I just hauled some copper scrap in and had to show my driver’s license at the scales (and they looked thru my scrap to make sure there wasn’t anything like downspouts or new rolls of wire that could possibly be stolen) as well as at the cashier. Several people were bitching about being ID’d, but I thanked them.
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Grant,
It's the same here in Maine now.
Anything over 50 clams and you have to have your license and sign the slip.
I also welcome trying some efforts to quell some of the thievery taking place.
Walter
You turning in that pail of solder butts ??
You turning in that pail of solder butts ??
Nah - I'll drop them in the pre-tinner the next big flat seam job we do. View Image
Me too.do you have a location for scraps to refer me to? I just realized this week how much recycleable scrap copper, bronze, and lead I have built up. Time for a trip to cash it in instead of waiting for a gut to come to me.
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Paul,
There are several near me.
Spauldings in Brewer on Maple St. only open Thurs thru Sat
Lakeman's on the Levensellar Rd. in Holden
Smorgon Recycling on outer Broadway in Bangor but they take iron too so the wait can be lengthy.
I don't know if Belfast or Rockland have any yards
Thanks. The plumbers and electricians here go to the Bangor area so I think not for the Midcoast.I'll check with them too, but I may even have enough iron also to make it worth while to head to Smorgon with my bigger truck
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
If you're up this way I owe you a lunch for the Islesboro School enlightenment.
Walter
I still have your # stored in my cell. Love to visit. I'll probably combine the trip with stocking up at Sam's club or something.I've been on the mainland too much lately - Portland for various medical tests for the wife. All seems fine but they keep on with "Let's do this just to make sure..."
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Not copper but same thing. We have the most corrupt state workers in the country. plus they're stupid too.
http://wbztv.com/local/longfellow.bridge.metal.2.815076.html
Never underestimate the power or level of corruption in public workers, particularly California public works employees. The story goes like this: Sacramento has had such cheap water, a river runs through it after all, that they've never installed water meters anywhere within the city until a few years ago when the state made them do it. The new state law mandates that all public water operations must install meters so about two years ago the city began a multiple year campaign to install meters throughout the city. The plan went something like this, each year the city would by a couple million dollars of new water meters and gradually install the meters, a section at a time over several years, until the whole city was completely plumbed/metered out. Sacramento city is spending about $6 million dollars a year on new meters and will continue doing so for at least 8 years or so to get the whole project done. An audit was made last year that came at an inconvenient time, as they're want to do, that showed there was some smelly c**p going down. It turns out that the utility supervisor for the city's utility district (SMUD), a long tenured employee, had made a deal with a scrap metal dealer in SF to buy the new meters as they were delivered to the city yard. The supervisor would take a truck load of the new water meters to SF and sell them for scrap, pocket the money for himself and spread a little here and there with his other thug employees. The story broke last year or so but some of the latest appears at:
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1079247.html
What's the $$ up to now?
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
What's the $$ up to now?
I just got $2.45/lb for #1.
CU is actually down lately.
http://www.reverecopper.com/metalval.htmView Image
Yeah, about 2.90 spot price on the commodity market. All the metals are down lately from CU or AU to FE to AL
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Oversupply due to all the stolen stuff driving down prices?
"Never pick a fight with an old man. If he can't beat you he will just kill you." Steinbeck
LOL, No, I think there is some feeling that there was a minor commodities bubble, and a fear that prices being too high on energy, combined with the credit troubles, would bring on a world-wide slowdown, bringing demand down.
I don't see any prices crashing, just a short term balancing act on the way to higher levels.
Not that you don't already know all that better than I do.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
A small farm I recently purchased has a lot of scrap metal all over it because the prior owner was a welder.
I've already hauled off over $750 worth of scrap just in a few small loads.
"Obama.....bought and paid for.......at bargain prices no less" : robert
A small farm I recently purchased has a lot of scrap metal all over it because the prior owner was a welder.
I drive around the rural areas and I'm amazed at the amount of farmers that are sitting on some pretty sizable piles of scrap metal. I dont know why in the hell they're not loading it up and taking it to the yards, it's not like there going to see better prices and its not like they're ever going to do anything with it, well other then watch it rust into nothingness!
Doug
Seems like they would just want to clean the place up if nothing else. The money would just be a big bonus.
"Obama.....bought and paid for.......at bargain prices no less" : robert
Seems like they would just want to clean the place up if nothing else.
