Cost of Sheet steel?

Thanks

For me from my favorite supplier.

1/4" steel = $90 per sheet 1/8" steel = $50 per sheet 16 ga steel = $30 per sheet.

. David Croft wrote: Thanks Roy. .

You can find leftover metal prices here:

Prime material should be more expensive of course, but why use prime when leftovers will do?

There is no such thing as leftover iron, they may make you think so, and sell to you, but 10' of 1/4" X 4" flat bar is 10" of 1/4" X 4" flat bar, period. If they convince you that you're getting a great deal because it's "left over", then you are on the hook.

JTMcC.

I imagine the difference is that leftover metal was already paid for in full by another customer, and therefore can be sold at a lower than normal price without sacrificing any profit. If I understand things correctly, leftovers come from custom cuts done for previous customers who had to pay for the full sheet, plate, tube, angle, etc. If anybody knows how this really works go ahead and set me right.

If I had to buy a whole piece of steel, I would certainly keep the "leftovers" rather than leave it at the yard.

I usually buy from Whitesides Steel/Salvage in Clearview, WA. If you want a 7' chunk out of a 20' stick, they charge you for 7' and then add another buck for the cut. Nice thing is if I buy a full 20' piece, they cut it in half to fit on my roof rack for free. If I buy the leftover 13' from some one else's cut, they still charge full price for the 13'.

Jeff Dantzler

A quick check showed their price for drops of A36 plate to be $0.24 / lb. I don't know what their prices for full size plates are, or what constitutes a good price for new steel in the New England area, but throw in shipping from Connecticut and a $75.00 minimum order and it sure doesn't look like much of a deal for someone who isn't local, especially considering that it's all odd sized pieces.

Bert

I go to a salvage yard run by some really old dude whenever I ask him "how much for this?" he always says the same thing

"Five bucks."

doesn't matter how big it is how heavy or what material...it's always "Five bucks."

I hope he never goes out of business!!

Peter

. I agree. .

Is there an on-line reference to how much sheet steel weighs per square foot or some other easy reference? I can buy metal in a scrap yard but don't know how to compare vs new steel. Thanks

The few times I have bought from them I aways combined enough material of various types to get as close as possible to the UPS limit of 150 pounds and of course to get over the $75 minimum order. That has made the shipping be around $0.60 per pound delivered to the west coast. I have only bought aluminum and stainless steel from them, and even with the shipping they were cheaper than the local suppliers for the small quantities I use. The mild steel is cheap enough local. One thing I like is being able to pick the exact sizes and quantities I want from their lists instead of having to rummage through someone's messy scrap pile in the hope I will find what I want. One thing I don't like is that they have to cut any pieces longer than 108 inches in half in order to ship via UPS.

I may be biased, but I've always been pretty partial to the calculator I built for our site. You can find it at

It does the calculations for most of the major shapes, with the exception of profiles such as angle and channel, and has roughly 200+ different alloys.

For a quick calculation, though: Mild and Carbon steel - 0.283#/cubic inch Aluminum - 0.100#/cubic inch Copper - 0.322#/cubic inch Brass - 0.307#/cubic inch Titanium - 0.163#/cubic inch

Chris Sypolt OnlineMetals.com

Thanks Chris for the excellent resource, exactly what I was looking for.

That's certainly true of some of the small steel suppliers I've dealt with. Even if you make it clear that you're flexible on shapes and sizes, for example if you're making a counterweight, they still want to charge you full retail price for the steel. I finally found a fabricating place that actually sells drops at near wholesale price, even cut to length. For my home projects I found an aluminum/copper/brass recycler that takes steel in as a courtesy in a separate pile. He sells scrap aluminum for 60 cents a pound and lets me take whatever steel I want for nothing. If the steel needs to be loaded on my truck with a forklift I take care of the operator. My backyard is now looking like "Sanford and Sons", so I'm making less visits to avoid temptation!

You can buy scrap at discount prices. However, that doesn't change the fact that 10' of 3'X3'X3/8" angle iron, is worth a set price, to that supplier, reguardless of weather it comes from a 20' virgin stick of iron, or from an adulterated piece of iron that has already had 5' cut off one end. There is no such thing as "leftovers" or "prime" material. Anyone using those terms is putting one over on you. If you are buying short pieces of material you are probably paying a premium as it is, as it should be. Just don't let some sales guy tell you you are getting a good price because you are buying "leftover" iron as opposed to "prime" iron. Those terms are bogus bogus bogus.

regards, JTMcC.

More than once, family and friends have whistled the theme song when I am in proximity. For some reason they think it is junk.

The cubic inch method is good but I always worked with very large items [pipe and structural] and figured mine a little differently. One "board foot" of steel weighs 40 pounds. A board food as we all know is considered to be 12"x12"x1". With this simple formula plus a a little math know-how you can caluclate the weight of most anything but you must first changes its properties into "board feet"

-- Xtremely Fast®Eddie Thompson Baytown, Texas Collector of facts, trivia & bright twinkly things