Situation ยท Partial reels
We buy partial reels.
Every contractor's rack holds the same object: a half-used reel of 4/0, a tag nobody updated, a spool that has lost a flange and a tail held on with black tape. It still has a home.
Call or text the buying desk954-740-1983
Most commonHalf-used 2/0 and 4/0
What decides valueFootage, size, jacket
Typical lotOne to twenty reels
What to sendTag photo and reel face
Get a buy quote
Send the reel list. A buyer reads it.
Six details are enough to start. Tags and photos can follow by text or email once a buyer has looked at the basics.
- A buyer reviews the lot: construction, footage and condition, not only metal weight
- Copper and aluminium, 600 V building wire through 345 kV cable
- Full reels, partial reels, cut lengths, pallets and truckloads
- No fee, no obligation, and no automatic pickup
Reel list · Partial Reels
Reviewed by a buyerTell us what you have and where it sits. Nothing is moved until written lot terms are agreed.
The reel came off the delivery truck at the start of a job and went back on the rack part-used. Nobody wrote the new footage on the tag, because the crew was already behind and the reel was going to be finished on the next phase. It was not. It has since been moved twice by forklift, rained on once and re-banded with whatever was in the connex.
Remaining footage can be established two ways and they should agree. The tag gives the footage at manufacture; the reel and the conductor give you weight. Take the gross weight, subtract the empty reel and divide by the published weight per thousand feet for that size and strand. A buyer who sees the two numbers agree does not have to argue about the rest of the reel.
01
Why a partial reel is not a scrap reel
A partial is bought as cable first and metal second. The buyer is underwriting the chance that the length left is still usable by an electrician: long enough to pull, sound enough to feed through conduit, jacketed where the jacket matters. Four hundred feet of 500 kcmil on a good reel is a working asset. The same conductor chopped into short pieces in a bucket is not, however clean it is.
- A length long enough to pull through a conduit run
- A reel sound enough to lift, band and travel
- Jacket print still legible at the outer wraps
- A tag that ties the reel to a size and a footage
02
The two numbers that have to agree
Footage and weight are the same fact told twice. The tag says what the mill put on the reel. The scale says what is on it now, less the spool. When they disagree by more than the weight of a wet reel, something happened to that cable: a tail was cut and not noted, a second reel was wound onto the first, or the tag never belonged to this reel at all.
That is a conversation, not an accusation. Contractors cut tails off reels all the time and forget to write it down. Saying so up front is better than letting a buyer find it at the scale, because a discrepancy discovered later makes the whole rack read as uncertain. Two reels from one delivery can disagree simply because one was opened twice and the other never left the pallet.
- Footage printed on the tag, at manufacture
- Gross weight, from a yard scale
- Tare, from the tag or an empty reel
- Any length you know was cut and not written down
03
What a partial loses standing outside
The damage is nearly always in the outer wraps. A reel standing on its flanges in the weather takes sun on the top face and rain down inside the flange, and the water sits against the jacket. Six months of that bleaches the print, hardens the jacket and leaves a stain line that reads as water damage. Reels kept under shade with the tail taped come back looking like what they are.
04
Loading a rack of partials
Partials are awkward freight because no two weigh the same and most are too small to justify a pallet of their own. The practical approach is to palletise by size, band each reel down and note which ones are too rotten to lift by the flange. A buyer will send a truck with a lift gate and a pallet jack for a twenty-reel rack. A flatbed and a forklift are for a lot that has already been built up on pallets.
| Item | What the tag gives you | What we check |
|---|---|---|
| THHN / THWN copper | Size, strand, footage, 600 V | Print and outer wraps |
| XHHW-2 aluminum | Size, alloy, footage | Corrosion at the cut end |
| Tray cable (TC-ER) | AWG, conductor count, footage | Crush damage and shield |
| MC and HCF armour | Conductor count, armour type | Armour winding and ends |
| Feeder, 1/0 to 750 kcmil | Size, insulation, footage | Reel integrity and tare |
Questions
Answers before you send anything.
If your question is not here, call the desk. A buyer answers, not a call centre.
The tag says 1,000 feet. How do I know what is left?
You do not, exactly, and neither do we until the reel is weighed. Put the gross weight next to the tag footage and note any lengths cut. A buyer does the rest of the arithmetic and says what it rests on.
One flange is broken. Is the reel worthless?
No, but it is handled differently. A reel that cannot stand or be lifted by the flange has to be rewound, cut down or moved by hand, and that work is part of what a buyer is looking at. Say so before pickup so the right equipment comes.
Do you want the empty reels too?
Only if the cable is still on them. Returnable steel reels are worth handling on their own account, but that is a separate transaction from the conductor and it should not be bundled into a cable quote without saying so.
How many partials make a lot worth collecting?
There is no threshold, but distance matters more than count. A handful of reels on the far side of the county is a different proposition from a rack inside Loop 1604. Send the count and the address and the answer will be specific.
Keep reading
Related pages
No fee · no obligation
You have the cable. We have a scale and a check.
Send the reel list, the tags or a photograph of the pallet. A buyer comes back with what the lot is worth and how pickup would work, before anything is moved.
954-740-1983 Call or text
- Reel tags, or the print on the jacket
- Reel count and footage, even roughly
- Where it sits and what can reach it
- Whether the cable is still energised