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Shavings/Turnings Worth ???

rockfish

Titanium
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Location
Munith, Michigan
What would you guess a 55gal. barrel of aluminum shavings, moderately heavy, be worth ???

How about the same barrel, moderately heavy with stainless shavings ???
 
If you can hold off, the price can only get better. I just got $0.40/lb for aluminum turnings. They used to pay more. To give you an idea of the recent price drop of aluminum, my local place charged $1.50 a couple months ago for scrap Al cut-offs. Yesterday, they were charging $1.00/lb. Aluminum is down.......for now.
 
So what would you guess a barrel weighs ???

The reason I'm asking is that I was offered $50 for the two barrels of aluminum and one of stainless steel and I thought it was reasonable, especially considering the fact that I don't have to risk getting steel in one of my truck tires and I don't have to lug the barrels around. Earlier this summer, when prices were up, I took in two truckloads of barrels full of steel chips and got $130 for all of them.
 
i just had a bunch of scrap dealers in my shop trying to rip me off knowing the market was down and they would sit on it until it was back up. they wanted to give me $200 for about 1200 lbs of stainless steel. suffice to say i didn't take that deal.
 
i just had a bunch of scrap dealers in my shop trying to rip me off knowing the market was down and they would sit on it until it was back up. they wanted to give me $200 for about 1200 lbs of stainless steel. suffice to say i didn't take that deal.


Buy high - sell low makes two people happy!


(I borrowed that line)


I sold clean alum for $.60 this spring. Didn't have eny alum jobs in the forseable future and started filling the changout tub to SS instead. Now I have three drums of alum to haul out. I need more capacity to keep running - so I doubt that it's gunna be werthwhile to hoard and find more pockets to fill rather than just take them in? But what aboot the 12K# of heavy melt I've been hoarding? :bawling:

Had assumed that things would rebound in the few months, but with the werld crash .... it may take a few years?



BTW - I guess I can put a barrel on the scale and tell you REAL CLOSE to what a barrel of alum weighs. ;)



--------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
.40 / lb for aluminum chips here too! added bonus, they didn't check the stuff with a magnet :X

I haven't found a place to come and get steel yet.

what about other metals, brass & titanium?
 
Look no further than Alcoa and Timet. Just in the past 30 days Alcoa's stock (AA) has dropped from about $30.00/s to $12.00/s. Timet (TIE) from $14/s to $7/s.

These are a couple of our largest domestic buyers of scrap aluminum and titanium. Granted, share price reflects a lot of fear right now, but the slowdown in new auto sales just destroys the aluminum demand.

Overseas a lot of buyers put a choke on new contracts for scrap also. Big companies like Hyundai.

I would say hang on and ride out the storm, but I'm not entirely sure this is just a storm. We could be sitting at the edge of a category 5.

Being liquid right now does have its advantages.
 
Oh and one more thing for the guys who can't trust their scrap guy on the scale (I totally understand, scrappers are a notch below drug dealers) just put a scale on the shop floor.

You spend 100's thousands on machines, new materials, etc... and probably sell 10's of thousands in scrap each year. Spend $700 on a nice platform digital from eBay or something.

Then stop worrying about getting screwed. Have a shop guy weigh it and write it down. Problem solved.
 
metalbiz, THERE YOU ARE!

Come on, what are the prices of Ti and brass chips? I can't remember what the hell it was 5 years ago. Don't be stingy!
 
Hello Apestate, 6/4 Ti chips have dropped to about $1.75/lb and brass chips are hovering around $1.25/lb. These aren't contracted or port prices, just your basic third party non end-user rates.

For you high volume guys going to Monico or United these prices may look bad, but I've been out of the big volume game for awhile now. I'm just a little tool guy now. :D
 
I would think accuracy within a few ounces would keep people honest, or at least let you know how much they're stealing...

I've got a cheapy Jscale off fleabay for $50 and it's primary purpose is shipping (.2oz accuracy - so it's pretty sloppy), but I can tell how much someones gouging me when I get vastly different numbers.
 
Ah yes, my good friend Mr. Shaper who also does not sleep. Hope all is well with you.

The one that kills me is when my buyer pays a couple of pounds under on a high dollar item. It's like, look dude, I sell you $25K per month worth of metal, does shaving 2-3 pounds each time cover your lunch for the day? Just pay me for what I have, I'm not looking for a thanks or anything.
 
The question of CHIPS or SHAVINGS begs a response that typically shavings and chips AREN"T worth nearly as much as solids. Back a few months ago, when scrap was higher than two hundred a ton- shavings and chips only sold for fifteen or twenty dollars a ton. So typically when asked what I had in my truck I'd say tin and steel, which paid WAY more than chips. then I'd throw out my barrels of chips along with other scrap.

For a while I saved all of my cast iron chips in barrels, the barrel would weigh a half ton when full, but was practically valueless. Iron foundries don't use chips.
 
an old time scrapy I used to work with would drink lots of water before he went to the scrap yard, then would take a leak after he went over the scales, so that he would be shorting them the weight of the urine! A guy who recycles cardboard had a leaky roof in his baling shop, after he had the roof fixed his profit went down.
 
an old time scrapy I used to work with would drink lots of water before he went to the scrap yard, then would take a leak after he went over the scales, so that he would be shorting them the weight of the urine! A guy who recycles cardboard had a leaky roof in his baling shop, after he had the roof fixed his profit went down.


Reminds me of guy I was told about by an old scrappy, the guy only ever seemed to come in when it was raining hard, but they never twigged for 3 years, until one day it suddenly stopped raining, he'd fitted water tanks under his truck and would drain the water while he was unloading, ......no one noticed the extra water dripping off his truck.
 
Here's a classic: This dealer used to pull into the scrap yard loaded with aluminum wheels and radiators. He always pulled next to the pile of radiators in the scrap yard to dump his material. The forklift driver would bring boxes for wheels and separate boxes for radiators.

His method was to have his helper on the ground picking up radiators he "accidentally" overthrew and missed the box. Interestingly enough for every radiator that missed the box, the helper managed to come up with 3 or 4 to put in the box.

They eventually caught him on camera when someone couldn't figure out how his small truck filled up so many boxes.
 








 
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