comfortable than the old nissan and will be trading scrap again soon. Lets face it, metal is everywhere, its usually free and for the sake of piling it all in a ute and trailer its easy money.

Hi to All,
I wonder what metal is used in the shredder barrel itself, and what sort of horse power would be required to drive it?

It all depends.

Car bodies have a fair whack of copper wiring and electric motors. Especially the newer stuff. Thats all worth money. Offsets the plastic/material/cardboard/glass etc rubbish.

Cast iron in a sizeable lump goes as something called 'insize' solid steel less than 1mx1m. BBQ hotplates and Victa engine blocks and cylinders etc.
Its the same as steel, anything over 5mmish under 1Mx1M including steel car wheel rims.
Called insize as it can go straight in the furnace. Does not need to be processed.
Its only a few cents a kilo extra but it all adds up.

Strange thing is that there is no grade for clean steel So you get the same for a rusty Victa base with the wheels and plastic rear door on it as you do for a bare base.
Its like a fridge, they will take that as steel even if the motor has been pulled out of it. By weight it would be lucky to be half steel.
I think its only going to get harder as I have seen a few all plastic washing machines about.

Scrap is a strange industry, Bob. The way the prices work, it seems to be better to take them garbage than clean metal, as you say. A couple of years ago when I gave up bullet casting, I sold them 400 kg of small ingots, individually marked with the composition of that ingot. A lot of it was linotype, which is expensive. The result was $1 per kg, exactly the same as if I'd taken them the same weight of old wheelweights, still with the cast-in steel clips, and including kilograms of dirt, zinc weights (which contaminate the melt) and old tyre valves. I'm glad I at least kept the solder and pewter.

Hi to All,
this video is of the Hammel VB 1500K which is powered by 2 Caterpillar C18 engines.

The VB 950, seen in the previous video in this thread, has a single Caterpillar C18 diesel engine pushing out 710PS (700hp) and…440,000Nm (324,483 lb-ft) of peak torque, and if that doesn't impress you, how about the VB 1500 that has two C18 diesel mills delivering 1,500PS (1.479hp) and - wait for it- 1 million Nm or 737,463 lb-ft!

A bit more on scrap
Was talking to the 'Onesteel' rep at the NQ Field Days last week and after it is shredded there is a further process where the metals are separated and the rubbished is removed
In the picture you can see the shredded scrap being dumped to go through the plant in the background to be separated
Ian

Yeah the Simsmetal plant in Brooklyn has a similar setup. Magnets and blowers and all sorts of sorting. Its even hand picked. Theres a spot you can stand where all the coins fall out. lol.

From memory the old motor was 4000hp, they put a new one on, cost a few $$$ and it was 6000, didnt even last a week, some mechanical fault.


Yeah its strange. Some stuff is worth stripping other stuff isnt.
Clean cast alloy is about $1.00-1.20. Dirty alloy (with steel in it) is 40c or so. Its worth pulling the metal off a base, but its not worth ripping the crank out of an engine. I pull the head off (its usually off anyway) and pop the stainless exhaust valve out, because I can. One day I will have a whole bucket full. lol.

Things like air conditioners, they go 40c as well, I wouldnt bother stripping one of those, you need to get all the steel off the radiators (end caps), you get a bit of clean copper tube, refrigeration motor (its not much more than the 40c by itself), a bit of wiring, then you are left with steel and plastic. Leave it together and get the cash.

For the sake of a couple of screws, you can collect a fair whack of transformers out of old microwaves. Same with washing machine motors, drop them out and send the rest of it to scrap.


They changed the whole transformer and electric motor thing a while back, It used to be anything was fair game and all at the same rate. Transformers have to have weight to them. Now power tools and motors with the plastic go at the 40c. To get the better rate it needs to be steel or alloy housings on the motor.


I had a bag of bullet casings that my mate gave me (that he technically should not have had). All sorts even right up to big ones. Pulled out the few steel ones and took the rest in and got brass price for them.


I had a few kgs of pewter, they wouldn't even give me a price on it.



Heres a strange one, a month or so back I took in a great heaped trailer load of Ryobi/Talon/GMC line trimmers I was sick of looking at. I got the 40C price for the whole lot. It was only after I had them loaded that I worked out that a fair percent of them actually have steel shafts, not alloy.

Old pewter is 95% tin, modern pewter is still over 90%. If you can't do anything else with it, throw in an equal weight of lead and you'll have 50/50 solder, which is very useful stuff. You can also use the pewter to sweeten up cheap solder.

I took nearly all my old copper and brass to the scrappie a couple of years ago now, came out with $200 and spent it on plants for the garden on the way home. From memory, I think the plants died.

Well done on ridding the world of that huge load of half-crank trimmers Bob, you did your civic duty that day. Might have been able to rescue a few carburetors from them, and possibly a few bump feeders that weren't worn out, but that is about it. I don't think the steel content (crankshaft and drive-cable mainly) worries the scrap industry a whole lot, they can rake it up from the bottom of the melt so long as they do it fairly quickly before it contaminates the aluminium much, and they can still end up with usable low-grade aluminium. Steel has a much higher melting point, but it is a nasty contaminant, a fraction of a percent makes the aluminium brittle, prone to corrosion, and generally only suitable for saucepans.