experiencing price fluctuations.

I called the local steel yards (and by local I mean 60 miles away... the US steel industry is about shot) and got a quote on some 1018 or lesser 1" bar stock.
These guys sell it in 20' rods, cut on site to your wishes. About three months ago I got a quote of $64 per rod. Today I called and got a quote of $38 per rod.
Me think either the steel prices are wildly fluctuating or they're now importing chairman Mao's personal stock.
Is anyone else seeing this? Is it normal? Maybe I just got a sales rep who was new and didn't quite know?

Wow, a 20' bar of 1" round weighs in at 53.2 lbs. I'd say you were getting a good deal @$64 which is $1.203 per lb. At $38 your cost per pound is only $.714 per lb. Very good price. 1" round weighs 2.66lbs per lineal foot. Scrap prices are running .15 to.20 cents a lb right now.

Mike C.

I thought it was, but being the only joint in town I have no one to compare it against. There's onlinemetals.com for about an additional half the price, but those guys just seems if-y for some reason.
anyway, is this fluctuation normal?

That much of a fluctuation is not normal. Been doing this since the late 1960's and never seen one that drastic.That's like a 40% drop. Just doesn't happen unless it's "dirty". In other words some surface rust where it wouldn't fit into a 1" collet until cleaned. By the way, have bought a lot from "Online Metals" in the last number of years. They sell good stuff in smaller length's if that's what you need. Nearest metal supplier from me is 70 miles and they don't carry everything. So instead of wasting my fuel and paying sales tax, was about the same buying from Online. Some place I have a list of online places selling metal, if you want PM me your email and I can send it out to you. If I had to drive to pick up a small amount of metal would run me $40.00 in fuel alone. I always try a factor that in when buying online. And sales tax in that county is now at 9.5%. Adds up quickly when instead it comes right to my front door in the big brown truck.
Mike C.
Groveland, CA :thumbsup:

mattybock said:

I called the local steel yards (and by local I mean 60 miles away... the US steel industry is about shot) and got a quote on some 1018 or lesser 1" bar stock.
These guys sell it in 20' rods, cut on site to your wishes. About three months ago I got a quote of $64 per rod. Today I called and got a quote of $38 per rod.
Me think either the steel prices are wildly fluctuating or they're now importing chairman Mao's personal stock.
Is anyone else seeing this? Is it normal? Maybe I just got a sales rep who was new and didn't quite know?

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Huh.

Maybe fencing will be next. A couple of years back I bought a mile of it at one price, and two months later paid 20% more for another mile. Quit fencing for a while, but I might get back to the projects if some sanity will return to the pricing.

mattybock said:

I called the local steel yards (and by local I mean 60 miles away... the US steel industry is about shot) and got a quote on some 1018 or lesser 1" bar stock.
These guys sell it in 20' rods, cut on site to your wishes. About three months ago I got a quote of $64 per rod. Today I called and got a quote of $38 per rod.
Me think either the steel prices are wildly fluctuating or they're now importing chairman Mao's personal stock.
Is anyone else seeing this? Is it normal? Maybe I just got a sales rep who was new and didn't quite know?

Click to expand...

If they're selling it in 20' joints, they're offering you hot-rolled. Basically the same chemically but has a rougher finish and covered with mill scale. Cold finished (1018) is sold in 8, 12 or 16' lengths. The last price I saw for 1" CF, (2 8ft and 1 4ft lengths) was $106.00.

If you're blacksmithing, use hot rolled. Cold rolled is harder to bend even when hot and much more expensive and is generally used in machined products. Neither can be hardened or tempered but can be casehardened.

I haven't bought steel for some time. After I went out of business several years ago, a coworker hired me for a little smithing job and I needed to buy some steel since I didn't have that size in stock. I went into sticker shock.

