Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

I have accumulated a decent quantity of scrap tungsten (wire, and pure
W) over a number of years, and I want to sell it, but there are very
few scrap metal dealers around who can cope with the stuff. More of
them know about tungsten carbide, but that isn't what I have.

Anyway, I have no idea what this stuff should bring per pound. I have
done searches till google is coming out my - well, you know... The
last time I sold this, I was at the mercy of the dealer for what it
was worth, and though I know all scrap metal guys are kind and totally
without avarice, I'd still like to know how well I'm faring with their
quote. Sorta gives me some room to negotiate, as it were.

A reasonable estimate is that I have about 400# of the stuff.

Does anyone have any idea what this should bring per pound, in the
quantities I have? I know the middleman has to make a profit - I just
don't feel he needs to make a killing at my expense. I'd be willing to
accept 50% of what he gets - seems fair to me.

Joe

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

Be careful of scrap metal gypsies (they look like East indians from
India and sometimes speak with a slight funny accent). They know how
to screw people like you. Call a few scrap places. I would think that
you can get $10/lb. I can give you $5/lb if you arew local to Chicago.

i

On 2010-09-01, Joe wrote:
I have accumulated a decent quantity of scrap tungsten (wire, and pure
W) over a number of years, and I want to sell it, but there are very
few scrap metal dealers around who can cope with the stuff. More of
them know about tungsten carbide, but that isn't what I have.

Anyway, I have no idea what this stuff should bring per pound. I have
done searches till google is coming out my - well, you know... The
last time I sold this, I was at the mercy of the dealer for what it
was worth, and though I know all scrap metal guys are kind and totally
without avarice, I'd still like to know how well I'm faring with their
quote. Sorta gives me some room to negotiate, as it were.

A reasonable estimate is that I have about 400# of the stuff.

Does anyone have any idea what this should bring per pound, in the
quantities I have? I know the middleman has to make a profit - I just
don't feel he needs to make a killing at my expense. I'd be willing to
accept 50% of what he gets - seems fair to me.

Joe

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

On Aug 31, 7:30*pm, Joe wrote:
I have accumulated a decent quantity of scrap tungsten (wire, and pure
W) over a number of years, and I want to sell it, but there are very
few scrap metal dealers around who can cope with the stuff. More of
them know about tungsten carbide, but that isn't what I have.

Anyway, I have no idea what this stuff should bring per pound. I have
done searches till google is coming out my - well, you know... The
last time I sold this, I was at the mercy of the dealer for what it
was worth, and though I know all scrap metal guys are kind and totally
without avarice, I'd still like to know how well I'm faring with their
quote. Sorta gives me some room to negotiate, as it were.

A reasonable estimate is that I have about 400# of the stuff.

Does anyone have any idea what this should bring per pound, in the
quantities I have? I know the middleman has to make a profit - I just
don't feel he needs to make a killing at my expense. I'd be willing to
accept 50% of what he gets - seems fair to me.

Joe

Google "refractory metals scrap dealers"

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:02:38 -0500, Ignoramus20906
wrote:

Be careful of scrap metal gypsies (they look like East indians from
India and sometimes speak with a slight funny accent). They know how
to screw people like you. Call a few scrap places. I would think that
you can get $10/lb. I can give you $5/lb if you arew local to Chicago.

i

Funny you mentioned that - the last time I sold any, the dealer was a
gypsy (he used the term "Roma"). I'm sure I got taken, but I did get
$5.25/lb. Probably about 5 years ago.

Nowhere near Chicago. My only experience with that town was last
spring, when United stranded me there overnight. Somehow, my bags made
the connecting flight, so I was left with nothing but a laptop. I
limped (had a really bad back at the time) over to the airport Hilton
through the pouring rain, checked in and didn't even have a change of
clothes - not even a toothbrush (which the Hiltons were willing to
sell me for 10 bucks!). I don't blame the city of Chicago for the
debacle, but I don't fancy going there ever again - too much angst.

As for the other suggestions: I tried the "g-spot", and got exactly
what I got the last time - thousands of hits that didn't contain my
search criteria. The first page of 50 hits had only 3 that were even
somewhat relevant, but maybe one of them might pan out. I'm looking in
the Atlanta area, mainly.