One would certainly think so.
Apparently some dont see things the way you and I do, there loss!
Doug
And with those scrap prices as high as they are it's not a small one.
"Obama.....bought and paid for.......at bargain prices no less" : robert
its not like they're ever going to do anything with it, well other then watch it rust into nothingness!
Doug, stop and ask if they want to sell whatever it is.
Answer wil be something like "I'm gonna do something with that someday......................."
Guaranteed.
Next time it moves will be when their heirs call the scrap man.
Joe H
Answer wil be something like "I'm gonna do something with that someday......................."
Guaranteed.
HEY, thats the same thing I say when someone asks me about some of the wood and architecture stuff I have laying around, are you suggesting..............
Naaaa, I'm gonna use mine someday!
BTW, your dead nuts on regarding what they'd say. I go to a lot of farm auctions and theres always the guy there with big torch outfit in his beat up truck and he's bidding on everything thats scrap. Probably the most profitable guy at the auctions.
Doug
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4780648.ece"A man was killed trying to steal a copper cable which was carrying 11,000 volts, an inquest heard today.Kirk John Thompson was electrocuted at the derelict Panteg steelworks, in Pontypool, South Wales, when his bolt croppers pierced the plastic coating of a cable still connected to the National Grid.Britain has been hit by a plague of of metal thefts in recent years as the Asian construction and manufacturing boom has pushed up the prices of raw materials.Thieves routinely rip long sections of copper cable from the side of railway lines or steal lead flashing from church roofs - ignoring health and safety warnings from the police and quickly melting down their loot. ".
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Bill, as you know we are in the middle of storm recovery this week (hope your sister is ok).
Today we had about of 100' of wire stolen off the back of one of our overhead trucks while the crew was walking the down line to look over the damage. They were about halfway down the block when a resident yelled at them that thier truck was being raided. Another resident of the block said a car pulled up behind the bucket truck and two menn jumped out and started pulling wire off the spool. They coiled it up as they spooled it off, cut it with bolt cutters, and threw it in the trunk of the car, then drove off.
Bold.
Knowone on the street even tried to stop them or interfear. Didn't even get the license number of the car.
Yet, all were upset to learn the power wasn't getting restored today,....because the crew didn't have enough wire to restore thier line and had to return to the yard to get more.
Maybe tomorrow they might get involved, or at least yell at the thieves.
She got here power back Tuesday.Told me that she heard that Bowman had 81 mph gust which is much more than weather underground reported.She also forwarded me an email from LG&E and you where "mentioned".//o The numbers include 135 employees back office supporto And 75 employees from our power plants and other areas of the business to help guard downed lines.//.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
I've driven thru Pontypool!
don't remember anything except the name ... but I been there.
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
The worst local one I've heard of locally was about a year ago when a guy used a tow truck to pull down a bronze statue of a Ukranian poet in an Oakville, Ontario public park. Dumb-@ss then takes the head, intact, to a local scrap dealer, who buys his story (and the head) that he was contracted by the city to scrap out the statue. Dealer later hears about the story on the news, curses his dumb luck, calls the cops, and they nab the guy when he comes BACK to sell the same dealer more parts from the same statue...
Massachusetts is proposing the same scenario, photo id, and keeping records of who sold what scrap metal. But the proposal is on the back burner, as it's estimated to cost the State of MA $1 million per year to implement this. Meanwhile, scrap metal thefts are at an all time high in MA and nothing is sacred. Even cemeteries aren't safe, the thieves are stealing the brass veteran's markers and plaques, a high school had the aluminum bleachers stolen....FWIW, an article on the scrap metal issue in MA:http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/09/16/regulating_the_scrap_heap/
Edited 9/17/2008 12:40 pm ET by Otis P. Driftwood
Last week I posted a message about the scrap I pulled out of our yard that the previous owner was using to run hose bibs around the yard. I got $2.30/ lb for dirty copper with soldered fitting still attached.ML
seeyou,
I agree, make the selling of scrap traceable and maybe thefts will go down!
Not only show DL in WA state, but they record the info and your name on receipt, even for scrap iron now. State law. Really did cut down on the thefts.
they record the info and your name on receipt
They made a copy of my DL and attached it to their copy of the receipt. Used to just have to show it to them. I had to show the scale master my DL before he would weigh me. View Image
I don't think they have progressed that far locally. As of the first week in August we had lost close $750K in CU, and none of the scrap dealers here seem to recognize where all that wire might be coming from.
