Copper Recycling Wire Stripping..>>

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i have 55 gallon drum full of small copper wire...bad ext cords ect.... anybody have a good idea to do it fast other than burning??? thinking about making homemade job just wondering if someone else has made anything Lets post some pics and some idea everybody could benifit!!
Reply:What's the problem with burning?  Local ordinance?Miller Syncrowave 350Millermatic 252/ 30A spoolgunMiller Bobcat 225g w/ 3545 spoolgunLincoln PowerArc4000Lincoln 175 Mig  Lincoln 135 Mig Everlast 250EX TigCentury ac/dc 230 amp stickVictor O/AHypertherm 1000 plasma
Reply:Do you really get a lot more for it stripped? Only way I know is with a knife. I just take mine in skin and all. Don't forget to separate the cords from the Romex though if you don't strip it, the cords are not worth as much.Miller Challenger 172Miller Thunderbolt AC/DC 225/150Miller Maxstar 150 STLVictor 100CVictor JourneymanOxweld OAHarris O/ASmith O/A little torchNo, that's not my car.
Reply:oo yeah like another dollar a pound or more
Reply:Might try one of these cable slitters:http://www.antonline.com/p_PA1820-GP_817335.htm?sID=GP
Reply:The hammer and plate method is slow, but if you hit it the insulation splits and can be peeled off.My friend burns small amounts and accumulates it that way. Little smoke, use a tube with an open bottom so the fast draft burns it quickly.
Reply:I can attest that burning your house down works. But it's nearly impossible to separate it from the rest of the house when your through. :-)Millermatic 252XMT 304'sDynasty 280DXHypertherm PowerMax 1250Miller Trailblazer 302 EFIOptima PulserXR feeder and XR Edge gun and more athttp://members.dslextreme.com/users/waynecook/index.htm
Reply:Originally Posted by DougAustinTXWhat's the problem with burning?  Local ordinance?
Reply:Originally Posted by dbotosMight try one of these cable slitters:http://www.antonline.com/p_PA1820-GP_817335.htm?sID=GP
Reply:Yup, bare bright copper brings the best price as scrap.There are a number of grades that diminish in value, but burnt copper by me is worth the least per pound, and is even less per pound than insulated cable, which makes it less profitable because you don't even get paid for the weight of the plastic.
Reply:I was looking into this for a while and the best designs I saw where made out of rollers from treadmills. Heres a link to an example but I have seen better ones then this.Basically it's just like the plate and hammer technique just really fast. It smushes the casing and then you just peel out the cooper.Last edited by Skeluhtor; 12-18-2010 at 04:54 PM.
Reply:first you will need, a head from a pipe threading machine, a gearbox and electric motor, 2 spur gears, some metal,nuts and bolts etc.1- grind thread dies, from threading machine, to have a chisel edge at the most inside edge of the dies.2- put 1 spur gear onto the gearbox, mount the other onto the side of a lever,fabbed from metal bar.  mount the lever pivot ahead of the gearbox. when complete, the 2 spur gears will be onto of each other, with a long handle sticking out towards the mire feed side.3- how this works is as follows: strip the first foot or so of wire manually by hand. Now insert the stripped portion of the wire into the threading dies. Close dies so the almost touch the copper wire.The rest of the stripped wire goes betwean the 2 spur gears. Now when you start the electric motor up, push dowm on the lever, it pushes the 2 spur gears together, grabbing the copper wire, and pulling it thru the pipe threading die head. as the wire is pulled thru, the ground threading dies will peel the wire covering off the copper wire.This type of machine works great. I wish I had a cad program, so I could make a sketck of the machine, but no such luck, so I hope the written description works for you.  Cheers,              Roger
Reply:careful on the burning..    most of the yards around here (twin city minnesota) won't take it!!Daye
Reply:i just brought back copper last week.. it all depends on the size of the wire.. i had a box of wire that i burnt and i still got $3 a pound.. compared to $3.15 a pound for the clean striped.. i think it mainly depends on the size of the wire.. mine was all "larger" wire.. maybe that helped..
Reply:yeah i just call my scrap yard and they said .50 cents to 1.10 for not striped and 2.92 for burnt or stripd
Reply:For those that need to strip armored cable I found a couple of quick ways to separate the armor from the wire. #1 you can just toss it in the chop saw and whack it down to like 12-16" pieces. Then it's usually easy to pull out the wires with a pair of pliers. A 1/4" rod helps push the wire out to get it started.#2 You can take a slitting wheel and just slice about 1/2-3/4" parallel to the wire say 18-24" from and end. This breaks the spiral armor and then you usually can just twist the armor and pull it off. Cut the wire with a set of cutters and then repeat as needed.We picked up a ton of alum armored cable from a demo job. The scrap place wouldn't take it as is, but they'd give us money for the alum armor separate from the wire, as well as pay us for the unstripped wire. Took a bit of experimenting to find the easiest ways to strip a 6 wheeler full of armored wire..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:i just gota figure out a way to do it fast i did two ext. cords and it took forever smashing the ends and pulling it all apart.