Joe

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

Joe wrote:

On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:02:38 -0500, Ignoramus20906
wrote:

Be careful of scrap metal gypsies (they look like East indians from
India and sometimes speak with a slight funny accent). They know how
to screw people like you. Call a few scrap places. I would think that
you can get $10/lb. I can give you $5/lb if you arew local to Chicago.

i

Funny you mentioned that - the last time I sold any, the dealer was a
gypsy (he used the term "Roma"). I'm sure I got taken, but I did get
$5.25/lb. Probably about 5 years ago.

Nowhere near Chicago. My only experience with that town was last
spring, when United stranded me there overnight. Somehow, my bags made
the connecting flight, so I was left with nothing but a laptop. I
limped (had a really bad back at the time) over to the airport Hilton
through the pouring rain, checked in and didn't even have a change of
clothes - not even a toothbrush (which the Hiltons were willing to
sell me for 10 bucks!). I don't blame the city of Chicago for the
debacle, but I don't fancy going there ever again - too much angst.

As for the other suggestions: I tried the "g-spot", and got exactly
what I got the last time - thousands of hits that didn't contain my
search criteria. The first page of 50 hits had only 3 that were even
somewhat relevant, but maybe one of them might pan out. I'm looking in
the Atlanta area, mainly.

Joe

Try Altavista instead of googoo, much better.

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

On Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:53:01 -0400, Joe wrote:

On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:02:38 -0500, Ignoramus20906
wrote:

Be careful of scrap metal gypsies (they look like East indians from
India and sometimes speak with a slight funny accent). They know how
to screw people like you. Call a few scrap places. I would think that
you can get $10/lb. I can give you $5/lb if you arew local to Chicago.

i

Funny you mentioned that - the last time I sold any, the dealer was a
gypsy (he used the term "Roma"). I'm sure I got taken, but I did get
$5.25/lb. Probably about 5 years ago.

Try these folks:
http://www.carbide-recycling.com/

They've treated me well selling carbide scrap. I asked them at one
time about tungsten metal and they said they will buy it. My
recollection is that they like to do some sort of assay on the
material and I didn't have enough to make it worthwhile.

Current price on tungsten carbide scrap is $9/lb. I expect tungsten
metal is considerably more.

--
Ned Simmons

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

On 2010-09-02, Joe wrote:
On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:02:38 -0500, Ignoramus20906
wrote:

Be careful of scrap metal gypsies (they look like East indians from
India and sometimes speak with a slight funny accent). They know how
to screw people like you. Call a few scrap places. I would think that
you can get $10/lb. I can give you $5/lb if you arew local to Chicago.

i

Funny you mentioned that - the last time I sold any, the dealer was a
gypsy (he used the term "Roma"). I'm sure I got taken, but I did get
$5.25/lb. Probably about 5 years ago.

Did you use his scale?

i

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

"Joe" wrote in message
...
I have accumulated a decent quantity of scrap tungsten (wire, and pure
W) over a number of years, and I want to sell it, but there are very
few scrap metal dealers around who can cope with the stuff. More of
them know about tungsten carbide, but that isn't what I have.

Anyway, I have no idea what this stuff should bring per pound. I have
done searches till google is coming out my - well, you know... The
last time I sold this, I was at the mercy of the dealer for what it
was worth, and though I know all scrap metal guys are kind and totally
without avarice, I'd still like to know how well I'm faring with their
quote. Sorta gives me some room to negotiate, as it were.

A reasonable estimate is that I have about 400# of the stuff.

Does anyone have any idea what this should bring per pound, in the
quantities I have? I know the middleman has to make a profit - I just
don't feel he needs to make a killing at my expense. I'd be willing to
accept 50% of what he gets - seems fair to me.


I too used to accumulate a nice pile of W scrap each year. This was our
Christmas drinks fund in the lab. Mostly lamp electrodes and filaments but
still in the order of 70 kilos per annum. We sold it to a metal alloying
firm (our scrap dealer put us in touch with the from directly). I seem to
recall getting £11-£15/Kg back in the early '80s. Never was sure it was a
good deal or not.

JB

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

On Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:02:27 -0500, Ignoramus4117
wrote:

On 2010-09-02, Joe wrote:
On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:02:38 -0500, Ignoramus20906
wrote:

Be careful of scrap metal gypsies (they look like East indians from
India and sometimes speak with a slight funny accent). They know how
to screw people like you. Call a few scrap places. I would think that
you can get $10/lb. I can give you $5/lb if you arew local to Chicago.

i

Funny you mentioned that - the last time I sold any, the dealer was a
gypsy (he used the term "Roma"). I'm sure I got taken, but I did get
$5.25/lb. Probably about 5 years ago.

