Scrapyard Scales only show pounds; no ounces....

[billjustbill]

One of the local scrapyards has the usual large drive-on scales, but when selling smaller amounts of copper, aluminum, and brass they weigh them on a smaller 4'x4' scale with a digital readout.

The problem I see is that the seller may be losing money... I used to sort yellow brass from red brass, but if they weigh them separately, I could lose as much as 1.8 pounds after weighing each kind.

I have some old grocery store fruit/vegetable scales that have the 16" diameter face on each side. They were once certified in the late 1990's to get a close estimate of what I should be getting to offset giving away almost a pound each time the scrapyard's scales are used.

When you sell your copper, brass, or aluminum, does your scrapyard's scales show tenths of a pound?

 

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[flinthunter]

All the scrap yards in my area do the same thing. The smaller scales weigh in one pound units and the truck scales weigh in ten pound units. I think thats pretty normal everywhere.

 

[pepperj]

It depends on the yard and the scale capacity. Most drive on scales will only show 10lb increments and most go on 20lb increments. The 4 x 4 or larger floor scales will either go between the 1lb or by 2lb increments.
So you think that your loosing money on the scale and want to have the weight reflect the total amount of weight?

When I had a yard the customer never worried about loosing on the scale as it was a easy solution. On small mixed loads everything was put on the scale in separate bins on a rolling cart or in a dump bin. The total weight was taken, then the first item was taken off, dumped, and the tote(container if any was returned to the scale) that gave me the net weight. This continued till the scale only had the empty container(s) left on and I had a tally sheet of what was weighed. It's a give and take of what will push the scale to the lower or higher number. Usually the high grades were done in a group, then the lower grades of non-ferrous. So sometimes the yard got the .4lb upgrade and sometimes the customer did. So if a #1 and a #2 copper had a difference price of 10 cents, we're talking a whole nickel that somebody got over the other and it worked the other way the next time in, and if that's a big thing in one's world then it was find another yard to sell at. I figured the time I spent on separating metal and trying to educate the customer on making more money was more than any yard did in the city over compensated for this .4lb and to prove a point I would even put it on a scale that broke it down to .001 folks never complained if the .4 went their way.