Printable View
In someone else's thread I posted that I thought Trump's presidency would improve the scrap market. The direction the thread took was talking about the metal needed for the border wall would be small. I responded that I believed additional foundries would be created in the middle of the country to support his infrastructure plans. Now a whole new twist might take place.
White House considers new executive order targeting unfair product dumping
This has been the major theme since he entered the race. I hope with all this time he has the time to figure out the best way to
Personally I am against restricting imports in many ways. History tells that restricting trade has caused retaliations from those countries. In the past this has caused world wide trade restrictions. These restrictions can/will/has cause recessions throughout these same countries.
Of course China has been dumping steel in the US for decades and that's a different story. Dumping means the government of a country pays the manufacture money so they can sell a product for less than it costs to manufacture and ship. In China's case the government owns the steel industry and needs to keep their citizens employed. This also keeps a huge steel manufacturing base up and working in case they need to build a lot of stuff out of steel. I believe this is why China dumps the steel in the US.
In my history, I'm 63, the US steel did not up date the steel plants until the last couple of decades. The failure to upgrade and update these steel plants caused the US steel industry to fall behind. Now with the building of the "mini mills" we have regained some of our abilities in the steel industry.
My thought over all is we are better off if we can win through being better and more competitive. Some of the real change could come from getting rid of the bad restrictions we have on our businesses. This is an area that the new president seemed to have been working on.
For those who are younger or perhaps missed out on President Reagan's presidency may not realize the long lasting positive effects of tax cuts and reductions in regulations. Off my soap box and back to breaking down towers. 73, Mike
I have to agree with everything you pointed out and have to add part of our scrap metal bubble a few years back was the result of China building it's ghost cities. I still believe we will have more foundries in the Midwest as a result of repairing the infrastructure.Quote:
Originally Posted by miked
There is definitely an awakening of a sleeping industry happening. Locally to me the copper smelting plant north of Menasha is currently undergoing retrofitting with plans to reopen their doors for the first time since the 90s. MetalTek has added a third shift, again first time since 2002. It even looks like the shelved iron mine project up north is going to be back on the ballet this summer. There is ALOT more energy surrounding it now than there was two years ago when they struck it down.
Familiar as I am with materials of all sorts i can tell you it is not the WALL that we need steel but the roads. A single interchange can use 55,000 tons of steel. Now...some of you might know that these days rebar can be made out of glass reinforced nylon as well. Why is this a good thing? Well, back in the day (80s, 90s?) you could recycle vinyl and nylon and they both paid about as well as stainless steel. The plastics industry is due for a good boost.
What does this mean long term? Say...over the next ten years?
Immediately a new Chinese trade deal could lower our sold goods prices...not so much sheet iron or aluminum but certainly copper, PCBs, all manners of electronics...probably plastics too. So what now? Well, right away you should look carefully that whom you deal with, where the material goes and have some expectations for prices to swing one way or the other. In laymans terms it's simple, if you are lucky to be selling high, top tier stuff on your not so top tier material, expect those deals to end soon. Likely the Chinese will want to buckle down on bulk shipment values, meaning they may ask for things to be of higher overall value or require they be stripped a certain way, possibly ground down. Certainly going to affect copper price over the coming months, something like 40% of the market is immediate exports anyways.
That's my take, could be completely wrong but it doesnt hurt to shift gears and contact your alternative outlets should exports be hurt significantly.
Making a wall from the used shipping containers left over from importing crap Chinese goods?
I think 'the wall' is theoretical, and wonder if Trump saying "Bring back manufacturing to America" means 'America' in general.
Ie, use cheap labour in Mexico yo make the cheap goods that China does right now.
That means investment opportunity's for USA, with a profit being made from the money which must be borrowed to invest, this meaning more money about and greater incomes and chances for the average US American.
More money invested into Mexico means greater US involvement and governing in Mexico and a better chance for the average Mexican.
Meanwhile, China still makes the stuff it does, but exports it to the rest of the world instead, keeping its value low to the advantage of everyone else.
Its a big hard to try and guess what's happening over there from lil 'ol NZ,
Things have not been to bad for us here really, we missed a lot of the downturns & enjoy a good minimum wage of NZ$15.50/hr (US$1 = NZ$0.75cents, with free healthcare and a good welfare system.
As a civil engineer that deals with bridges on a daily basis, I don't see fiberglass rebar taking over the market. While it does have some advantages over steel, it is a brittle matrial, as oppose to a ductile material. In other words, a failure is sudden, without warning. If you were to put s piece of fiber rebar in a tension test. You would not see much before failure, whereas steel would start to stretch and neck down.Quote:
Originally Posted by armygreywolf
now that's an idea. stack shipping containers like bricks, 2 high. fill with cement. hell, fill with used tires, then use cement to fill the gaps in the tires. nice cheap wall, and gets rid of god knows how many used tires...Quote:
Originally Posted by eesakiwi
Yea, fiberglass rebar is garbage, im referring to glass fiber reinforced nylon. Most resin based fiberglass rebar has little to no shear or compressive strength. It's tensile strength is not comparable by dimension, but more so by weight, makgin the rebar bulky and impossible to use effectively. I have however used it in driveways and stuff, works fine for that. I wouldnt suggest fiberglass taking anything over, however engineered materials using waste plastics or reformulations may very well do just that. Already starting to see 5 AND 10% ABS granules in concrete mixes because it is effectively as free as sand right now. At those low percentages it doesnt compromise the concrete in any way.
FRPC Rebar, it is a extreme tension material not a compressive or shear. It's use would be under tension, such as tie in wrapping. Also a new material on the market is aramid fiber reinforced plastic (generalization for plastic its either going to be nylon or polyethylene). This last one is already in use on repair work, why? Because it's one of the few nonreactive materials that can be used on a repair job, strapping job or in some cases cabling. It is effectively stronger than steel by dimension and about 1/3rd the weight, current uses include winch cable and light weight add on armor for military vehicles. best uses are subsurface, salt water environments or in buildings where they may be subjected to corrosive environments. Another use is in reinforced buildings for storm shelters or...even bomb shelters as FRPC can maintain it's integrity even if the concrete is largerly compromised.
We have done fiber reinforced wraps on pier columns and pier caps.Quote:
Originally Posted by armygreywolf