Reply:you guys are too complicated...*1st thing...find a small but strong minor(they work the cheapest)*get a piece of 1/2" pvc(couple feet long will do it) and smooth the end so it's nice and rounded*clamp this to a table*Cut a slit in the top of the pvc about 2" long, a few inches from the end, 12 o'clock position.*drop a new sharp blade in your trusty boxcutter*feed the wire into the end until it comes out the other side where your slave labor grabs it*set the depth gauge(push boxcutter blade down in slot in PVC until it hits the wire*pull wire thru, it strips as it goes*pull insulation off wire as easy as can be and take to scrap yard*buy helper ice cream and call it a day
Reply:Yea, never burn it, that is the worst thing for copper, The guy at the small recycle shop in town gets his wife and kids out there with razor blades (no kidding) How do  the big yards do it  ????   I turned some in last month non striped i got $1.25 @ lb.
Reply:I am running a job right now, taking off a copper roof and have salvage rights for all the copper @ $3.10 per # it's going to be a good year. Attached Images
Reply:Originally Posted by Jeff-I am running a job right now, taking off a copper roof and have salvage rights for all the copper @ $3.10 per # it's going to be a good year.
Reply:You got it right the government, our tax dollars at work.
Reply:wow what a waste... youll have to let us know how much it all weighs in at.
Reply:I will.
Reply:what about selling it to a roofer?  Maybe you could get better than scrap value that way.  The copper already has a patina so it should be worth nice money.Originally Posted by Oldiron2The pieces were about 1/4" thick, about 2 1/2" wide, varying lengths with 90* bends near the ends, and all had a dull white surface except where a few had been cut; that showed clearly that they were pure copper. Turned out they were all 'silver washed' and the silver actually lowered the value!
Reply:Originally Posted by joiseystudwhat about selling it to a roofer?  Maybe you could get better than scrap value that way.  The copper already has a patina so it should be worth nice money.
Reply:Originally Posted by joiseystudYou could always desilver if there is a decent amount.  Make sure to wear ppe.take sulphuric acid, 100 parts, and nitrate of potash, 10 parts. Put the sulphuric acid and the nitrate of potash (saltpeter) in a vessel of stoneware or porcelain, heated on the water bath. When the silver has been removed from the copper, rinse the object several times
Reply:i was saying to remove the silver to get to bright copper, not to recover the silver.
Reply:ps sulphuric acid and saltpeter are not expensive
Reply:Originally Posted by joiseystudps sulphuric acid and saltpeter are not expensive
Reply:that copper was bus bar.we used to silver plate the copper for better conductivity on spot welders. the plating was only a few microns thick .i still have one of the plating kits out in the shop.intended to play with gold plating but never got around to it.
Reply:It makes me sick to think about it, but our government is so GD waste full, it's no wonder the tax payers are trillions$$$$ in the hole, but your kids (and mine) will pay for it......
Reply:i wonder if you could use one of these like they have at car washes with the steel tubes  might be able to find an old one to try and put a motor on or just use the crank maybe make an attachment to attach to a hole hog drill or the like  should be able to hit up a car wash to try it out 350P 30A spool gun cut master 51  syncro 250 other stuff " take a dog off the street and make him prosper and he will not bite you sad the same cannot be said for man" i didnt use punctuation just to piss you off
Reply:i was thinking about that too!
Reply:Originally Posted by umahunteri wonder if you could use one of these like they have at car washes with the steel tubes  might be able to find an old one to try and put a motor on or just use the crank maybe make an attachment to attach to a hole hog drill or the like  should be able to hit up a car wash to try it out
Reply:Originally Posted by boatbuoythat copper was bus bar.we used to silver plate the copper for better conductivity on spot welders. the plating was only a few microns thick .i still have one of the plating kits out in the shop.intended to play with gold plating but never got around to it.
Reply:If you google home made wire stripper uk and / or homemade tools wire stripper  uk, you will find a guy in england who has posted one on a forum... I will try to find tonight..but, why re-invent the wheel.. unless it's a flat one.. hope this helps..
