Extra money from your scrap screws and bolts

[hyderconsulting]

I hadn't posted any helpful methods or tips in a while but I thought of this one I hadn't posted yet. I dismantle a lot of computers and electronic equipment and I keep the screws, washers, bolts, nuts, metal spacers from doing so and toss them into a five gallon pail. When I get the pail (or pails) full and I've got some extra time on my hands I separate out the stainless steel and brass pieces for some extra money. How do you do that? Simply take a good sized magnet and continually dip it in your pail removing all the ferrous screws, nuts and bolts until you get to the bottom. What's left over has to be stainless steel or brass with a smidgen of diecast or aluminum pieces. On a typical 5 gallon pail after pulling everything out I will have leftover about 1 to 2 inches of nonmagnetic pieces left in the bottom. I then visually pick out the yellow brass screws and nuts and any diecast or aluminum pieces. With a little practice you can spot them well enough. If you have several boxes or pails of screws it can add up to some good money. For a magnet I like to use the donut shaped ones out of a microwave magnetron (which I carefully dismantled with care). They are of good size and strength for doing this kind of work. Regards, Chris Hyder.

 

[TXWolf01]

I hadn't posted any helpful methods or tips in a while but I thought of this one I hadn't posted yet. I dismantle a lot of computers and electronic equipment and I keep the screws, washers, bolts, nuts, metal spacers from doing so and toss them into a five gallon pail. When I get the pail (or pails) full and I've got some extra time on my hands I separate out the stainless steel and brass pieces for some extra money. How do you do that? Simply take a good sized magnet and continually dip it in your pail removing all the ferrous screws, nuts and bolts until you get to the bottom. What's left over has to be stainless steel or brass with a smidgen of diecast or aluminum pieces. On a typical 5 gallon pail after pulling everything out I will have leftover about 1 to 2 inches of nonmagnetic pieces left in the bottom. I then visually pick out the yellow brass screws and nuts and any diecast or aluminum pieces. With a little practice you can spot them well enough. If you have several boxes or pails of screws it can add up to some good money. For a magnet I like to use the donut shaped ones out of a microwave magnetron (which I carefully dismantled with care). They are of good size and strength for doing this kind of work. Regards, Chris Hyder.

Yeah those ones out of the Microwaves are actually rare earth magnets and the strongest you can get man made so far.

 

[silversaddle1]

Ha Ha, yes.... we tried this a few years ago. I decided that we were going to save all the screws from all the equipment we stripped for one year. Well after ten months it was quite clear that we stripped a lot of stuff in a year as we had a 55 gallon barrel FULL of screws! The bad thing about it was we could not move the damn thing! We had to empty it out 5 gallons at a time. Do you have any idea how heavy a 5 gallon bucket of computer screws is?!!! Yes, we do not do that any more. But yes, there are tons of stainless and brass screws in computer equipment. And not only that, but nuts and bolts too! We stripped down some huge UPS units and filled two buckets with nice nuts, bolts, and washers of all sizes. Two buckets full of like new hardware, we sold at a farm type auction....$120.00 for the pair. money is out there guys, just waiting for you to find it!

 

[joem]

I get these little ( cursed things as my wife calls them) screws all over the place so I just throw them into my copper bearing box and the scrap yard takes them as such. It's weird they pay for fans, trimmed ends of old wires, transformers, and other copper bearing items but then throw them into the shredded steel bin.

 

[Geo]

i worked for one of the biggest scrap yards in the area and i learned that smaller scrap yards get paid on the output from the shredder. the shredder is a wet shredder and is comparible to a huge robot.material is fed in the mouth and many different belts take different materials to different locations.when a smaller scrap yard brings in loads, they dont get paid for weight over the scales. they get paid by weight coming from the shredder.if you throw motors in the mixed metals bin and it goes through the shredder, it comes out as steel, aluminum and copper.not all is sold in this fashion. from what i understand its only the shredder material that gets processed like this and im sure the larger yard gets its cut for the use of the shredder.theres a small steel mill here named Nucor Steel, they will pay $500.00 a ton for clean prepared foundry but you have to have twenty five tons at a time.

 

[hyderconsulting]

From what I know the donut ring magnets out of microwave are not NIB's but ceramic magnets probably having the composition of barium or strontium with iron and oxygen. Now NIB's are used in some microwave generating equipment in radar use in the circulators. If you can provide a reference of their use in microwaves then I'll stand corrected. Regards, Chris Hyder.

 

[eesakiwi]

I was told that if you fill a 55 gallon drum with bolts & screws only, you get a 'way above steel market prices' for it.
And that you get a extra $10 for having it in a drum....

Its a subject that I still haven't found out if its true or not.

 

[MMFJ]

Great tip!

I like using a table with a lip on it (from experience, be sure to use a NON-FERROUS tabletop! - something only a half inch or so is fine, but I've used an upside down tabletop (like a card table without the legs), which then just catches all the screws and loose stuff while I'm working (though plenty still seem to find their way to the shop floor!)

Once I've done a 'run' (typically when I can't seem to find my tools under the pile of screws....), I take a magnet from a hard drive (this is rare earth...) and run it over the top of the pile. Being small, it sure fills up fast, but with a little practice, it is just a swoop to grab the 'beehive' and drop it into the ferrous bucket.

Takes several passes, but it cleans up nicely and pretty quick, I think.

The remainder is handled just like suggested - a scan through for brass, aluminum, stainless, etc.

Anything that can't be identified quickly, we put in the "Non-Ferrous Scrap, Primarily Aluminum" box, as that gets a lot of pretty clean aluminum anyway, so the few screws aren't an issue.

Seems to keep the space more clear, not having yet another bucket sitting around (we have a very limited space to work in and already too many 'separation' buckets, boxes and crates!

Lately I've been toying with an idea to make some sort of separator by simply pouring the mess through a magnetic field, or on a treadmill like they do with aluminum cans and such. Of course, talk about a space issue, I know, though labor-saving, time-saving devices are always worthy of trying out in my shop!

The main thing is to find a system that works for you - and always keep your eyes open for new ideas!