Scrapping isn't a glamorous job and it can be hard work but if you apply yourself, you can make pretty good money at it. You'll need a truck, maybe a trailer, and most likely a garage or pole barn so you can sort your metal and cut it up as needed and so on.

I used to know a guy who would just drive around all day looking for metal that people were throwing out. He'd take it, cut it up, and sell it to a scrapyard. He could usually get a truckload a day and although he never got rich with it, he also never had a real job and he also had enough money to dabble in real estate. With the price of gas nowadays I'm not sure that this would be a good business model but it is something to think about.

An easier way to get free metal is simply to watch Craig's List. I see free metal listed there almost every single day and strangely enough, there seems to be few takers. Maybe scrap guys don't know about Craig's List, I don't know, but their loss is your gain.

As far as selling your metal goes, there are metal recycling yards in all major cities and in quite a few small ones too. Call around and tell them you are new at this and ask them how much they pay and if they have any rules about how big the pieces can be and so on. The guy I knew had to cut everything into 6 foot chunks so you might have to do the same.