Reply:everyone is intitled to their own opinion,but we used silver for conductivity--not corosion resistance.silver is the most conductive metal. in resistance welders that's extremely important.
Reply:Originally Posted by boatbuoyeveryone is intitled to their own opinion,but we used silver for conductivity--not corosion resistance.silver is the most conductive metal. in resistance welders that's extremely important.
Reply:Originally Posted by joiseystudI'm not disagreeing with you. I am just saying that the "bus bars" were likely from electrical switchgear and applied for corrosion resistance.  Conductivity is not improved at high currents because the thin layer of silver can only conduct so much before the resistance rises due to heating and the copper takes over.  At higher currents the majority flows through the copper (excellent conductor obviously). Happy Holidays.
Reply:yes.switch gear may typically be 1k or 3k amps, and the current for resistance spot welding approaches 100k amps at times. that thin layer of silver at the interface reduces resistance and heat. there is no such thing as resistance rising and copper taking over.
Reply:"What's wrong with burning?" No, there's no city ordinance that prohibits burning of copper, there's an EPA regulation and one hell of a fine for doing it. If all you are stripping is small gauge wire the price difference really isn't worth it. You might want to do a few calculations to see how much you're actually making. Remember to calculate how much the coating weighs and how much it's going to cost to dispose of that coating.I think if you calculated it right you would find that stripping smaller gauge wire like that isn't worth the time it takes. Especially with a knife.
Reply:Originally Posted by boatbuoyyes.switch gear may typically be 1k or 3k amps, and the current for resistance spot welding approaches 100k amps at times. that thin layer of silver at the interface reduces resistance and heat. there is no such thing as resistance rising and copper taking over.
Reply:Originally Posted by joiseystudActually there is a such thing.  It is how electricity works.  The silver would be a lower impedence path so low currents would flow through that media first.  Once the current went up enough to heat the silver to the point that the resistance rose (heat increases the resistance of a conductor), the resistance will get to the point where the resistance is the same as the copper and the bulk of current will flow through the copper.
Reply:Actually I am using the term impedance correctly ;"Electrical impedance, or simply impedance, describes a measure of opposition to alternating current (AC). Electrical impedance extends the concept of resistance to AC circuits, describing not only the relative amplitudes of the voltage and current, but also the relative phases. When the circuit is driven with direct current (DC) there is no distinction between impedance and resistance; the latter can be thought of as impedance with zero phase angle".  Silver and zinc are both used to plate copper in cases where a corrosion resistance connection is required and to improve the "contact resistance (i.e. impedance).  The overall circuit is still governed by the copper bus and the cross sectional area of that bus.
Reply:Good for you, you learned how to use Wikipedia!  Did you get past the first sentence?Hooray for me, I can use Google.I've got 540V DC battery busses at work.  The terminal blocks are silver plated, the fuses have silver plated connections, the Anderson plugs have silver plated junctions, and the few cables lugged with crimped on ring terminals have those ends silver plated as well.I've got busbar plug-in raceway with silver plated copper lines inside, which interface with modules with silver plated fingers that make a spring loaded connection with the busway.Even if it were an AC circuit, the properties we're discussing are purely resistive.  By talking about resistance, you are clearly referencing a property in which inductance or capacitance play no role.  By saying "impedence" (which I should point out now you only finally spelled correctly after copying and pasting from Wikipedia, without even crediting your source), you're inferring irrelevancies, and sounding like an ill informed snob.Ok, I've fed the troll enough.
Reply:any chance william has signed on with a new user name ? the thinking is very similar.
Reply:Nah, there's nothing in his posts about how silver plating is a conspiracy theory to brainwash us with "new science", but that one got a seriously good laugh out of me.  I'm glad I wasn't drinking something at the time, or I would have spit it all on my screen.
Reply:Originally Posted by rlitmanGood for you, you learned how to use Wikipedia!  Did you get past the first sentence?Hooray for me, I can use Google.I've got 540V DC battery busses at work.  The terminal blocks are silver plated, the fuses have silver plated connections, the Anderson plugs have silver plated junctions, and the few cables lugged with crimped on ring terminals have those ends silver plated as well.I've got busbar plug-in raceway with silver plated copper lines inside, which interface with modules with silver plated fingers that make a spring loaded connection with the busway.Even if it were an AC circuit, the properties we're discussing are purely resistive.  By talking about resistance, you are clearly referencing a property in which inductance or capacitance play no role.  By saying "impedence" (which I should point out now you only finally spelled correctly after copying and pasting from Wikipedia, without even crediting your source), you're inferring irrelevancies, and sounding like an ill informed snob.Ok, I've fed the troll enough.