We finally put a dent in one of the big rings by hiring off duty Metro police to watch our warehouse yard. Seems that most of the big reels were getting stocked close to the fence and away from our electronic survalance. After four of the thieves were caught, they gave up the names of the two inside contractor employees that were staging the wire for them. The questimate was that it may account for a little over a third of our losses. The balance has been stripped from pole grounds and substation grounds.
Yet the scrap dealers have no idea why they have such and abundance of #4 solid copper wire.
We are even purchasing wire with embedded code chips in it, and some of the dealers are now willing to scan any scrap wire they get.
And, of course the body count continues to go up, and it is all our fault!
One of the county parks have a bunch of copper electrical cable stolen from some of the outdoor lighting poles. At $3/pound, nothing is sacred. The little league sports are being compromised.
Also, these thieves are targeting those with large AC condensor units for the copper. Church got hit two years in a row (trying not to laugh).
I took some aluminum cans in last week, price was .65/lb. As I'm waiting for them to dump all the bags and get a final weight, I glanced over to a bin of copper somebody had brought in. Sitting on top was about a dozen 2" copper tees, shiny as the day they were new. This was the first time I had been to this scrap buyer, so I don't know their procedures, but it seemed like an easy payday for offloading any "scrap" copper.
Mitch
I hooked this one to my bumper and towed it to the scrap yard.................. The only problem was that the scrap yard was under water. ;-)
Whooo-hee!Did you ground it?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
This was the day after Gustav came to town. I was out checking on some properties and saw the standing seam roof.
I was out of my truck looking at it, trying to figure out how it was attached, where it came from and why it failed when a cop pulls up, gets out and starts commenting on the scrap price it would bring.
I just forced a smile and went on my way.
I see what looks like only 2 clips on about 8' of seam?
Bet that went on fast, came off the same way.
Joe H
Yeah, there wasn't much holding it on. There was another crumpled up piece of copper roof about the same size as that one, about 100yds away.
I think it was part of the same roof but not positive.
A friend of mine works for a commercial roof outfit. He thinks that was the roof on a medical bldg. that they got out bid on 2 years ago. The new bid they gave them is over triple the original bid. The Drs. think they are getting gouged--- oh well
$108K stolen in cooper headstones and tablets, here at a local cemetery.http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_10486265ML
Others have commented about metal being stolen and sold for scrap.
The worst case i ever heard of was dump truck drivers taking full loads of steel scrap directly to the scrap yard instead of their intended destination.
Pocketing the cash.
The intended destination was a federal site.
The steel was to be examined by a panel of specialists who were to make recommendations based upon what they found.
The steel was evidence.
The city was New York.
The site was the Twin Towers.
Toolman 65
Talk about Cold!
Sounds like a good idea to me. They should feel free to do the same for aluminum.
jt8
I went to the scrap yard for the first time in my life last year ...
they copied my ID.
just went back 2 weeks ago ... same place ... asked if I'd ever been.
Said Yup ... think she looked up my name ... got the cash.
I'm in favor of it.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
JeffBuck
Today was a victory for me.. I have some scrap copper I plan on taking in at some point.. I also ordered the last pieces for my gutter last week and they arrived yesterday.. when I opened the package today the down spouts I rordered were wrong..
I'm glad I work with Classic Gutters because they acknowledged their error and sent me a replacement immediately.. further when they looked at the cost of shipping them back it was cheaper to have me dispose of the wrong ones.. So my scrap copper pile just got about 8 or 9 pounds heavier!
I'm glad I work with Classic Gutters
They are a good outfit. I'm also pretty impressed with Raintrade (Gutter Supply) in Chicago.View Image
At the scrap yards here in Akron, OH, they take your thumbprint now. I don't have a problem with it. They always asked for your address and phone number before, then they started asking for I.D., and now the thumbprint. I know where my scrap came from and it's legit, but I would imagine that it's scaring away a lot of the thieves. They didn't look too closely at the steel scrap on the scales before either. Now there is someone there looking very closely at every load.
I'll bet they have puppies when they get the 18 wheeler load of copper roof off the demo we just did. Looks like I'm riding shotgun (with a real one) when it goes to the yard. We were hoping for it to go up from the 2.77/#. It's less now. :-(