...he has a ton of copper wiring and aluminum multi-can caps, that I told him her should at least get scrap metal for.
Scrap dealers won't take aluminum condensers, neither electrolytic nor oil (motor start) types. Not enough aluminum in them to make it worthwhile and they want nothing to do with anything that might contain PCB's. If there were some oil condensers the proper disposal is through your county's Hazardous Waste department. The copper, OTOH, will bring good money. Whoever takes it to the scrap yard wants to carry full ID and not have any legal issues like an outstanding warrant... Which in New Jersey really narrows it down but I'm just sayin'. The yards here check ID's and photograph sellers.
BTW: If you can get a second invite, a wooden radio in a bad cabinet has value as the chassis is a potential parts source. Output transformers, tubes, sockets, IF transformers and especially the tuning condenser are worth saving. Put a dual section tuning condenser up on eBay and see what happens. Always some a-hole who screwed up the mica insulators on theirs looking for another........ You may also want to surf the web regarding veneer work. It's not that hard as long as you can avoid making fingerprints when you have glue on your hands.
1. Philco 817 (mahogany) http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/philco_f_817f81.html
Fug-lee. Looks like something an Edsel owner would buy. If I had that radio and a dog, the dog would try to bury the radio in the back yard.
2. Philco B570 http://www.radioatticarchives.com/radio.htm?radio=5564
Believe it or not, the plain vanilla sets like this are the easiest to sell and not much work to restore. Good catch.
3. RCA 2-5-512 http://www.radioatticarchives.com/radio.htm?radio=6764
Good catch for the same reasons as the previous Philco.
4. Heathkit IM-13 VTVM
What can I say? Your workbench suffers from low esteem. Now the IGGY won't be your crappiest piece of test gear.
(ouch!)5. RCA Victor 8BX6 (2 of these) Man, are they ugly! http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l2736&_nkw=8BX6
You say that to taunt me as that's my $3.00 radio from last June. Now that you have two of your own you should realize what true beauties they are...
6. A box full of new K-Tran 455 KHz IF cans (in pairs) from Wolfe Distributing in NYC
Make sure to tighten the screws on top before you use them.

As for the larger consoles... I've worked on a few of them and they aren't that heavy. Once you get the chassis out of the cabinet it's not much worse than a table radio to work on and a good one well restored will pull in weak stations better than you'd expect. As a general rule they are very pleasant to listen to. Every once in a while you'll find one with two chassis (radio tuner up top, amplifier on the bottom shelf) and they can be worth more as an amplifier than a radio. I have no idea who buys them but there is an avid following for tube amplifiers regardless of the type or appearance. Generally some doof wants to make it into a guitar amp and is after the transformers.
Although this is an evil thought, a radio with two chassis could be separated and the amplifier sold. Whip together something with an LM3886 to replace the amplifier and the radio will play better than new. Could score enough selling the amplifier to pay the freight on the rest and then some.
