I recently salvaged some stainless steel running boards, when I took them in expecting to be paid for stainless, they said they were magnetic, therefore not stainless, just worth iron price. Is he correct or did I get screwed?
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I recently salvaged some stainless steel running boards, when I took them in expecting to be paid for stainless, they said they were magnetic, therefore not stainless, just worth iron price. Is he correct or did I get screwed?
thats exactly how my yard grades it too. if its magnetic, they dont offer stainless prices on it. so i mix it in with my iron
same with my yard.
Thanks for the replies, I will know better in the future.
Were there brackets or steel frame/supports on it? Or the actual running board was magnetic?
I was tearing down some restaurant equipment. Initially I thought it was magnetic, but it was catching the steel backing.
A long time ago my scrapper mentioned that if I,
"Found stainless steel, but it was magnetic or very lightly magnetic, keep it separate" & he "would give me a good price for it"
I expect it was, say 50% of the Stainless Steel price (which was higher then) & worth buying in largish lots (100Kg+)
Stainless normally turns up in larger amounts that any nonmagnetic metals & weighs more too.
IdahoScrapper may be right about the steel frame/supports. If that's the case, you were better off removing them before taking them in.
I stripped them completely, even any plastic caps, etc.
That's a bummer. Get a good magnet and use it on everything.
My yard also told me if its magnetic it goes with regular steel. but one time, the same guy gave me a better price on a sink that was *lightly* magnetic and I had removed the brackets too so it wasn't catching those. So, lol, my yard confuses me sometimes but I wasn't complaining as I got better price. Now, this particular sink, when I ran the magnet over it only stuck towards the bottom. I thought it was odd but on the outside of the sink the bottom half had a white type material painted/sprayed on it so I figured maybe that stuff was attracting the magnet. Anyone know what that stuff is?Quote:
Originally Posted by eesakiwi
Was the drain assembly still attached? That might be magnetic.
newattitude- that stuff on the bottom helps to keep it from being so noisy when your running water, it's just some sort of goo and shouldn't be magnetic.
No, the drain was off thats why I wondered if that white stuff was magnetic as it clearly didn't stick on the top half but as I moved it down it lightly *stuck* where the white goo stuff started on the other side. Weird.
When in doubt get out the air chisel. ;)
300 Series Stainless (The kind everyone is talking about when scrapping stainless) is valuable because it contains Nickel. 300 Series is never magnetic. The stainless you had was a 400 Series Stainless. This type of stainless is magnetic and technically has a value slightly higher than regular light iron. The price is so close, however, that every yard I've been to, buys that stainless as light iron. This is the way I purchase stainless as well. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this, so I hope my post clears some things up.
Oh, also with the lightly magnetic stuff, it varies yard to yard. Try to get to know the buyers at your yard and be friendly with them. They will often let a bit of lightly magnetic stainless go by.
At my yard magnetic stainless steel is the same as steel, slightly magnetic then it depends on the guy working the scale. The usually guy, Joe, I know pretty well and he will give me a slightly better price than regular steel. As Err0rX said it really depends on your yard but it never hurts to ask.Quote:
Originally Posted by Err0rX
so then there is Ferrous and non ferrous stainless?
Yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Torker Man
Bring a magnet when checking these things. If there is even one iron bolt on it, they will pay you iron. Make sure all steel is removed to get the stainless price. The reason is they have to pay me to remove your steel and make it clean stainless. I use a plasma cutter, and it gets expensive.Quote:
Originally Posted by rooka21
We have a huge water tank out back that they paid iron for, I cut like 4 water ports out of it and used the plasma to pop some nuts off. We turn it in to out mother-yard and we get paid stainless price. That's called an upgrade.
I think the 'white goo' is probably the protective plastic film thats often on stainless steel sheetmetal.
The sinks are made seperate & the sheetmetal firm welds them into their stainless steel sinktop then grinds down the welds & sands/grinds/polishes the weld down till you can't see the weld from the top.
Bleach 'eats' stainless steel if its left on it long enough, so I found when I noticed tiny holes in my SS frypan, then the sinktop....
I found some stainless steel that i think was welded at some point and it left some rust lookin marks on some of the pieces
Do u still get full price with that on it or do u get a reduced price?
The weld should not affect the price
cool thanks
I thought it was the six series that was magnetic, maybe it is 4 series. Just remember many yards play everyone for a fool. the only difference between 201 ss/304 ss is 4% nickel. Those metal analyzing guns are the cats meow, makes any buyer comfortable in what he's buying. Troy bud you can contaminate stainless buy using a cutoff wheel/grinder on steel and then ss.
The 4 series is definately magnetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by rewire
Troybud... if the stainless is welded check and make sure they never welded it with steel.. If so you will have to cut it off. And the bottom of some sinks have a metallic type of coating.. I have ran into this numerous times when buying stainless at my scrapyard.. I usually let it slide as stainless until the place I sell to complains. Some stainless will even rust if left in the elements too long. and there is a 20-40 cent difference (where I am anyways) between 304 and 316.. If you come across thicker stainless check it out because a lot of 316 stainless is marked on machines. Just rambling on so I will stop lol..
Just a quick tip. Get the magnets out of HDD's (hard disk drives) and use these for all those questionable items. If you don't have access to these, you can find others on ebay. they are neodymium magnets and will be magnetized to any ferrous material.
Rooka 21 Ibuy lots of stuff from auto body shops and sure enough you can have two running brds lok just about alike and yep one is ferrous and one is stainless . I would not have believed it had i not checked with mag.
300 Series Stainless is valuable since it does not contain nickel. It is magnetic but it differs from yard to yard. Stainless steel is one of the most important commercial used high-alloy steel. For better Steel marketing experience visit metallicametals.com .
The last time I asked about it at the yard I go to (which was quite a while ago), they told me that, if they were to buy it as such, the magnetic stainless was worth less than plain old light iron. They told just to not bother separating it.
I got that S/S sink and after removing everything ferrous (brackets, drain...), the main part is some kind of mixed alloy. Some parts are totally non-magnetic and some are lightly magnetic. It is totally random. I guess that yards will say that it is ferrous, because magnet sticks in some spots, but I feel like it is not full 100% right. Around here, dirty or ferrous stainless steel all go with shred. Your opinion?
If you bend stainless 304 it will become magnetic. Thats why some sinks have magnictivity (is that even a word?) where they press the sink part into the flat sheet at the factory. i have bent some SS b4 and it became magnetic and some does not become magnetic. I always sell mine as clean stainless but because of my reputation at the yard they don't even check them.Quote:
Originally Posted by CopperMiner
Plus i learned at the new yard that lightly magnetic SS is considered just a different grade of stainless cause the magnet does a hard pull to steel compared to a slight pull from SS.
Nearly all stainless is faintly magnetic but it's not always obvious. 304 is faintly magnetic as a rule. If you have a magnetic that hangs let it hang very close and you'll see. It's not enough to feel the pulling force, just to see it visually. And like greytruck said it can be become more magnetic in some circumstances. Industry standard is less than 2% ferrous contamination is fine for clean stainless. After all, iron is the larger part of the stainless alloy anyway. Yards that grade it different than that are either doing it wrong - honestly or dishonestly - or they deal with a buyer that grades differently than industry standards (which is possible, for example SA Recycling has Painted Al Sheet and Al Sheet 95% instead of a single Old Sheet category because they do aluminum a little different)