2 Tips For Scrapping Aluminum At A Local Scrap Yard

One of the most common metals you'll find out in the wild is aluminum, which is a great material to scrap. It's used in vehicles, electronics, and household items, which means you'll have no problem finding it in your neighborhood. Not only does aluminum have a high value, but its light weight means that you can haul a bunch of it at once. Here are some tips for scrapping aluminum at your local scrap yard if you are new to doing it.

Know How To Identify Aluminum

The first step is to identify if you actually have aluminum. The easiest way to do that is with a magnet. While a magnet sticks to many materials like steel or nickel, it is not going to stick to aluminum or stainless steel. To determine if the material is either of those materials, you can typically tell by the weight. Aluminum is much lighter, and you can typically tell by just holding it in your hand. If you are still unsure, there are a couple other tests you can do. You can use an angle grinder on the metal, and if it sparks you know that it is stainless steel. Another method is to hit the metal with a hammer. Aluminum deforms very easily, but other metals will not be. 

Over time, you'll be able to judge if something is aluminum just by looking at it. You'll eventually learn what products are made with aluminum, what it feels like, and how it looks. Aluminum doesn't rust, which means that you can immediately categorize it as another metal just based on a quick glance.

Know When To Clean The Aluminum

In the scrap metal world, bringing in clean metal doesn't mean that you washed it, but removed all other metals from the material. You can get a much higher value for an item made of aluminum if it is clean, because removing those bolts and screws can be a very time consuming process. It's important to understand when you should take the time to clean the item of other metals, since time is a valuable asset.

If you have an item that is filled with stripped screws or broken bolts, it may simply not be worth your time to remove all of those items by hand. You may also have an item, like a car part, that has so many items to remove that it is not worth your time. You could also have something like an aluminum window frame that is covered with glue, and it's not worth the time to strip off all of the glue.

Remember that you do not need to be gentle with the item. It doesn't matter what condition it is in when you clean it of other metals. Having a tough time removing a screw? You can take a hammer to the item and break that part off. The scrap yard doesn't care, since they base the price they pay you on the total weight of the aluminum. 

 

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