About the import of foreign steel. When I worked at Trojan Steel in the late '90's, for a time I worked on the cold saw in the main stock yard. Of the hundreds of tons of steel beams there, not one stick had a US makers mark. We had four kinds of steel. Canadian, Korean, Spanish and Russian. Forget about American steel. At one point several years ago, they slapped a higher tariff on foreign steel to protect what little steel industry was left. When they did, the price of American steel went up. From then on it didn't matter to me what kind I used (except I didn't want any Russian. It was the worst kind of trash). Besides, it's hard to find.

I would check online for the latest prices at various suppliers and compare with your local shops. Don't go in blind. Prices do fluctuate, sometimes a good bit. If you're looking at steel for some small jobs you might want to check out local recyclers and junk yards. You can usually find some pretty good stuff for a reasonable price. Many fabricators send their drops (cut off pieces) which is usually new stock, to the scrap yards. If there is a large fabricator or machine shop near you they will often sell their scraps cheap and I've actually had one shop give me some scrap steel just to get it out of their way.

Have a look at the most advanced steel mill in the world - from furnace to finished product without stopping ... in Shanghai China.

I don't know why the price would be so different but just a word of advice.

The big steel companies sell in large shipments, often being 10,000 pounds or more.

Before you tell them "I'll buy it! :grin:" you better find out how many you have to buy.

If you don't, you might end up with 10,000 pounds of bar sitting in your front yard with a bill for $6500 attached to it. :rotf:

I actually had that happen - not buying but a quantity confusion.
I called this group in Oklahoma, getting their price. They had good reviews and were selling 1" rounds in 24'. I asked the sales rep over the phone if I could buy 5.
She said no, you have to buy one truck load to get that low price. In fact they only sold if via truck loads.
Fine, I figured. I've drive up their and they'd fill up the bed. Nope! She meant a diesel truck load. 9 TONS! :shocked2:
Anyway, I didn't have that kind of cash.

MikeyC said:

That much of a fluctuation is not normal. Been doing this since the late 1960's and never seen one that drastic.That's like a 40% drop. Just doesn't happen unless it's "dirty". In other words some surface rust where it wouldn't fit into a 1" collet until cleaned. By the way, have bought a lot from "Online Metals" in the last number of years. They sell good stuff in smaller length's if that's what you need. Nearest metal supplier from me is 70 miles and they don't carry everything. So instead of wasting my fuel and paying sales tax, was about the same buying from Online. Some place I have a list of online places selling metal, if you want PM me your email and I can send it out to you. If I had to drive to pick up a small amount of metal would run me $40.00 in fuel alone. I always try a factor that in when buying online. And sales tax in that county is now at 9.5%. Adds up quickly when instead it comes right to my front door in the big brown truck.
Mike C.
Groveland, CA :thumbsup:

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You make a real good point about buying online. I try to make it a point to buy everything I can online. Save gas and tax! Not to mention time!

The Chinese just reported a 20% drop in Steel production due to decreased demand, this is apparantly screwing the Australian iron miners who have experienced a boom from the chinese demand in recent years.

The Chinese also just found out that a whole lot of steel that was sitting in warehouses suffers from a slight theoretical-material discrepancy: It doesn't actually exist. Since this phantom steel was being used as collateral for loans, something like 5 billion yuan (approximately $800 Million)in Shanghai alone, this is rather a problem and might be influencing any current price fluctuations.

Geez, the Chinese lying about materials? Who woulda thought :shake:

Elnathan said:

suffers from a slight theoretical-material discrepancy: It doesn't actually exist.

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:rotf: I love the way you put that!

Ghettogun said:

The Chinese just reported a 20% drop in Steel production due to decreased demand, this is apparantly screwing the Australian iron miners who have experienced a boom from the chinese demand in recent years.

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Thats me. I work in the second-last boom industry in the world, and we just dropped from six rill rigs to one and a half for the rest of the financial year.

I too am trying to find craftsman quantities of known steel for turning and toolmaking having just added a lathe, an oxy-LPG torch and an arc welder. Here in the city that serves the two last booms (the other is natural gas) there is no supplier of the good stuff around. I have been toying with the idea of Metalsonline prices PLUS freight to Australia.