Steel prices. Anyone know of a web site with std size and gage pricing?

admin

specifically looking for 16 and 18 guage 1" steel tubing prices.  per foot?  Is there a geographical price diff thruoghout the nation?  i know i can just call a supplier, but i wondered if there was a site giving standard appx prices of steel.  thanks
Reply:I'm far from an expert on 'online' pricing, but I sure wouldn't rely on anything I found online to be used for budget purposes. Prices vary a lot from local to local, the amount of supply vs local competition, quantities you buy in and a whole bunch of other things. The do sell box by the foot and you are really paying much more for the process labor than you are for the steel itself. Small thinner tubing costs a lot more per pound than the thicker. Then there appears to be huge penalties for cut lengths and other conveniences. I go to a regular down and dirty steel supply place, old section of town, fork lifts, helter skelter parking, scratching, spitting, cussin, dirty, noisy, leave the women and kids at home place, my kinda place, I love it. You get regular pricing that way. Go to some nice clean big box store and you're gonna pay through the nose.Another thing I do is a conversion from per foot anything to 'by the pound' average. Then do a 'high/low' thing for thick or thin. It works pretty fair. Your 1" thin guage box is going to run close to a buck a pound. Thick 2" by qtr wall wil be maybe 67 cents a pound. I just bought 89 pounds of 1 1/4, some .072 wall and some .095 wall, box plus flat strap and some qtr inch round yesterday. It came out as 85 cents a pound. About what I expected with the fuel increase and all. An example of the penalty for convenience is the flat strap and round stock I picked up. If you went to a hardware store and bought a 3 ft stick of 1" by 1/8th" flat stock you'd pay maybe $3 (???). At the steel supply you'd get 20 feet for $6. What would you pay for walking in and out quick with a 3 ft stick of 1/4" round stock?? At the steel supply I paid $4 for a 20 ft stick..
Reply:Sandy thanks for the reply and insight.  i ended up calling the local recycling center and they have a yard that you can pick through.  $0.40/lb.  and there are a couple of "leave the woman and kids home" type of places i found in the phone book that happen to be on my way home from work.  are round and square tubing roughly the same price?  thanks again.
Reply:You're lucky with that scrapyard.  None that I know of around my neck of the woods (GA) will let you touch a piece of scrap in thier yard.  Too much liability.Smithboy...if it ain't broke, you ain't tryin'.
Reply:are round and square tubing roughly the same price? thanks again.
Reply:DOM??
Reply:DOM, Drawn Over Mandrel. Provides for nice even roundness, dimensions, and wall thickness. Nice stuff, just pricey.