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Photograph your carbide — inserts, end mills, drills, brazed tooling, the whole lot — and text them to 312-880-8174 or use the quote form.
Schererville sits at the center of south Lake County’s growth corridor — new industrial development, expanding business parks, and the trades contractors building them out. New facilities mean new machine shops and fab operations burning through carbide inserts, end mills, and drills from day one. Ironcrest is about 65 miles away, roughly an hour-plus drive from our shop in Rolling Meadows — we make scheduled pickup runs across Northwest Indiana, so text a photo to 312-880-8174 for today’s number.
UPDATED OCTOBER 2026
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.
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.
Dull or broken solid-carbide end mills, drills, reamers, and burrs from machine shops, fab shops, and contractors across Schererville.
Carbide-tipped saw blades, router bits, brazed lathe tools, and mining buttons — the steel body stays on, we grade what is brazed to it.
Wet or dry carbide grinding sludge and dust from tool-and-cutter grinding. We sample it properly and pay on actual recovered content.
Balance weights, counterweights, and heavy-alloy chunks from industrial and construction-adjacent work — tested by XRF before we quote.
South Lake County is growing fast, and Schererville is the corridor it is growing along. New business parks and industrial development keep landing here, and the trades contractors serving that growth — fab shops setting up, mechanical crews, machine shops outfitting new space — are working at full speed. New shops mean new tooling budgets, and new tooling budgets mean spent carbide inserts, end mills, and drills accumulating from the first week of operation.
That is where a carbide specialist earns his keep. The yards around a growth corridor pay blended mixed-metal rates that treat clean inserts like ordinary scrap, and a busy contractor has better things to do than argue with a scale house. I buy tungsten carbide scrap in Schererville directly, grade it properly, and pay top-of-market for what it actually is — one texted photo, one firm number, no runaround. Send photos from your shop, park, or job site, get today’s number, 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.
Yes. We buy tungsten carbide scrap from machine shops, contractors, and industrial firms across Schererville — 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.
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.
We run scheduled pickup runs across Northwest Indiana. Send photos and Sonny will tell you when he can be there — Schererville is about 65 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.
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.
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, Dyer, St. John. See all service areas.
Photograph your carbide — inserts, end mills, drills, brazed tooling, the whole lot — and text them to 312-880-8174 or use the quote form.
Sonny reviews the photos, grades the material, and gives you a firm number for today — no vague ranges, no games.
We will schedule your material onto our next Northwest Indiana pickup run, or you can mail it in with a prepaid label — fast pay either way.
Send photos, get a firm number today — or call 312-880-8174.