# Price of Steel



## taxidermist (Sep 11, 2007)

I drew up some prints to make a trailer for my 16' flat bottom square back canoe I use for duck hunting and a 2X72" belt grinder for blade making. I about tipped over when I enquired on pricing! A 12' stick of 2x1/4 wall tubing was $95.:shock: 1-1/2x1/4"wall tubing was $54. 2'x2' 3/8" plate steel was $42. I could make 5 belt grinder frames from those quantities and possibly sell three to pay for two grinders. 

The trailer build was a joke for pricing! I would be in it close to $400 for the steel alone. I know lumber has dramatically increased, but I didn't know the steel industry was the same way. 

Anyone want a canoe?


----------



## 2full (Apr 8, 2010)

Steel went way up when Trump started the tariff war with China to start the problem. 
Most steel is imported anymore. Most from China. 
Then then pandemic made it worse. Plants were shut down for a while.......
Fencing suppliers took 7-9% cost jumps first of the year. On top of 2-3% jumps a couple of times last year. We won't even talk about t-posts. Every time we did finally get a load, the costs had gone up. 
Anything steel has gone crazy high for sure.


----------



## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Yea everything is really high now... look at simple 10/12/14/16/18 ga rolls of wire. CRAZY prices. Its a really weird inflation.. without the government calling it inflation.

Get ready for the gas shock through, they're already saying its going to be in the $4 range this summer. 

Had to buy some steel a few weeks ago, I was dang lucky we found what we needed in the remnant's pile. Only had to pay the weight cost so it was reasonable.

-DallanC


----------



## taxidermist (Sep 11, 2007)

I worked at Geneva Steel for 15 years before the Bankruptcy and closure. I know what it takes to make steel plate/coil. I could purchase plate steel, 3/8"X8'x20' for $250 Floor plate was the same price for 1/4" 


The Chinese purchased the Cranes, Mills, and whatever else they found, for pennies on the dollar. Only thing I got was the "SHAFT". 


I sure miss the guys I worked with! It was a tight group and we were like family.


----------



## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

And people wonder why I scrounge any steel that I can. 

I used to love it when I would drive past a dumpster and see bed frames either in it or sitting next to it. While that angle iron isn't the best it works in a lot of projects.


----------



## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Critter said:


> And people wonder why I scrounge any steel that I can.
> 
> I used to love it when I would drive past a dumpster and see bed frames either in it or sitting next to it. While that angle iron isn't the best it works in a lot of projects.


LOL I have so many things built out of bed frame steel. I lay my steel on the ground under my boat. Keeps it out of the weather and there is plenty of room to fit as I have it organized. I recently got 20ft of garage door opener support steel... I thought at first it was angle... but its actually a T shape. Still trying to figure out what to do with it haha.

I also started tearing the copper coils out of things that break around the house, have a bucket filling up with them. The biggest is a mamoth sized coil from a wirefeed welder that died. I started collecting copper when I saw the online precious metals bullion dealers started selling 1oz copper rounds.

Right now I'm trying to find some used metal roofing to cover the chicken coop run. Its got a single rotting sheet of T11 on it.

-DallanC


----------



## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

DallanC said:


> Right now I'm trying to find some used metal roofing to cover the chicken coop run. Its got a single rotting sheet of T11 on it.
> 
> -DallanC


That metal roofing is expensive even for scrap. A few years ago I wanted some to cover my patio and found some scrap on Craigslist that came from a old barn. That guy wanted to swap it straight across for some gold bouillon from what the price that he was asking and I think that he was charging extra for the nail holes that were in it.

I ended up buying some from Home Depot and it wasn't too bad of a price.

On copper, I have always been a scrap scrounger for it. But then I worked as a electrician for a few years after I got out of high school and would pick up any and all scrap copper wire that I could find. We did some industrial demolition out in the oil fields and the boss told us that we could either work for wages or scrap value. It took a while but I convinced a couple of others that we would just take the scrap value. As it ended up we made a killing on that job.


----------



## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

I go to the gym with a guy who is in the steel industry and he said that he believes prices are artificially inflated right now and expects a large price drop in the next year. 

He thinks the industry is prepping for a drop by padding their wallets now. 

I’m not sure if he is right or wrong but an interesting perspective nonetheless


----------



## backcountry (May 19, 2016)

Last year took a toll on everything.