Did you use his scale?

i
*He* used his scale. His results were pretty much the same as what I
read off of my ancient Fairbanks scale.

He, like the other dealer before him, used a hand-held device to
determine the content of the scrap. I'm wanting to say it used X-ray
diffraction spectroscopy, but I don't think that is quite right. I do
remember looking up one of those devices, and the cost was about 30
grand. Not for the casual tinkerer.

Joe

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

On Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:59:47 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:


Try Altavista instead of googoo, much better.


Thanks! I didn't realize Altavista still existed. It was the only
decent search engine many years ago. They used to handle straight
Boolean searches, and had a really neat operator "near", which
prevented hits based on one of the key words being "just anywhere" in
the page.

Unfortunately, their search returned numerous hits that did not
include every word that I specified; in fact, there were more false
hits returned than good ones. On the positive side (more or less) it
did outperform google hands down. I know better than to try the bing
cherry search, though.

Joe

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

Joe wrote in
:

Funny you mentioned that - the last time I sold any, the dealer was a
gypsy (he used the term "Roma"). I'm sure I got taken, but I did get
$5.25/lb. Probably about 5 years ago.

Did you use his scale?

i
*He* used his scale. His results were pretty much the same as what I
read off of my ancient Fairbanks scale.

He, like the other dealer before him, used a hand-held device to
determine the content of the scrap. I'm wanting to say it used X-ray
diffraction spectroscopy, but I don't think that is quite right. I do
remember looking up one of those devices, and the cost was about 30
grand. Not for the casual tinkerer.

I saw a demo of this at Eastec a year or two ago. I think it was ~ $5k
to $10k:

http://www.alloyid.net/

Very slick device.

Doug White

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

Joe wrote:

On Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:59:47 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:

Try Altavista instead of googoo, much better.

Thanks! I didn't realize Altavista still existed. It was the only
decent search engine many years ago. They used to handle straight
Boolean searches, and had a really neat operator "near", which
prevented hits based on one of the key words being "just anywhere" in
the page.

Unfortunately, their search returned numerous hits that did not
include every word that I specified; in fact, there were more false
hits returned than good ones. On the positive side (more or less) it
did outperform google hands down. I know better than to try the bing
cherry search, though.

Joe

Use the "advanced search" it's got the good stuff. The regular search
has been dumbed down a bit like googoo.

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

Doug White wrote:

Joe wrote in
:

Funny you mentioned that - the last time I sold any, the dealer was a
gypsy (he used the term "Roma"). I'm sure I got taken, but I did get
$5.25/lb. Probably about 5 years ago.

Did you use his scale?

i
*He* used his scale. His results were pretty much the same as what I
read off of my ancient Fairbanks scale.

He, like the other dealer before him, used a hand-held device to
determine the content of the scrap. I'm wanting to say it used X-ray
diffraction spectroscopy, but I don't think that is quite right. I do
remember looking up one of those devices, and the cost was about 30
grand. Not for the casual tinkerer.

I saw a demo of this at Eastec a year or two ago. I think it was ~ $5k
to $10k:

http://www.alloyid.net/

Very slick device.

Doug White

Just got IMTS related ad for a Thermo Scientific version of those
handheld analyzers (booth E-5242), no price of course. I believe they
use a cap-discharge arc to burn a spot and do the spectrophotometry
thing. Something I'd love to have if they ever get down to ~$500 or so.

Scrap Tungsten Prices?
 

On Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:05:02 GMT, Doug White
wrote:

Joe wrote in
:

Funny you mentioned that - the last time I sold any, the dealer was a
gypsy (he used the term "Roma"). I'm sure I got taken, but I did get
$5.25/lb. Probably about 5 years ago.

Did you use his scale?

i
*He* used his scale. His results were pretty much the same as what I
read off of my ancient Fairbanks scale.

He, like the other dealer before him, used a hand-held device to
determine the content of the scrap. I'm wanting to say it used X-ray
diffraction spectroscopy, but I don't think that is quite right. I do
remember looking up one of those devices, and the cost was about 30
grand. Not for the casual tinkerer.

I saw a demo of this at Eastec a year or two ago. I think it was ~ $5k
to $10k:

http://www.alloyid.net/

Very slick device.

Gee, I'll bet that would even outshine a spark test on the grinder,
huh? g Yeah, cool tool.

--
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy
simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
-- Storm Jameson