I mean a lot! My father-in-law was an electrician for forty years, and saved every bit of scrap wire until he retired last year. It’s like a small hill of copper and is, of course, worth a lot more if it’s stripped.
Anyways, I told him not to burn off the insulation – dioxins and all that – but in the end he found the fire department more persuasive. 😛
Something like 90% of it remains to be stripped. Is there an efficient, mechanical way of doing it? This is a bit of everything: all gauges, two wire, three-wire, what-have-you.
Replies
I save all of the copper from remodels that we do. I don't have as much as you but I stay on top of it. I collect it during our busy months and strip it in the winter when things are slower.
I have found that for hand 'skinning' the best knives are the cheap crappy plastic snap blade knives that they sell every where. I buy a bunch at walmart for less than a buck a peiece, and you get extrablades. They knives cut great when they are sharp but they dull quickly when you nick into the copper. Get the outer jacket off (easy) then take the individual conductors and stick one end in a vise and skin away. That works good for 14, 12, 10 but larger conductors are harder to work with.
I wish someone made a skinner or peeler of some type but I don't know of one.
Webby
Edited 2/10/2008 11:14 am ET by webby
Vise, eh? Yeah. That'd work.But a peeler would be ideal. I was thinking something like adjustable blades - something durable, think carbide - or maybe blades on springs. My FIL isn't - ha, I don't know how to put this. If I were retired and had something like a ton or more of copper, I'd build a device, out of boredom if nothing else. But my wife's father is short on initiative, one of the reasons I'm trying to figure this out for him.
Something like a tiny power planer would completely rule, just shaving off one side of the insulation. Probably any number of ways of 'skinning the cat' - bwa ha ha ha - but I am not about to design and build it. I did search for some gimmicks on line, but they seem like silly toys that wouldn't be up to the task.
http://www.thewirezipper.com/index.htm
MarKH
That's the answer!
And it looks like something he could copy, although, I'd probably just buy one.
The wire zipper costs $165, plus accessories....I wonder how that compares to simply selling the wire at the lower scrap price with the insulation still on it.
I guess it depends on how much your time is worth.
I have had success at stripping stuff 10 ga and larger with a razor knife and something to hold the other end of the wire.
Anything smaller and it just didn't work for me.
I have a set of rollers, and I tried squeezing the wire through the insulation (for lack of a better description), and that didn't work, either.
Last time I tried, and I had 70# of wire, I gave up on stripping it after a couple of close calls with the knife.
I just don't have the volume of wire to justify buying one of those tools to try it out.
If you are in a position where you have have close calls to your hands with a sharp knife you may want to get some of the Kevlar gloves. I buy mine at a safety supply store, but they sell some "one size doesn't really fit all" glove at most sporting goods stores for use in filleting fish. Of course, if you are so coordination challenged as to stab yourself in the butt or where ever, then the gloves may not help much. :-) I buy my gloves at Sanderson Safety in Portland, OR, but here is a sample from a different safety supply store:http://www.northernsafety.com/shared/ppc/gloves_cut.cfm?GCID=S19479x001&keyword=kevlar%20gloves&gclid=COSYgo-WvZECFSFaagodRUS7DQ
Thanks for the info.
I still doubt it is worth it, even to make $10 an hour (before deducting expenses to go to the scrapyard.. or the hospital), you have to strip a lot of small wire.
Definitely an activity for those that really have nothing better to do.
If you get the wire for nothing you can strip 20 lbs. an hr. @ almost 3.00 lb. that's $60.00. I'll take that anyday
I'm not that good at it unless it is 10ga and thicker.
Once you get the hang of it you would amaze yourself. Even if you only did 10 lbs. a week. That would be 520 lbs. a year @ $3.00 that would be $1560.00 . That would be a big help around the holidays.
Insulated copper is about 1.40/lb, vs 2.90 uninsulated. Difference is 1.50/lb, so you're talking about stripping 150 or so lbs to break even. If there's a mountain of wire, it could pay off. When you strip the wire it looses weight, I don't know how much, so you get a much higher price, but with less weight, so the differential is less than 1.50 per lb, possibly considerably so.
That stripper needs different inserts to fit various wirre, at $25 ea. so if there are a lot of inserts needed, then it's less of a deal, and replacement cutters are $12, don't know how long they last.
