FS: Surplus aerospace metals liquidation

I took a quick look at your site and didn't see anything that I would classify as cheap. Everything I looked at seemed to be priced higher than what I would expect to pay locally or through MSC or other standard suppliers. Five bucks a pound for an unspecified brass alloy??? Or copper? Four to five bucks a pound for stainless? Seems high to me. YMMV.

Bert

Yep. The prices are ridiculous, especially when one considers that aerospace materials without traceability are worth no more than scrap value.

Mr. Kinch must be a relying on the "greater fool" theory. I doubt he will find many here.

Frank, Where you been?

$1.20 per lb. would be more like it, for brass.

What? There are a few items that actually came from MSC, and they are priced quite a bit less.

Eh? Closer to half that.

If the prices are still out of line, I'll fix them. I have to start somewhere. I took the onlinemetals.com prices and took about 1/3 of that, not sure why this should come across as "priced higher". With the quantity of items, I had to use an automatic algorithm on a database and it may not have been reasonable in all cases.

Please. Dimensional materials are worth less than aerospace prices, but not down to scrap.

No.

Trying to juggle 38 jobs and not drop the ball. Right now only 5 are in house and the rest are in outside processing or waiting for materials, so I thought I'd peek in and see what's been going on. Maybe instead I should take a few days off.....

Why, do you think something will change in a few days? :-)

I'd suggest a look at the prices here:

The prices for drops with certs are pretty close to the prices you could expect to pay when placing a large order.

Ned Simmons

Excuse me? Lot 0164: 1"dia. D2 rod. Your price - $37.05 for 29.5 in; MSC's price - $38.20 for 36 in. Yes, your price is a little lower per piece, but the piece is substantially smaller. On a dollars-per-pound basis, MSC is cheaper.

OK, on closer inspection, the typical price for solid stock seems to be $3/lb. I must have been looking at some of the smaller diameter stock or tubing, which is priced higher (much higher in some cases).

Looking at a random item (1" dia 304 rod, lot 0076), your price is $39.57 for 73 in, versus Onlinemetals' price of $39.01 for 72 in, which is inconsistent with the "took about 1/3 of that" statement. Also, as a point of reference, in my admittedly limited experience in buying metal, Onlinemetals' prices are typically quite a bit higher than the local distributors' prices, even before factoring in shipping charges. Again, YMMV.

As for your brass and copper prices, personally I wouldn't pay more than scrap price for unknown alloys, but maybe that's just me.

Bert

Richard, Lot 0358 interests me;

but I can make no sense of the comment:

That's sure as hell not what they paid me for my scrap :-(

========================== Well, for instance....Lot # 0169, "Mystery" brass...

1/2" x 3" rectangular bar stock. MSC has 330 alloy brass bar for $27 a foot. Your price is better than $29 a foot.

Unidentified alloy under closeout conditions ought to be a fraction of that.

Joe

To be honest, pretty much down to scrap. Without certs, what can you use aerospace alloys for ? Playing with ?

No one who needs parts made of alloy xxyy will accept this stuff. Traceability, my man ... if you can't *prove* what you're using really is alloy xxyy *and* which batch

*and* which heat, then you may as well not bother. "It came from Pratt & Whitney, it did !" isn't good enough.

OK, you got me there. My software has a default dimensional price for various species, but it doesn't adjust for "mystery", so I have to make up a specific price per item.

Aluminum this summer was about 30 cents a pound if you were bringing it in,

60 cents to $1 a pound buying from a scrapyard in NY.

I'm not sure what is up with that. MSC is $159.36 on 1" x 36" D-2, see P/N

09043183:

They also show D-2 on page 1776, but catalog seems to be in error. For example, in the second table, the prices per foot get cheaper (!?) as the diameter gets bigger. Maybe it is a misprint and should say per pound? And why is their D-2 on page 1776 about 1/4 the price of the material on page 1773?

Yes, tubing or small diameter stock (< 1/2") will not be priced by unit weight the same as heavier solid shapes.

OK, I'm going to adjust down the unit weight pricing overall reflect that. I've regenerated my catalog page accordingly.

Understand that I had to sample comparative pricing over hundreds of shapes and alloys. Onlinemetals has a wide range of prices for seemingly similar alloys. Not everything is going to come out reasonable when extrapolated.

Most of us don't have any source for small quantities at scrap prices (is there even a market for scrap brass? Zinc is so cheap.). On the pricing spectrum from MSC/Online to bulk-mill-pricing to mythical-scrapyard, I would expect small lots of ID'ed or even mystery material to be somewhere between the last two.

I do appreciate the criticism. This stuff does have to go.

You'd be surprised. I have actually sold quite a bit already. It is superb material if the pricing isn't a barrier. With expired certifications, it isn't going to build an F-22 or the space shuttle, but there are less glamorous things to be done with it.

This just means this is an odd (L-shaped) piece that supplies at least a clear 28-1/2" x 27-3/4" rectangle, plus a 21-1/2" x 7-1/2" foot. The mill markings show Alcoa brand.