Patent ID: 7377214

Claim:
A method for reducing bulk volume in numerous, separated, loose pieces of irregularly-shaped, multiply bent, thin scrap sheet metal comprising repeated cycles of the steps of: assembling a batch of said loose pieces; forcibly ramming the batch into and through a compression chamber against an anvil plate with a reciprocating ram that is closely fitted within walls defining the compression chamber; the ram having a peripheral edge and maintaining at least portions of said peripheral edge at a pre-determined distance from said walls to form a slight gap between portions of the peripheral edge of the ram and said walls as the ram moves through the chamber towards the anvil plate to form a compacted wafer of flattened, compressed layers from said loose pieces; bending peripheral edge portions of successive compressed layers into and within said gap and interconnecting some of the bent edge portions of adjacent layers for temporarily interlocking the successive layers at their adjacent edge portions; withdrawing the ram from the compression chamber to provide a space adjacent the compression chamber for assembling the next successive batch of loose pieces; repeating the cycle to form the successive layers of batches into a compacted wafer formed of overlapping layers; removing the compacted wafer from the compression chamber for subsequently recycling the metal of the wafer by disassembling the compacted wafer by separating the layers from each other and by separating the loose pieces contained in each of the layers.