Sell Your Carbide Scrap in Griffith, Indiana

Our carbide buying program covers every form of tungsten carbide scrap. When you are ready to sell, read how carbide pricing works — then text a photo to 312-880-8174 for today’s firm number.

Carbide inserts

Spent indexable inserts from lathes, mills, and CNC centers — the single most common carbide scrap we buy. Sorted or mixed, coated or uncoated, any quantity.

End mills and drills

Dull or broken solid-carbide end mills, drills, reamers, and burrs from Griffith’s machine shops, repair shops, and small manufacturers.

Brazed tooling

Carbide-tipped saw blades, router bits, brazed lathe tools, and mining buttons — the steel body stays on, we grade what is brazed to it.

Grinding sludge

Wet or dry carbide grinding sludge and dust from tool-and-cutter grinding. We sample it properly and pay on actual recovered content.

Tungsten heavy alloy

Balance weights, counterweights, and heavy-alloy chunks from industrial and rail-shop work — tested by XRF before we quote.

Griffith exists because the railroads came first — at one point five lines crossed here, and the town quite literally grew up around the tracks. That rail history left something lasting: rail-adjacent industry, repair shops, and small manufacturers that set up along the corridors and never left. Machine work near the rails — wheel shops, fab work, maintenance machining — is hard on tooling, and the inserts, end mills, and drills it consumes end up in buckets and drums across town.

The problem is that Griffith’s shops rarely have a real carbide buyer. The local options pay mixed-scrap rates that treat high-grade inserts like low-grade brazed tips, because grading carbide was never their business. I buy tungsten carbide scrap in Griffith directly, test every lot for actual tungsten and cobalt content, and pay top-of-market for the grade. Send photos from your shop near the old corridors or anywhere in town, get a firm number today, and I will fold your pickup into our next scheduled Northwest Indiana run.

A general scrap yard handles everything from cars to copper, so carbide usually lands in a mixed bucket and gets paid like one — a flat, low blended rate that treats high-grade inserts the same as low-grade brazed tips. The yard is not being dishonest; carbide just is not their business, so they price for what they do not know.

Carbide is my business. I test every lot with an XRF analyzer — a handheld scanner that reads the actual tungsten and cobalt content of your carbide — instead of eyeballing it or pricing it like ordinary scrap. Clean inserts grade higher than brazed tooling, heavy alloy grades on its own scale, and sludge gets sampled for real content. That is the difference between a guess and a grade, and it is why graded carbide brings top-of-market while a blended bucket rate leaves money on the table.

I am Sonny. I run Ironcrest Industrial Surplus out of Rolling Meadows, and when you text photos of your carbide, I look at them myself — not a dispatcher, not a call center, not a junior buyer working off a chart. One owner, one phone number, no middlemen, and the number I give you is the number I pay.

That matters on carbide, because grades matter and mistakes cost money. I would rather ask you one extra question about your lot than quote it wrong. Text your photos to 312-880-8174 and you will hear back from me directly — usually the same day.

Do you buy carbide scrap in Griffith, IN?

Yes. We buy tungsten carbide scrap from machine shops, manufacturers, and rail-adjacent shops across Griffith — inserts, end mills, drills, brazed tooling, and heavy alloy. Text photos to 312-880-8174 and we will grade it and give you today’s firm number.

How do I get today’s number for my carbide?

Text a photo of your material to 312-880-8174. Sonny reviews every photo himself, identifies the grade, and tells you what we are paying today. My price is published right on this page: a firm $18–$20 a pound for clean, sorted tungsten carbide inserts, end mills, and drills. The national buyer boards pay $8–$15 a pound — scrap yards are not paying a fair price, and I pay way more than the national average. You watch the digital scale, and you are paid within 24–48 hours.

Do you pick up carbide in Griffith, IN?

We run scheduled pickup runs across Northwest Indiana. Send photos and Sonny will tell you when he can be there — Griffith is about 55 miles from our shop in Rolling Meadows, so your material rides on the next NWI route. Smaller lots can also mail in with a prepaid label.

How is carbide scrap graded?

Carbide is graded by its tungsten and cobalt content. We test lots with an XRF analyzer that reads the actual metal content, then pay top-of-market for the grade instead of a blended general-yard rate.

How do I know my tooling is real carbide?

Real carbide is noticeably heavier and harder than steel and behaves differently under a grinder than high-speed steel. Our guide walks through the simple checks: how to spot real tungsten carbide.

Based in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, we buy tungsten carbide scrap across Northwest Indiana, including Highland, Merrillville, Schererville. See all service areas.