Looks like some of the trading sites believe it will drop by upwards of 25% by October if you delay the project. I don't know anything about the industry but it sounds like China and it's practices this last year had a huge impact.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/steel


----------



## taxidermist (Sep 11, 2007)

backcountry said:


> Last year took a toll on everything.
> 
> Looks like some of the trading sites believe it will drop by upwards of 25% by October if you delay the project. I don't know anything about the industry but it sounds like China and it's practices this last year had a huge impact.
> 
> https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/steel


Its sad that our economy rides on the China, India, Korean "scrap metal" they sell us as "prime steel"!

I've been on the docs and ship/barge building companies in the 90s and the steel that flooded the market was terrible! The steel wasn't ISO certified because they couldn't make a product that could be used industry wide. Scabs, inclusions, rolled in scale, wavy plate steel that looked like ocean wave on one side and non uniform thickness all the way through the product.

The NAFTA that Clinton passed through, brought the US Steel industry to a crumble in only 3 years after it was signed.

OK I'm done ranting. I keep going I'll be pissed the rest of the night.


----------



## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

taxidermist said:


> I worked at Geneva Steel for 15 years before the Bankruptcy and closure. I know what it takes to make steel plate/coil. I could purchase plate steel, 3/8"X8'x20' for $250 Floor plate was the same price for 1/4"
> 
> 
> The Chinese purchased the Cranes, Mills, and whatever else they found, for pennies on the dollar. Only thing I got was the "SHAFT".
> ...


Cool place. They did good work.

I would go in there and do 3rd-party shop inspections, mostly plates for big tanks. Last one I did, the order was started when Geneva Steel was open and finished after the mill closed. There were only 2 people at the plant when I released the order to ship. Early 2002, I think. Closing out the order, billing, was kind of a cluster though.


----------



## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

taxidermist said:


> Its sad that our economy rides on the China, India, Korean "scrap metal" they sell us as "prime steel"!
> 
> I've been on the docs and ship/barge building companies in the 90s and the steel that flooded the market was terrible! The steel wasn't ISO certified because they couldn't make a product that could be used industry wide. Scabs, inclusions, rolled in scale, wavy plate steel that looked like ocean wave on one side and non uniform thickness all the way through the product.
> 
> ...


From Wikipedia:
.................................The impetus for a North American free trade zone began with U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who made the idea part of his 1980 presidential campaign. After the signing of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988, the administrations of U.S. president George H. W. Bush, Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney agreed to negotiate what became NAFTA. Each submitted the agreement for ratification in their respective capitals in December 1992, but NAFTA faced significant opposition in both the United States and Canada. All three countries ratified NAFTA in 1993 after the addition of two side agreements, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC).


----------



## Lone_Hunter (Oct 25, 2017)

taxidermist said:


> The NAFTA that Clinton passed through, brought the US Steel industry to a crumble in only 3 years after it was signed.


NAFTA was one of the two ****tiest tricks ever pulled on Americans, by ole "slick willy", and one of the reasons are we are where we are today. Up a creek without a paddle.

I was an Engineer in chairforce during the 90s. I did a lot of construction all over the world. K spans, PEB's, Reinfroced A1 aircraft revetment, I played with A LOT of concrete and Steel. I remember the state of American industry back then, because it was what supplied us with tools and materials. 

After nafta was signed, it was all downhill from there. I still have tools that were made in the USA from the 90's that a still use today. If one is working on old stuff, say travel trailers and what not, you'll find US made parts in them if they were made in the 90's, but NOTHING aftewards. All mexico, canada, or china.

Alot of people who aren't old enough and didn't have experience in the trades during that era have ABSOUTELY no clue, what Nafta did to us as a country. If we went to open war with china, they would clobber us. The same industry that helped win WW2, they now own. My father is a 30+ year machinist, and I know from his industry, all the trade skill is being lost. He's the last of the mohicans in the canning industry He's technically retired, but they keep calling him back in as a consultlant because they can't fix things gone wrong. He made machines that would seal the lids on products with the product already in it. If you've ever drank a can of soda, my dad probably made the machine that sealed that can. That knowledge is being lost. Funny thing is my Dad absolutely can, and has boasted, "If I can't fix it, it can't be fixed." Solved a problem in 2 hours what they beat their heads against the wall for 2 weeks.

This is the state we are declining into. 

Thanks Bill.


----------



## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Ha... anyone remember Ross Perot and his little charts and pointers attempting to explain all of this to the American voters?

-DallanC


----------



## Lone_Hunter (Oct 25, 2017)

edit:
I haven't much good to say about Perot.


----------

