Price of steel

We have been hearing in the news about the decline of the British

Steel Industry mostly caused by cheap imports from China.

The commentator said that the price of steel had dropped from

£600 per ton to below £200 per ton.

I do not think that the drop in price reflects the price charged by

our ME suppliers, what do others think.

Bert Ashton

You have to buy a very large quantity to get small prices.

I would think that theres a world of difference between buying a lorry load of steel and buying a 1/2" diameter 12inch length from a retail environment

If I go to my local steel stockists I get charged about £1.50 a kilo for new stuff in full lengths (3 metres)

Offcuts on the other hand are about £0.50 kilo

Looking at a typical me supplier they charge £3.30 for 300mm of 25mm dia steel ( 1.25kg) so about £2600 ish a tonne

Most of 'our' suppliers buy stock in bulk and it can spend years on the shelf (it doesn't have a sell by date as long as you don't let it go rusty!)

At best any savings from current prices will only trickle through as people restock.

Also compare metal to meat.

Beef carcass ready for butchering costs about £3.30/kilo, cost when cut up into small pieces can be £5.50 - £22 a kilo depending on the cut.

There is always a premium to be added when buying small quantities as it takes more effort (you have to cut it up and make several parcels) to 'sell' nine 12" lengths of steel than to sell one 3m full length.which will probably just be collected or loaded onto a truck with no packing. In fact for steel (if not brass and alloy) I would guess the majority of the sellers costs are storage and handling.

This also why steel stockists sell offcuts cheap - it just isn't worth the extra effort needed to process them 'properly'.

Neil

I'm not surprised to find a thread about this already started.

The cost of smaller amounts of metal is soaring now. I bought a piece of CZ121 brass, 22mm x 300mm round bar in 2015 for about £9.20, free delivery from Ebay. Being a hobbyist I thought that was a bit steep but it seemed to be the cheapest around at the time. As I was hoping to make items to sell on I thought I might be able justify the cost and could possibly have been a way of starting off in a small way to become self employed.

The same brass rod from the same seller is now up around £13.50, approx 50% increase and looking at prices from other ebay traders and campanies direct from their own web sites shows they are very similar, it's like they all link back to a common pricing database.

I'm interested in making a QCTP variant of a rotary broaching tool I found on line, from Mikesworkshop. I think Mike is possibly a member here? This will be used on the brass bar mentioned above. Looking at the cost of just a small piece of steel to do the job is very disheartening and I wonder how ME and DIY tool making will suffer as a result of the trend.

I'm not convinced it's as clear cut that buying in bulk or in smaller pieces justifies these price increases. Even tiny offcuts are expensive e.g. the stamped out waste disks from fly-presses!

I think standard metals could be re-classified as semi-precious.

Ed.

Edited By Ed Duffner on 28/03/2016 10:21:27

.

I have just bought a 4 1/2" dia x 1 1/2" long piece of bronze. The price of that puppy made me wince for such a small quantity of metal.

It's even got a whole down the middle of it. So faulty really.!

Nick

Historically many modellers were 'supplied' from work. People often talk about their local stockist and industry offcuts but most of us don't know an engineering firm in the county let alone the town and scrap yards are only full of Dysons not choice metal bar ends.

Interesting how different industries handle world prices. A friend with a small family animal feed business logs onto the Chicago grain exchange every morning to set the day's price for their products.

Ah, so that's what i'm doing wrong, Well i guess i better start asking for the "lorry load" option when i buy steel from now on. I wondered why it was always so expensive.

Michael W

I remember a number of years ago, probably about twenty, when it became necessary to buy steel by the tonne rather than the length just to be able to get it from the stockist.

Now with all the steel coming from abroad it makes you wonder how much longer we will be able to afford an engineering hobby.

Howard

I am only about 25 miles from a good selection of stockholders some of which will cut whilst I wait. Much cheaper than some outlets but still not cheap. The size of the warehouse the cost of so much stock/saws/staff takes some covering. I usually try and get a mate to go half's on say a batch of EN24T and spend upwards of £100 a time to cut visits down. Still get stuck for some sizes. I used to work next door to a nut and bolt maker and did a lot of little jobs for them FOC I go there occasionally and ask for small quantities which are usually given to me. This won't last as the years since I retired roll by.

It is dropping in price but bear in mind that stockists have got to get rid of existing stock before they can buy at the new price.

This will be reflected on larger stockists first but the smaller hobby type stockist may never clear stock in time to take advantage.

Where it is becoming apparent in on non ferrous where stock levels are usually lower.

This time last year I was paying £30 per bar [ 3 metres ] for 12mm round brass. Three weeks ago this had dropped to £17.30 per length on one offs and £11.73 on quantity of 10 off's A very big saving

Hi John, may I enquire as to who the supplier is?

Thanks,
Ed.

Smiths Metals who are a largish chain so should be someone in most areas.

Thanks John.

I'm fortunate in that I can get my steel from the brothers employers as long as it is EN 16, 19,or 24 Stainless steels , Inconel, ect [ I scratch their back, they scratch mine ] Mostly high spec metals. any of the more usual types I get from GLR Kennions or M machine, both are excellent suppliers, and I think very good on prices [ no connection to either ] So I think prices for the types that I have to buy are good ,no complaints.

The price of steel was very cheap if you got it as a free offer when one of our moderators was trying to get rid of a load.

Thanks, John!

Dave
The Emerald Isle

there's a local scrapyard which sells steel at £200/tonne.

I thought that was cheap and picked up some nice bits for 15 quid.

Mistake! I managed to break both my mill and my lathe owning, well, to ignorance, but the essential cause was that I had no idea of what the nature of the steel was and it was much harder than my experience allowed me to deal with.

You can get it cheap, but beware!

The other thing I've found is that if you can make a trip to the stockholder (Metals4U, metalsupermarked and no doubt others), it's a good deal cheaper - shipping many kilos of steel is a pricy business.

Iain