Quote Originally Posted by Frank S View Post
There is a little copper in some rotors, but hardly worth the effort in smaller rotors. In a large 20 to 50 hp motor there could be 2 to 5 lbs of copper so, what maybe at most 5 bucks worth? it hardly seems worth the effort or cost to remove it
When labor costs are low, you can get away with more laborious methods for little return. IOW, if you're broke, you may be able to afford to recover material that otherwise wasn't worth recovering. Reminds me of the days when I was collecting aluminum cans to melt down... Broke and recovering from multiple surgeries in one year, crushing the cans was serious effort for me, but I couldn't afford to buy even scrap metal. By the time I had enough cans to be worth trying, I'd discovered a bunch of other folks who found it too little metal for too much effort, and wound up selling my cans. Bought groceries with that money, or maybe my Atlas MF milling machine...

Bill