The Wire Zipper Model 1 comes with everything needed to strip wire from 14 ga solid to 6 ga stranded.
The Pro model comes with aluminum inserts which will strip the same as Model 1 plus 3 additional inserts 3/8, 1/2 and 5/8.
The cutters can be hand sharpened using a fine file or sharpening stone to extend their lfe.
It definitely pays to strip the insulation and get #1 bright copper price compared to insulated wire price.
Don't consider burning!
Don't consider burning!
how come?
Peach full,easy feelin'.
The price for burned wire is lower than shiny.
Is it still higher than coated?
Peach full,easy feelin'.
Don't know the specifics, burned wire is contaminated, so it's not as high as clean shiny wire.
What do you mean by coated? Plated copper? I would think that is more than burned, but it may need smelted out of the copper, so I guess it could actually be lower than burned wire. But any bare copper is much higher than insulated.
I meant plastic or fiber coated.
Peach full,easy feelin'.
Seeing as most scrapyards really don't have a lot of price scales, they would likely call it insulated and give you the low ball price.
Not to mention pollution. (;-)
Besides poluting. #1 bright copper is worth more than #2 copper, and some junk shops may only pay #3 copper prices for burnt copper. Besides who wants to smell that stuff other than the drugies.
My first real job was working for an electrical contractor. I started at 15. I cleaned the shop, sorted the standard parts we stocked into the shelf bins, cleaned the electricians trucks out etc. And stripped the scrap wire. Wish I had one of those then, all I had was a knife. What a chore!
Worked by a railroad and a grain elevator. The scrap wire was stored outside in a bin, I reached in and pulled some out, drug a big rat out with it. He was none too happy. I still remember watching that huge beast hightailing it out of the lot like it was yesterday.
Huh. Well, seems simple enough. A winch powered by a drill would serve to pull the wire.
I still think the burn barrel is the way.two ways to screw up concrete 1) concrete driver 2) concrete finisher
Finally, crack and meth addicts have a way of getting more for the stuff they strip out of construction projects!Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
Also a CRX fanatic!
If your hair looks funny, it's because God likes to scratch his nuts. You nut, you.
I think they like the smell of burning insulation.
There are steel plates with progressively smaller holes fro "drawing" wire--we used them in jewelry making to turn suare cross sectioned strip of metal into round cross sectioned wire. Might work with taking insulation off--stick the draw plate in a vice, start the partially stripped wire into the exact sized hole for the wire and pull it through with vice grips and the plate should peel the insulation off. Should, but I don't know for sure.
I can see how that would work, particularly with a powered puller. I'm thinking 1/2" drill hooked up to a winch.
There's a reason it's worth a lot more stripped. Can you strip the larger wire and just sell the rest un-stripped.
I know platic when hot will cut easy, but plastic when cold will break brittle..two ways to screw up concrete 1) concrete driver 2) concrete finisher
Maybe he can ship it down there to you where it's hot. It's brutal cold here right now.
Seems that I saw an episode of "Dirty Jobs" where someone fed the wire scraps into a machine that stripped the wire.
Around here the electrical apprentices get to keep the wire, most that I know just strip by hand using a utility knife. Be careful though, seams like everybody that I know of that does this has opened themselves up one time or another. A lot of stripping and you sorta get complacent.
One guy that I know of keeps every small piece and I think twice a year he takes in over 1000 lbs. I don't think its legal to burn the plastic off, I know that the scrap yards around here are not supposed to buy it that way.
Doug
How about metal clad flexible cable? Anyone have a way to get the steel off? I took a bunch to a scrap yard that was paying $2/lb last summer for insulated wire. He wouldn't take the mc because he said he couldn't get the jacket off.
Most of mine's industrial. I'll strip down to # 8. 10 and smaller eats up too much time.
Mike
Back in early 60's worked in a scrap yard. Had a furnace, that it all went in, and burned it all off...Did it at night, so the smoke was not as obvious..Wonder what EPA would do with that today??? They also poured the PCB transformer oil out on the ground, kept the dust down...
Thirty years later there were mega lawsuits/cleanups on the site...
Bud
Seems you could make a holder easily enough that would hold one of those cheap knifes with the break-off blade.
