COPPER PRICES SKYROCKET!!

[ozone39]

Just a warning here, since the earthquake in Chile the price of copper has just gone way up (And will probably go up more). Chile is one of the worlds largest exporter and producer of copper ore and product. With the event of the earthquake their mines are shut down.

[goinbroke2]

I just found out!
I stopped at the scrapyard on the way by and the copper container is 3/4 full. I dug around and wow there is like, MILES of 2" copper! So like a kid in a candy store I grab a couple of 6ft sections and walk up front...$74.00 WHAT???
It's $3.30 a pound now! So I put most of it back and grabbed a 3ft long or so piece, 3lb for $10.00.
Then I walked by the SS container and there was two tops to kegs there with the sanke valve still in and everything.

This time I told all four guys working there to save any SS kegs that come in there. I was here last week and told you to hold them, I want them. "ok, ok, sorry" Maybe now it'll sink in.

$3.30 a fricken pound! man.....

[Fester]

goingbroke2, 3 feet of 2" copper pipe for 10 bucks, and you are bitching? sell it on ebay for 40 or 50 dollars and go get some more.

[DCT]

i will take an extra keg, if you get some

[blanikdog]

The things that governments will do to make it difficult for us poor craft folk.

I'd rather live in Oz than in some of the places on this planet, even if I do think that our politicians suck.

blanik

[MuleKicker]

Dont feel bad blanik, I bet our politicians suck worse than yours. ....... or it should be:

[Fester]

blanik, if you find one good or honest politician in your country we will trade you 356 of our worthless politicians for him or her. we will add some cash and throw in the state of California, 2 six packs of beer and a bag of chips. if you don't take California, we get to keep the beer and chips.


*** by the way, i love California. it is the most beautiful place i ever lived. as the self appointed CEO of the US I think it's time to cut our losses and sell an under performing asset.


the 356 worthless politicians keep the price of lead artificially high because they know we would just line them up and shoot them.

as for the price of copper, i've seen hugh gyrations in the price of raw copper in the last few years but the price of copper pipe and fittings only ever goes up. when the price of raw copper goes down, the price of fittings never goes down. i'm stumped as to why that is except for the greed factor.

[lake]

im glad i got my coil before this im going to have to go by lowes and see what there prices are.

[heynonny]

fester said:

i love California. it is the most beautiful place i ever lived

I was born here in SoCal (in the '40's, yeah, I'm an old man) and I love the state, that being the dirt we walk around on. As for the politics, lets not go there. At the recyclers, the folks arent permitted to accept beer kegs, thats agin the law, here, anyway. What happens mostly, is the kegs are abandoned, and quickly either cut in half and dumped into their drop boxes, or buried in scrap SS or alum piles till they can be cut up & dumped. I now recycle ONLY copper (clean) and aluminiun cans, as the procedure for cashing in stuff makes folks into 'suspects'. If the total cash value is over (I think it is like over) 50 bucks, they: scanned my driv lic, I had to take everything back to my vehicle (they helped) so the stuff + me + my vehicle lic plate could have our picture taken. And then I must return after 3 business days to collect the money. Kind of takes the incentive out of recycling, , , ,

I've given the stud duck quite a few jars of product over the years, and now they let me roam around the yard, get a ladder to look in the drop boxs, (40' long + 8'x8'), where 99% of the time the kegs are, cut.

Back to scrap copper, when they sell it for $30, they probably paid $26-$27 for it, they cant give large pieces away anymore. It is still far cheaper than the new stuff.
-hey-

[gpwgyrene]

My pal Dominick (bless his soul!) gave me my inch and one half,my two inch and a piece of 3 inch all for nothing! The stuff Dominick gave me is mighty hefty stuff!-the price was right-ZERO, but I got to clean the green and tarnish off!-A pretty small thing to do,-considering what the price for this stuff is! Again it is good to make friends!

[Fester]

gpwgyrene, if that is your real name i feel sorry for you. i hurt myself trying to pronounce your handle. but i digress...

You are so right. Dominick is a true friend. He gave you some copper pipe and he gave me a boat and a house. Helluva guy.
haha

But seriously, I think that we all have friends like that. Not many. Only a few friends are that special.
A friend that will give you his time or stuff and not keep a ledger or balance sheet. Just pure sharing and goodness. You and him are buds. Its kinda rare nowadays but to share with such a friend is so very cool.

I had a friend like that. But I had to kill him because he would not return my lawnmower.
Fester

[still crazy]

The Chilean government ordered there workers back int o the mines 2 days after the quake.
So we probably won't be seeing a copper price spike.

[RefluxFan]

You guys in America don't know how good you got it for pricing on......well, everything! Copper, fuel, etc and the list goes on.
It's way cheaper for me to build my next still out of S.Steel (which is what i'm doing) because I would have to sell my next born to pay for another copper still.

You reeeally appreciate pics of good coppersmithing when prices are high!

[ScottishBoy]

I live in farm country, dairy to be specific, and we have TONS of SS around here from milk processing, but I dont know how to work with it.

Might have to teach myself.

[Fester]

I don't know about your area but around here the dairy industry has the good stuff.
Beautiful SS vessels and pipes and fittings. Their junkyard must look like heaven to a distiller.

It is common for a still to be mostly Stainless Steel. The biggest part is the boiler and at todays prices I could not afford a big copper boiler. I use a 15.5 US gallon beer keg. After the vapors leave the boiler it is all copper from there to the collection jar using my pot still. My reflux still uses the same boiler but with 3 inch SS tubing about 5 feet tall.

So being around all that SS is a good thing.

[goinbroke2]

Picked up some 1" to make a parrot. 2lb,s cost me $7.00. It's heavy wall copper pipe, got about 46".

Funny thing is, when I walked in one of the guys said "no stainless kegs yet". I said thanks, I'll check out the copper bin then. Holy crap there was two tri-walls there (4ft x 4ft x 4ft) FULL of various copper pipe/tubing etc. I was like a kid in a candy store! I was grabbing 2", 3", a section of 4" about 6ft long....then I thought...what the hell am I doing?
IT'S A SCAP METAL PLACE, DUH!! Of course there is a shitload of copper!
So, I picked up a nice piece of 1" and backed away from the bins...till I spotted a copper vase bottom or lamp bottom maybe? I thought PERFECT for a base for the parrot...but it was real thin and beat to crap so I left it.

What a fun place to go hehehe

Built the parrot tonight, need one 45* to finish it. I used some 2" I had, cut it on the bandsaw then split it and hammered it flat. Made a box with a 1" hole offset and angled it down. Used some more hammered flat for a base...used some more for the funnel...still have 3ft of 2" left. Turned out too I only needed about a foot of the 1"...got lots of that left. Used about a foot of 1/2"...got about 6ft of that left...getting quite the copper bin myself!

Oh yeah, pic's tomorrow when it's done. (it ain't pretty, but will be functional)

Something else..man the heavy copper pipe is some freaking hard to beat into shape! I'm assuming when people get sheets of copper to build stuff they don't get the heavy stuff huh?