COPPER

Copper is increasingly being used by many jewelry artists now that silver has become more and more expensive. Now, copper itself is likely to increase in price. I recently read in "Bloomberg Businessweek" that thieves are making off with copper stolen from cell phone towers, foreclosed and empty houses and many other places and selling the loot at salvage yards. The salvage yards chop up the copper and then sell to companies that ship it overseas, mainly to China, ending up in electronics, etc. that are shipped back to the US. Authorities are trying to stem this looting but are fighting a losing battle.

Will copper dramatically increase in price? I don't know. Should you increase your stock of copper? I don't know that, either. For myself, my stock of sheet metal is adequate for my needs.

Plus, having had a new furnace and air conditioning system installed earlier this year, I managed to salvage quite a lot of old copper pipe, plus some new. All this has been cut up into smaller pieces which I will cut a slit down through the side of the pipe with flex shaft and cut off wheel and then open up the pipe and flatten it out. With the rolling mill, I can make thinner gauges of sheet.