Steel.. new VS scrap?

[torker]

Wow.. the prices of steel now! I used to be a scrounge.. big time!
Went into business and couldn't be bothered with scrap or otherwise.
Recently I've been digging into my scrap pile just to get jobs.
A little bit of scrap goes a long ways in cutting down a quote.
Bloody crazy.. 8" wide flange with 1/4 web... $40 a foot??? Holy crap!
How do they afford to build big buildings etc?
I wonder how much "worse" it'll get???
Russ

[Bill Pace]

I had a shocker the other day after a visit to my local scrap yard to replenish a few pieces... Last visit was back in Feb (I think?) and general steel was $.15 lb--- was $.30 that day. The guy said it had taken a .10 jump the week before, along with all the metals going up except Aluminum which was (so far) holding at $1.50! --- gas not the only thing....

[macona]

From what I have heard they are paying up to $500 a ton for scrap at the steel plants.

[torker]

$500 a ton.. that is crazy! LOL! The scrap robbers here still pay $35 a ton. Only game in town. If my place was zoned for that type of operation I'd go for it. I have over 2 acres that could be piled high with iron.
Here...steel has been going up at least 10 cents a pound per day for a couple weeks.
It's killing a lot of jobs I could do. The price of material alone scares away a lot of customers.

[BadDog]

I've been raiding scrap for my "stock" for some time. Lots of it in the form of fixtures being scrapped. I've even developed some "relationships" such that I can pick over scrap bins and pallets for the best bits (as long as I don't get greedy and start hauling by the ton). I've gotten nice bits of "tooling plate" that was in good shape with relatively large untouched sections (inside which I've found numerous parts). Likewise I get top quality "tool steel" this way. Machines beautifully, though it sometimes needs carbide. Sure, it's usually mystery metal, but when used where even "mild" steel (or even medium carbon) would be ok, who cares? And I've also stripped off boxes of lever/cam clamps, SHCS, "mity-bite" clamps, toe-clamps, and so on just as incidentals. A few weeks back, one of the fixtures had a nicely made (hardened and ground) 5C holder thingy. All this for between free and $0.10-0.20 a lb for steel, maybe $0.50 a lb for aluminum (including plates marked as 6061-T6 and other alloys 2" thick and over 1 foot across). I've got round stock from 4" up to 2 or 3 feet in various diameters from 1/2" up to 4"+ with alloy marked. I pick up whatever I can find, whenever I find it, and I'm getting quite a stock pile going on.

Getting it like that also makes it much easier (less painful) to "waste out" larger sections as chips. I made an adapter to mount a fiber optic light source a while back. I had this nice sized chunk of 6061-T6, about the right size, but with several holes in it that made it unlikely to find a "good" use for it that would not be compromised. But the holes didn't intersect where this piece was "inside" the block. I cut about 90% of that block (or more!) into chips by the time I was done. Looked GREAT! And didn't bother me a bit...

Other than structural steel, I rarely buy anything new any more...

[Ken_Shea]

Here in my area, trash sheet metal is getting $150 a ton, you can get $500 for a junk old ford van. I have heard that is is going to double.

That is just great when scraping but it will bite us in the butt when we go to purchase.

Seems like everything we buy now is an investment.

NOT GOOD !

As high as things are now it will not be long until we view this as the good old days.

[HTRN]

The largest autoyard here has less than a dozen cars in it. People aren't bothering taking cars to the junkyards, their going right over to Brooklyn where they're getting 500 bucks a ton at the port.

One of my friends recently told me that one of his competitors decided to clean out his yard - got 500 bucks a ton, and they come and remove it all. Estimate was over 5000 tons of steel.

With the kind of money that metal is at, I'm wondering how long before they look long and hard at opening some of the old mines that shut down because it wasn't worth it.


HTRN

[Duffy]

Yesterday I visited my local scrap dealer and paid $.40/lb for cold rolled and $6.00/lb for copper. The nearest steel dealer would have charged me about $1.40/lb for the same four feet of CR and $15.00 to cut it. A dead barbeque sits at the curb for about an hour.

[DR]

I just paid 80 cents a pound for 28 pounds of new angle iron. This is for a project of my own. It was cut to precision length for a buck a cut. I think last time I bought form these people it was 60 cents a pound. Not a deal killer in this case.

For customer work I don't really worry about the materials price. They understand prices are increasing. I get a quote form my metals dealer and then quote the customer with the understanding my price is only good as long as my supplier's quote.

It is nice to be able to grab a chunk of brass out of the scrap bin (purchased years ago) and use that for customer work. Of course, I charge them the current going rate for the material.

[x39]

My son hauled a pick up truck load of scrap to the nearest srapper last week. He told me there was a line of trucks several hundred yards long up the road from the entrance to the yard. There won't be much left after this go 'round.

[lane]

That is the same thing that happened before WW II shipped it all to Japan now we sending it to China. Wonder when they will attack.

[brian Rupnow]

According to all the "Knobs" (economic Guru's) the high price for steel is being driven by the expanding industrial development in China. I'm not going to beat that horse---its been beaten to death already. However, an interesting side note.---In the area of Ontario, Canada where I grew up, there were a lot of semi developed and exploratory gold mines. No producing gold mines though, because the ore quality was such that it was not economically feasible to develop the mines. It cost more to extract the gold than the gold was worth. Now that gold has risen in value to $1000 an ounce, there is a lot of drilling and assaying going on again, and talk of actually developing these sites into producing mines. This is in the area north of Belleville, up around Eldorado and Deloro. Same for the uranium mines around Bancroft, that flourished between 1956 and 1962. I am not in favour of price increases on anything (think Scrooge), but it would be nice for some of these economically disadvantaged areas to see another round of mine building and the prosperity that comes with it!!!

[67chevelle]

I bought a bundle ( 100 sticks ) of 1" square tubing .065 wall, 24' long, in mid December for $10.35 per sick. I was getting low in March, asked for a quote and was told the best they could do was $12.35 per stick.

Unfortunately I didn't buy.. Fast forward 2 1/2 months and I had to pay $ 15.97 per stick last week.



Almost 55% increase in 5 months ..

Mark

[darryl]

The year is 2032. Daing Hoyan (used to be Dave Hogan) has just returned from a buying trip to Shaitahoill (used to be Seattle) and is reading his invoice again in disbelief. 6061 tooling plate, 60 kilos, 235,000,000 yen, plus storage, pacific tax, atlantic tax, oxygen depletion tax, green tax, power factor tax, protection and securities fee, helium release correction factor, goods services commodities and formation tax, and sales tax. Total price 745, 677, 110 yen. Even with the toll on the Shaitahoill seaway continental tube, it was still a steal. He's wishing he could have gotten more, but the transponders in his Naikeehais would have tattled on him for being overweight again. He's already used up his kilogram/kilometer limit for this month.

[Evan]

Wonder when they will attack.

They already have. They are winning.