Is all steel/iron the same price?

Forgive me if this is a newbie question. I am in fact a newbie, Ive only been to the scrapyard once.

At the yard I will be going to in the future, they have a big pile where all the ferrous material goes after you weigh in, you unload it by yourself with no supervision other than a small group of guys standing 50 yds away, then go weigh in again before unloading non-ferrous.

The employees do actually wake up and get involved when you pull up with non-ferrous, so I figure they will help with the sorting of that, and I have been doing research in that dept.



My question is about steel/iron items. Do yards pay different prices for certain things? It really seems like mine doesnt, or they would have someone assisting in that department. Is this normal? I just dont want to miss out on getting paid properly. I havent got enough material yet to make another trip to the yard, but ive basically been treating anything that sticks to a magnet as all equal. Is this the right approach?

Yeah pretty much the same except cast iron which pays a couple cents more

Thanks for the input, Ill probably give them a call before I head up there whenever the time comes.

I was really displeased with how I was treated, but I may be biased since I work with the public myself and try to be helpful and friendly and things of that nature. So when I go somewhere else and the staff acts like I dont exist, it puts a burr in my saddle so to speak. That had no way of knowing I was a first timer, but a simple sign wouldve been nice, or even just point in a direction. 4 guys staring at me picking their rears while I drive aimlessly around is not what I call good service

I would guess my yard does everything at one price, one employee did come over to tell me that I couldnt put a 100lb propane cylinder in the pile because it didnt have a big enough hole it...I was able to plead my case at having the valve removed and several 3/8 in holes drilled in the bottom. I tried to fill it with .38 caliber holes on the bottom, but it turns out a jacketed 9mm round will not go through the bottom of a propane cylinder. I didnt feel like using my even more costly rifle ammo, so I just took a drill to it haha. But I suspect he wouldnt have come over at all if I didnt have that one particular item.

My load was in the back end of a Cherokee, so they probably couldnt see much.

Originally Posted by Caveman

What about you? Did you go up to any of them and ask anything? The first time I went to the yard the first thing I did was walked up to an employee and told them it was my first time there and asked how the placed worked. Don't be afraid to ask.

and my yard has a few categories for the steel. Shred, prepared, rotors, comes to mind, might be a few more.

sounds like my first trip lol. when i came through the gates, there was nobody out where the scales were located (didnt even know that area was the scales) so i kept driving till i saw the stop sign up ahead, they guided me where to park to start unloading. i parked, and then asked wait, dont i need to weigh first lol. had to go all the way back out again. finally somebody was there. Dont get me started on my first trip to the non-ferrous side (I WILL NEVER GO THERE AGAIN ON WEEKEND)

Originally Posted by littlehoov

My load was in the back end of a Cherokee, so they probably couldnt see much.

you're taking relatively small loads; me too. The only way I get cast price for cast is if my entire load is cast, and I let them know my expectations, and confirm it with someone in a decision making capacity before I unload.

if I take a mishmash of stuff in the back of an SUV they aren't interested in weighing cast vs. shred separately for a few pounds, so when I mix it up I only get "shred" or as some yards call it "light iron" for anything ferrous.

I've never run into anything like that either littlehoov. I guess every yard I've gone to had someone, somewhere, pointing where to unload, signs saying something, and possibly(most always actually) someone giving an up close visual of the load. They still won't usually volunteer any info though, so you've got to take every opportunity to ask. Different yards will also vary a lot in how they do it.

Non-ferrous is where I've usually noticed the biggest cluster(tr)ucks, haha, and they'll run over ya with em too ; ) It's best to know what you've got, and what they're paying(call each time before you go) and have it as organized as possible before you get there

Well thanks for all the replies. I have been reading and studying, Ill probably learn a lot on my next trip to the yard as to how they do things. Ive been trying to focus on e-scrap, so havent been getting a great amount of ferrous other than what is obviously light iron, shred, whatever you want to call it.

But Im open to anything that crosses my path, and want to know what to do with it. Ill keep learning more and more im sure.

For the record, the 9 did penetrate the bottom of the tank once, but just barely, just made some big dents otherwise...hey they shot a hole in one on mythbusters with a 9! Granted it was the side of the tank, not the bottom, ive learned the bottom is much thicker. (See! Always learning)

Originally Posted by newattitude

And this is what I still don't understand after 4 years of scrapping and reading posts on this board. One would think that all steel is the same. But, I see many posts talking about different prices for different steels. all the yards by/around me pay one price for (all) steels. You would think it would be a nationwide standard on pricing but it isn't.

What difference does it make if one yard buys my truckload of steel as ''all the same'' vs. ''I pay you for different steels'' if the steel all goes to the same places?

How can the yards make money like that?

The only differnce in my main yard between steel is pot metal which, is actually paid higher. Color me confused on that one! because IMO it can't contain that much zinc to mark an almost 30 cent difference?

How far is the next yard?

How different yards make their money all comes down to a matter of size. We will not sell anything less than 10,000 ton. So we make more money than the guy that scrapes up a hundred ton every month. There are brokers (middlemen) involved in all of this who take their cut and then there is the politics question which i wont get into,all of which affect the price and the yard profit. I have been around this for many years and the goings on behind the scenes never ceases to amaze me

There was and innocent enough question asked,so I thought I would give a real answer. Our yard (I wont say who I work for) has three different prices for the same grade of steel. 1) the hurtin unit price 2) preferred customer and 3)friends of the buyer who come from the same country. I like the hurtin units the best.....you know the ones that need money for diapers for the baby