Sell Your Carbide Scrap in Highland, 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 fab shops, machine shops, and contractors across Highland.

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 fabrication work — tested by XRF before we quote.

Highland earned its industrial roots the honest way: decades of small manufacturers, fabrication shops, and mechanical contractors doing steady work along Indianapolis Boulevard and in the town’s industrial pockets. These are generational businesses — shops that have been cutting, welding, and machining since before half the new industrial parks in the county were drawn. Fabrication work is hard on tooling, and Highland’s shops generate a constant stream of spent inserts, worn end mills, and dulled drills.

The problem is that most of those shops have no carbide buyer — they have a general scrap yard that treats carbide like just another bucket of mixed metal. A yard that does not grade carbide cannot pay for what it actually is, so the good material gets paid at a blended rate that quietly leaves money on the table. I buy tungsten carbide scrap in Highland directly, test every lot, and pay top-of-market for the grade. Send photos from your shop on the Boulevard 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 Highland, IN?

Yes. We buy tungsten carbide scrap from fabrication shops, manufacturers, and contractors across Highland — 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 Highland, IN?

We run scheduled pickup runs across Northwest Indiana. Send photos and Sonny will tell you when he can be there — Highland is about 58 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 Munster, Griffith, Schererville. See all service areas.