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Anybody Selling Scrap on a bigger than local market?

Parkerbender

Parkerbender

Stainless
Joined
Dec 19, 2009
Location
Kansas City Mo, USA
I have been screwed over by our local scrap guys for the last time I think... I am considering just hanging onto our 6061 until we have a truckload or more and then selling it. Does anyone know of a bigger buyer? One of our guys that came from the aerospace world had mentioned that a former shop he was at was just blowing chips into van bodies and someone would come and pick them up. Have you ever heard of that? We arn't huge but not tiny, probably 2,000 lbs chips a week. Our local guys (well, on the fourth company now...) are still at the same 30 cents they were at when we switched to them a year ago, but they have stopped doing pickup for us so now I get to haul scrap in for the same price as picked up every couple weeks, and now they just let me know that they are going to charge us $15 for boxes and skids because they say they have to buy them for that price. I said, "ok, I'll provide my own then and you can just pay us for the gaylords and skids" obviously they are not interested in doing that...

Anyway, has everyone else seen their scrap price stay the same at $4 aluminum as it was with $1.90 aluminum? Does anyone know who a guy would talk to if they wanted to sell scrap at a more wholesale level?

We are in Kansas City, but I would assume if a guy was selling a truck or two that shipping isn't a huge deal...

Thanks much, and make something!
-Parker
 
I think what6 you want is a scrap metal broker. googling turns up pages of information, that's as much as I know ATM. A friend in the demo business saves up his steel until he has several truckloads then calls a broker who sends truckers to haul it away, he doesn't deal with scrapyards. I think it goes right from him to a furnace.
 
When I search 'Scrap metal broker' all I get is the pages of local scrap yards, maybe I'm not doing it right? What your demo friend is doing is exactly what I am looking to do.
 
i looked up aluminum turnings on a local site .48 per pound so your looking at an extra 340 dollars or so a week is it worth the time? now if you have to deliver totally different, but aluminum turnings are not the most desirable and unless you have a way to compress them they take a lot of space for not many tons
 
It turns out 40,000 lbs is the magic number, and I found an outfit that'll send a truck when we have them piled up! DJJ Metals group, for reference if anybody is going through the same issues!
 
Your probably better trying to find a smelter or foundry that will buy the chips as is.

Scrap is always a pita to deal with and the usually try to RIP you off anyways.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
Is it any wonder that one might have a problem marketing scrap chips? Perhaps "your" should be replaced with "you're". And just maybe you should know that "smelting" is the reduction of a metal from it's ore and "melting" is the change from the solid to liquid. You are not equipped intellectually to participate in this commerce.
 
tdmidget said:
Is it any wonder that one might have a problem marketing scrap chips? Perhaps "your" should be replaced with "you're". And just maybe you should know that "smelting" is the reduction of a metal from it's ore and "melting" is the change from the solid to liquid. You are not equipped intellectually to participate in this commerce.
Click to expand...
Your funny

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
Parkerbender said:
I have been screwed over by our local scrap guys for the last time I think... I am considering just hanging onto our 6061 until we have a truckload or more and then selling it. Does anyone know of a bigger buyer? One of our guys that came from the aerospace world had mentioned that a former shop he was at was just blowing chips into van bodies and someone would come and pick them up. Have you ever heard of that? We arn't huge but not tiny, probably 2,000 lbs chips a week. Our local guys (well, on the fourth company now...) are still at the same 30 cents they were at when we switched to them a year ago, but they have stopped doing pickup for us so now I get to haul scrap in for the same price as picked up every couple weeks, and now they just let me know that they are going to charge us $15 for boxes and skids because they say they have to buy them for that price. I said, "ok, I'll provide my own then and you can just pay us for the gaylords and skids" obviously they are not interested in doing that...

Anyway, has everyone else seen their scrap price stay the same at $4 aluminum as it was with $1.90 aluminum? Does anyone know who a guy would talk to if they wanted to sell scrap at a more wholesale level?

We are in Kansas City, but I would assume if a guy was selling a truck or two that shipping isn't a huge deal...

Thanks much, and make something!
-Parker
Click to expand...


FWIW:

I had a truckload machine that we cannibalized in KC/MO that I told them to just scrap the rest.
They informed me that was OK, and it would pay $50 or whatnot...

$50? :eek:
OK, hold that thought!

I had it trucked back home (less 20 miles) for a $200/ton better price.
The trucking cost me $100/ton.

Now IDK where the closest alum mill is to you, but as far as I know - the closest steel mill (10 yrs ago) was Chi-Town?
From Chi-Town to Pittsburgh, scrap prices are considerably higher than out on the Chisholm Trail.

I would fully expect that you could fill a truck and send it east for a good increase in revenue.

The GM foundry that pours alum blocks is 20 miles from me, but IDK if they take 6061 or not?
Not that you would ever sell directly to them anyhow, but....


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

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
tdmidget said:
Is it any wonder that one might have a problem marketing scrap chips? Perhaps "your" should be replaced with "you're". And just maybe you should know that "smelting" is the reduction of a metal from it's ore and "melting" is the change from the solid to liquid. You are not equipped intellectually to participate in this commerce.
Click to expand...


..........................download.jpg....................................:rolleyes5:
 
Yeah, they act like scrap is cancer out here, it is truly silly. I have many local yards that refuse to take chips altogether. If you can get it sold they pay like trash, they dock for "moisture", and this and that, unload your truck then offer you half the quoted rate then tell you if you want it back you can load it back on your truck by hand...

I guess this stuff will hopefully be going straight back to SCM in VA, which I also kindof like knowing it is staying in the country. I still have to send off a sample and get it approved, but being's it is starting as thunder bar, I'd sure hope they would be fine making it back into thunder bar... If only we went through more I'd try to close the loop and have 'em send it straight back again! Ha!

-Parker
 
If you are using that much, IDK why you couldn't buy mill direct?

I have never dealt with a commodity* alum mill, but have dealt with both cold finished and primary steel bar mills directly.
Also brass.

Don't know why alum would be diferent?

The brass trucks deliver bar and pick chips back up and bring home every day in a [very] closed loop exchange.


* Doo buy custom alum extrusions mill direct, but that's not likely the same thing.

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

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
My brothers' shop bought mill direct on most of their iron...............Nucor was one that would sell direct with a 40k lb min of flats, angles, and channels. They'd buy coils from 16GA to 1/2" get 'em leveled and chopped to length. Same with the tube mills for mechanical and structural squares 'n rectangles..........if the volume is there, you'd think you could go to the source with Ali?

One of my BILs worked for one of the largest tanker trailer co's in the states...................He was head of purchasing and they bought mill direct on everything.............O'course they went through millions of lbs of stainless, Ali, and iron annually.............they even bought propane bulk........................
 
We only go through maybe 120-130K lbs a year, and it's a mix of about a dozen different sizes. We don't have a large enough quantity of one size for Hydro to work with us at least. I never asked SCM, but I would assume that would be the same. I was also told when we asked Hydro that their supplier agreements with EMJ/Alro, etc. wouldn't allow them to sell identical sizes direct to 'consumer' as they are supplying to the distributors. Which, then I asked if they could make 1.7"x2.45" bar, and then we got into the our volume isn't enough for them to get real competitive with it anyway.

BUT, smiting the scrap yards? Oh, I'm all about that! hahaha.
 
I does work, I will do it from time to time, but your scrap MUST meet there specs or the whole load will be rejected and then the nightmare starts. I usually ship direct on non Farris, steel is harder to find truckers that will haul it for you. Off size, dirt, radio active, ect will make the whole load rejected and you are out the shipping both ways...not for the faint of heart or the lazy...Phil
 
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