Have a V notch in the end of the holder that allows the blade of the knife to come through a bit.
The holder rides on the wire, with the wire in the V notch, and the knife making one long slit, safely.
Using a utility knife the same way, people do cut themselves. Because it becomes tedious to keep the blade on the wire/insulation.
With the holder, the blade doesn't stick out enough to cut the person. And when everything becomes tedious, it is still simple to keep the V notch riding on the wire...
(Now someone is going to make a cheapo plastic or aluminum version of this and make a fortune selling them to meth heads. LOL)
In fact, it seems the V notch could be very simply added to the already existing molds for those cheap plastic break off knives. Or cut/filed into the business end of the steel utility knives. Or made as a foot that snaps onto a standard utility knife nose.
Yeah, it may be cold, but at least it's a wet cold !
Now someone is going to make a cheapo plastic or aluminum version of this and make a fortune selling them to meth heads. LOL)
Probably they'd lose their azz's, the meth heads wouldnt pay for them, they'd steel em! Bout the only thing the meth head pays for is METH!
Doug
A cheap sharp plane, set in a vice with a scrap over top to hold the wire down.or the hold down could be a peice of wood with the proper sized hole for the wire drilled in the edge.A medium to large guy named Alan, not an ambiguous female....
NOT that there is anything wrong with that.
I know an electrician who has looked (is looking?) into this. He can get a machine that would probably strip your small hill in a day or less. The machine costs over $100,000.
A very profitable business can be had IF you can acquire enough unstripped wire. And that is the question.
The electricians father suggested that he seriously start to acquire and stockpile wire. He would take all the risk out of the enterprise if he had enough wire stockpiled and he would find out if there was enough wire to be had to maintain the business.
Rich Beckman
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I think the industrial process is to grind the insulated wire into itty bitty pieces. Then it is dumped into a vat full of liquid water and the insulation bits float off and the copper bits sink.
The insulation bits are skimmed off and sent to China for obvious purposes.
~Peter
i've seen a mechanical stripper... one of the large building demo guys has one.. a few years ago i saw a 30x30ft room filled to the ceiling with stripped bright copper...
the machine had a line of holes for each wire size... some powered spring loaded rollers that pulled the wire thru the holes... between the backside of the hole and the pull rollers... there were round blades that looked like the blade to a pipe/tube cutter... the machine was old as dirt and seemed to do the job... seems the pressure of the rollers on the cut insulation made them part company...
p
Put all your wire in a big pill with a little diesel fuel. When the fire burns out you’ll have nothing left but recyclable copper. It sounds like you have enough to try this....you won’t be disappointed!
I found a bunch of industrial type scrap wire strippers on ebay
Here are some of them
http://cgi.ebay.com/Scrap-Copper-Wire-Stripper-Automatic-Stripping-Machine_W0QQitemZ220200802160QQihZ012QQcategoryZ66989QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/ERASER-K8A-Rotary-Blade-Cable-Wire-Stripper_W0QQitemZ110223941933QQihZ001QQcategoryZ66989QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/scrap-wire-stripper-stripping-machine_W0QQitemZ160207231754QQihZ006QQcategoryZ66989QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Wire-Stripping-Machine-Copper-Recycler-Wire-Stripper_W0QQitemZ170192601194QQihZ007QQcategoryZ66989QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Automatic-Scrap-Copper-Wire-Stripper-Stripping-Machine_W0QQitemZ220200802171QQihZ012QQcategoryZ66989QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/APRI-automatic-wire-stripper-Almost-NEW_W0QQitemZ170192476178QQihZ007QQcategoryZ66989QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Industrial-Wire-Stripper-Cable-Stripper-Copper-Wire_W0QQitemZ270211111306QQihZ017QQcategoryZ66989QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
i've read all the post and unless aguys getting into bussiness i don't think it works to spend big bucks for a one time deal.
first i would start seperating,any thing smaller than 10g would go in a pile to sell with the insulation on,yeah you get less but it weighs a little more also. then on the bigger wire,put one end in a vise,if you got someone to help by holding the other end,run down it with a knife ,peel it and throw it in another pile.
my buddy tears houses down and salvages the wire,all the small stuff goes in a fire.
you gotta strip a lot of 12-14 gauge to get much weight. larry
if a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?