Substation bus and the fittings that come with it.

Tubular aluminium bus is specified by alloy, outside diameter and wall thickness, and it is supplied in standard lengths with factory-formed bends, tees and elbows. Those shapes are the value. A straight length with clean ends can be reused; the same length cut in three places is scrap.

Welding pads and connection tabs are welded to the tube where equipment clamps land. A pad cut off leaves a scar and a heat-affected zone, and buyers look at those areas before they look at the weight. A clean pad with its bolt holes intact is a different item entirely.

Flexible connections are made from stranded copper, laminated shunts or braid, and they exist to absorb expansion, vibration and seismic movement. Braid is often tinned, and the tinning is part of what makes it usable again. A bare braid that has been sitting in a yard tells a different story from one still in its wrap.

Cut braid with crushed ferrules, heat damage from a bad joint, or corrosion between the strands is scrap. Intact assemblies with their terminals are reviewed as reusable connections, which is a different exercise from weighing copper and needs a different kind of photograph, taken square to the ferrule with the cable end in shot.

Bus lots arrive with clamps, corona rings, expansion joints, support insulators and hardware. Plated copper contact surfaces, silver or tin, wear at the joint, and a clamp tightened onto a corroded tube may not be reusable even though it looks sound from a distance. Threads and bolt holes tell the same story.

Small parts are where a lot is won or lost. A matched set of clamps for one tube diameter is worth keeping together, and a box of mixed hardware takes time to sort. Bags, tags and original packaging all help, because they show what the part was made for.

• Bus clamps and connectors, sorted by tube diameter and material.
• Expansion joints and flexible shunts, kept as complete assemblies.
• Corona rings and grading hardware, matched to specific equipment.
• Insulators, listed separately because they are not metal value.

The sorting rule is simple enough to apply in the yard. Straight tube with clean, square ends and no weld scars is reusable. Tube that is bent, kinked, crushed, deeply corroded, filled with concrete or cut into short pieces is scrap. Everything in between is a judgement made at the visit.

Before any of it is cut, the yard needs a clearance showing the bus is de-energised, isolated and grounded, plus the owner's release for the material. Photographs of the ends and any weld area tell a buyer more than a weight ticket, and a lifting plan settles how the longest pieces leave the yard before anything is moved.