Montgomery County · Precision machine shops
Bus bar and magnet wire from Dayton machine shops
A precision shop does not generate much cable. It generates copper: bus bar drops, bare wire off a spool, magnet wire ends too short to wind, and a drawer of jumpers nobody will ever fit again.
Request a quote
Tell the desk what you have in Bus bar and magnet wire from Dayton machine shops (Dayton)
Send the basics and a buyer reviews the lot, usually the same working day.
- Reviewed by a buyer, not a scale
- Reels, pallets, partials or a full truckload
- Anywhere in Ohio, one desk
- 01Send the wire type, quantity and pickup city.
- 02A buyer reviews the lot and replies with a basis.
- 03Freight and release are agreed, then the load is booked.
Lot details
Everything helps, but the wire type, the quantity and the pickup city are enough to start.
The shapes copper takes in a machine shop
Wire EDM and sinker work leave brass and copper scrap, but the copper that matters comes off the power side. Bus bar is cut to fit a panel and the offcut is a foot of quarter-inch by two-inch flat. Flexible jumpers get replaced with the drive. Magnet wire arrives on spools for motor rewinds and leaves as loose ends and half-spools.
Bare grounding conductor is pulled through a machine base and cut, and the pieces are two to eight feet long. None of this sits on a reel with a tag. It lives in a barrel, a drawer or a coffee can on a bench, and the maintenance lead is the only person who knows what came from where.
Bus bar and the plating question
Bus bar is reviewed on thickness, width, alloy and whether it is plated. Tinned and silver-plated bar is ordinary in switchgear work, and plating changes both what a mill will take and whether the bar can go back into a panel. Bar with legible stamping for alloy, temper and size is worth more as bar stock than as melt.
Length decides the rest. A four-foot piece of quarter-by-four bar is a usable offcut; a six-inch piece is scrap. Shops that keep drops in a rack sorted by size, instead of tipping them into a barrel, get a better review because the lengths can be counted rather than guessed at.
Magnet wire, bare copper and the reuse line
Magnet wire is enamel-coated copper, and the coating is a contaminant in a melt. A half-spool with a legible label and continuous wire is still magnet wire, and a rewinder will want it. Tangled spools, burnt windings and loose ends go the other way. The distinction is not sentiment; it is the difference between a product and a feedstock.
Bare copper is the simplest material in the building and the one most often muddled. Bright conductor with no corrosion is one thing. Green, oxidised, solder-covered or painted copper is another. Sorting by condition before weighing is the entire job, and it is usually done badly because nobody wants to touch it twice.
Review and collection from a scattered shop
Dayton's machine shops are spread through multi-tenant buildings, and the copper usually sits in a corner of a bay the shop leases rather than owns. Access is a conversation with a landlord as much as with the shop, and a collection may mean wheeling a barrel down a shared aisle instead of backing a trailer to a door.
Review runs by container and by grade: weigh a sample of each grade, read the bar stampings, check whether the magnet wire spools are continuous. A written description follows. These loads are often small enough to move on a liftgate truck, which suits a building with a man door and a curb.
Related pages
Adjacent cities, wire families and regional briefs.
Back to Dayton
City briefThe city page carries the county, the industrial base and the logistics that shape a pickup in Dayton.
Questions sellers ask
Is magnet wire worth more as wire or as scrap?
As wire, when the spool is continuous and labelled. A motor rewinder can use a half-spool of known gauge and insulation class, and that is a different transaction from melting it. Once the wire is tangled, burnt or unlabelled it is copper carrying an enamel coating, and it is reviewed on that basis.
Does plated bus bar need separating from plain?
Yes, for a useful review. Tinned and silver-plated bar is copper underneath, but plating affects the melt and affects whether the bar can be reused as bar. Keep plated and plain in separate containers and note the alloy stamping wherever one is visible.
How small is too small for a copper lot?
There is no minimum, but there is a practical floor. A barrel of mixed bare copper plus a few bus bar drops is a normal shop lot and can go on a liftgate. Below that the freight outweighs the material, and it makes more sense to accumulate until the container is full.
What happens to solder-covered or painted copper?
It is reviewed as lower grade, or set aside, depending on how much of the lot it is. Solder, paint and heavy oxidation all have to be dealt with before copper goes into a melt. A mostly clean lot with a little contamination is easy to handle; the reverse is not.
Request a quote
Tell the desk what you have in Bus bar and magnet wire from Dayton machine shops (Dayton)
Send the basics and a buyer reviews the lot, usually the same working day.
- Reviewed by a buyer, not a scale
- Reels, pallets, partials or a full truckload
- Anywhere in Ohio, one desk
- 01Send the wire type, quantity and pickup city.
- 02A buyer reviews the lot and replies with a basis.
- 03Freight and release are agreed, then the load is booked.
Second look at the lot
Everything helps, but the wire type, the quantity and the pickup city are enough to start.