The scrap yard where I have bought some, you guessed it, scrap metal charges me .30 cents a pound for the stuff I bought there. How does this price square with what others pay for scrap? Is this a fair deal, a lousy one, mediocre, or what? What are most people paying for scrap angle iron or sheet metal and the like?
Hawke
.25 to .40 north of Seattle
GWE
"Grant Erwin" wrote: (clip)How does this price square with what others pay for scrap? (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It's an OK price, provided you are able to pull clean, usable, straight pieces in sizes that you can use. If you're getting junk, rather than cut-offs, it should be cheaper.
As of this week at the local scrap yard I paid .15 cents a lb for good scrap. I go at noon when the crane is not running, scored a 2-7/16" x 5' shaft for $11 and change. Nice stuff better than cold rolled.
DE
I don't buy a lot of steel scrap, but that seems about right. Mostly I'm buying aircraft surplus/scrap and we do it by desirability. The one place where I do buy scrap / surplus by weight charges "pound per pound" ($1.5/lb) for everything which is OK for his stainless and bronze, but a bit much for his cast iron! I did buy some steel anvil tooling from him, but that's about all of the steel I'll have at those prices.
When you say scrap you can mean a lot of things:
-2nds are usually pulls from the prime steel pile that have things like a twisted end, flaw in the middle, or excessive rust in spots.
-process scrap is prime steel in short lengths
-rusty steel that has been stored outside
-used steel is salavaged from a building or similar
-really scrap scrap, stuff that is resuced from the shredder.
Prices for these will vary from just under the current prime price down to the current scrap metal price. Buy a couple tons and the price gets a lot better.
If you paid $.30 a pound for a couple hundred pounds of angle, bars, or sheet > The scrap yard where I have bought some, you guessed it, scrap metal charges
It is $.30 a pound where I buy my steel. They have a rem pile and barrels full of drops. Unless I buy a lot of it, they usually just toss it in the back of the truck and wave good bye.
Steve
You got a good number of reasonable replys.
Let me ask a similar question:
I have a friend who has a big (maybe 3 ft dia x 4.5 ft high) stainless steel tank he wants to sell. It was part of a custom swimming pool water system. I figure he should set a bottom price at the value of the scrap metal.
What is stainless scrap going for? $/lb
Hope people are still reading this thread. Thanks for any replies.
At the local yard two weeks ago I picked up some stainless sheet and was charged 70 cents a pound. I didn't inquire what they were paying for stainless but on the regular scrap they only pay a couple of cents/lb and sell for 15cents. One of the yard rats said cardboard is hot now they are getting $140 a ton, lots more that steel/iron.
A big stainless tank might make a heck of a fermenter for some home brewer......
DE
At our local scrap yard, steel is 15 cents/lb, aluminum is $1.05/lb, stainless is 85 cents/lb, and copper is $2.30/lb. With a number of machine/fab shops in the area we get a lot of drops and scrapped fabs.
Simms metals in San Jose CA charges $0.40 a pound for 'usable steel', and about $0.60-0.70 for new stock. Copper and aluminum goes for $2.00 to $3.00. They buy scrap steel at from $60.00 to $75.00 a short ton.
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