Dirty stainless steel. You find it, you see it, you sell it. Pretty simple, right? You probably see some of the contaminants on it and think there won’t be a big markdown for small amounts of material, but you never know. Then you get to the scrap yard, sell your material, and look at that; the price is SO LOW! Why is this?
How To Clean Stainless Steel Like A Scrap Yard
Scrap yards have a hard time processing stainless steel for many reasons so the prices can be very low. The easiest (and really the only way) to process stainless steel is with a plasma cutter. Plasma cutters are excellent tools, but very few scrap yards have them because of their high costs and having a skilled man on hand to ensure they can use them correctly.
Clean Stainless Steel Can Be Difficult To Attain
To have stainless clean sometimes is nearly impossible, and unless you have tried cleaning stainless before, you won’t know what we mean. Here is another piece of stainless that you may try to sell as clean, but it never is…sinks. Sinks from residential homes almost always have glue or a rubber coating, and unless you sit there with a razorblade (please NEVER do this) and take every piece of glue off, you will never be able to sell that sink as a clean stainless.
So, scrappers, the next time you want to clean your stainless, ask someone in our Facebook Group or at your local scrap yard what their advice is. Chances are, they will tell you that cleaning stainless is very hard to do and very easy to screw up.
