[TheForge] reclaiming copper

[Bob Ehrenberger]

Terry,

If it is solid core wire you could run it through a rolling mill to seperate
the insulation from the wire.

Otherwise you could throw it on a burning brush pile, and then fish the wire
out of the ashes.

In general the ingot idea may cause problems if they think you have hidden
non copper material inside. You should check with your recycler before
casting, they may refuse to take them.

The plating idea just sounds too involved, it may work on 5-10 pounds but
for 700 it would probably get out of hand.

Robert Ehrenberger
Shelbyville, Mo.
eforge at centurytel.net

---Original message ---
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:39:18 -0500 (CDT)
From: "terry l. ridder" <terrylr at blauedonau.com>
Subject: [TheForge] reclaiming copper

hello;

i have roughly 700 lbs of copper cable and wire. the majority of this amount
still has insulation intact. i have researched the possible ways to reclaim
the copper minus the insulation. the reason for wanting to remove the
insulation is purely economic. the local scrap dealer pays 0.05 us cents
per lbs unclean copper. $2.69 usd per lbs for clean copper.

assuming that 90 percent is copper.

so
700 * 0.05 = $35.00 usd
700 * 2.69 * 0.9 = $1694.70 usd


manual strip by hand way.
strip the insulation using wire strippers and/or utility knives.


the shred and acid way.
shredding the copper cable and wire and placing the shredded mix into
sulphuric acid.
place a copper plate cathode in the acid solution. place some of the large
copper cables in the acid solution to act as anodes.
connect a direct current power source and plate out the copper.

the shred and smelt way.
shredding the copper cable and wire and placing the shredded mix into a
crucible furnace which melts the copper and incinerates the insulation.
the problem with this method is the casting copper into anything other than
ingots is difficult.

i have two coffee can foundries and several 3 inch schedule 80 pipe
curcibles.
i was thinking of just making ingots. i have several ingot moulds made from
angle
iron that i use for aluminum.

my thinking is cut the cable and wire into 6 inch long pieces. preheat these
lenghts on the crucible furnace lid than add to the crucible. after a pound
or
two pour the ingots.

anyone have any suggestions comments?

anyone ever dealt with reclaiming a large amount of copper before?

-- 
terry l. ridder ><>