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How to sell scrap carbide to us
Here is how to sell scrap carbide to us: fill in the five short steps on the quote page, get a quote back, then ship the lot to us (we pay the shipping) or have us pick it up anywhere in California, Arizona or Nevada. Each step is below, with what helps at it.
The quote form, one step at a time
The form on the quote page has five parts. None of them needs a scale accurate to the ounce or a grade chart.
- What form is it in. Tick every picture that matches: inserts, end mills and drills, rods and blanks, brazed tools and saw tips, dies and wear parts, mining and road bits, grindings and sludge, or mixed carbide. A bucket holding three of those gets three ticks. If titanium, Inconel or another alloy is coming too, tick Exotic metals and type what it is.
- About how much. A weight in pounds or kilograms, or a count of containers if you have no scale. Two coffee cans and a half-full bucket is a perfectly usable answer.
- Photos. Up to six, straight from your phone. The next section covers which shots help us most.
- Ship it or have us pick up. Choose one, then give your city, state and ZIP. Pickup covers California, Arizona and Nevada; from anywhere else, you ship.
- How to reach you. Your name and phone number, plus email if you would rather hear back that way. A company name is optional. Use the notes box for anything you already know: grades, coated or uncoated, how it is packed, whether some of it is still brazed to steel.
If you would rather talk it through, call (877) 838-9920 or email the photos to help@carbidebuyerusa.com. The line takes calls, not texts.
What makes a good photo of scrap carbide
We quote from what the pictures show, so three sharp photos do more for you than a dozen blurry ones.
- One wide shot of the whole lot, in its buckets, cans or boxes, so the size of it is plain.
- Two or three close-ups of a handful of pieces spread out on a bench or a sheet of cardboard. Fill the frame with them.
- Something for scale beside the close-ups: a tape measure, a pen or a coin.
- Daylight or bright shop light. Turn the flash off if it throws glare across the inserts.
- The awkward pieces: tools brazed to a steel shank, saw blades with the tips still on, and anything you are not sure is carbide at all.
- Sludge and grindings in their container, lid off, so we can see how wet the material is and whether liquid is standing on top.
Coatings show up well in a close photo. TiN, a common one, is gold-colored, and ITIA (the tungsten industry association) says more than 80% of turning inserts and about 70% of milling inserts are coated, so expect most of a bucket of used inserts to be coated. ITIA also notes that coatings and solders have to be removed before carbide is reprocessed, which is why coated or uncoated is worth a line in your notes.
Shape alone does not prove a tool is carbide. ITIA says about 95% of high-speed steel goes into machining tools such as drills, taps and milling cutters, the same shapes carbide comes in. If you cannot tell, photograph the doubtful pieces apart from the rest and say so; our guide to telling carbide from steel walks through the clues.
Sources: ITIA: Cemented carbides; ITIA: Recycling of tungsten, part 2; ITIA: Tungsten in steel.
A weight estimate that is close enough
A rough weight is enough for a first number. Three ways to get one without a platform scale:
- The bathroom scale. Step on holding the bucket, step on again without it, and subtract.
- Count the containers. Name them (coffee can, five-gallon bucket, drum, a pallet of boxes) and say roughly how full each one is.
- Weigh one, count the rest. If the lot sits in boxes of about the same size, one weighed box times the number of boxes gets you close.
Say whether your figure is a guess or a scale reading. Either is fine; we just want to know which one we are looking at.
Expect carbide to be heavier than it looks. A US government (NTP) table lists the density of tungsten carbide at 15.6, while NIST puts pure iron at 7.874 g/cm3, so tungsten carbide weighs roughly twice what the same volume of iron does. Lift with your legs, and never fill a bucket past what you can carry.
Leave pieces whole while you weigh and pack them. OSHA says breathing cobalt dust can scar the lungs and sensitize the airways and skin, and it ties lung disease to workers making or grinding tungsten carbide tools. Cutting a tool down to fit a box is not worth that dust.
If you plan to ship, the weight also shows how many boxes the lot will take: the USPS mail standards say no mailpiece may weigh more than 70 pounds, outside a few listed exceptions. Box strength and packing are on the shipping page.
Sources: NTP: Cobalt-tungsten carbide profile; NIST: Table 1, element densities; OSHA: Cobalt dust; USPS DMM 201.
After the quote: ship it, or we pick it up
Ship it to us from any state
Sellers anywhere in the United States can send their carbide to us, and we pay the shipping. Pack it in strong boxes, keep each one to a weight you can lift, and bag sorted material separately so it arrives the way you sorted it.
Box strength, carrier weight limits and pallets for the bigger lots are all on Ship your scrap.
Pickup in every city in California, Arizona and Nevada
In those three states we come to you: a machine shop, a yard, a garage or a job site, in the big metros and the small towns alike. Use the notes box to tell us where the material sits and how we get to it, such as stairs, a loading dock or a forklift on site.
The pickup page has the coverage map, with a page each for California, Arizona and Nevada. Outside those three states, shipping is how you sell to us.
Getting paid in cash, where state law allows
We pay cash where state law allows it. Two of our three pickup states limit cash on larger scrap metal sales, so here is what each law says.
- California. The rule that payment be a check mailed to the seller, or cash or a check collected on or after the third business day, applies to nonferrous material, which that section defines as copper, copper alloys, stainless steel or aluminum. That definition leaves out carbide and tungsten, and the exotics such as titanium, nickel and cobalt with them. California’s general record and ID rules still cover scrap metal purchases as a whole.
- Arizona. A scrap metal sale of $300 or more may not be paid on site at the time of the transaction; payment is a check or money order mailed to the address on your ID. A sale over $100 is held for seven days after the dealer files its report, and a seller may take part in no more than one cash transaction a day. Industrial accounts, which include businesses that file monthly transaction privilege tax returns and can be expected to generate the scrap they sell, are exempt from that hold, and from the mailed-payment rule if they preregister their authorized sellers each year.
- Nevada. A scrap metal purchase of $150 or more is paid only by check or electronic transfer, and a check to a business seller is made out to the business. The statute’s definition of scrap metal does not name carbide or tungsten, and we do not promise cash in Nevada at $150 or more.
Sellers who ship from other states can ask how payment works for their lot when we send the quote.
Sources: California AB 1508 (Chapter 531, Statutes of 2012); California Attorney General Information Bulletin 2025-DLE-12; Arizona Revised Statutes 44-1641; Arizona Revised Statutes 44-1642; Arizona Revised Statutes 44-1644; Nevada Revised Statutes chapter 647.
What a seller is asked to show under state law
In all three states the scrap metal law puts the record-keeping on the buyer, and the record includes who sold the material. At a pickup, have these ready.
- Photo ID. California records your name and a method of identification such as a driver’s license or state ID card. Arizona takes a photocopy of a current driver license, nonoperating ID license, or tribal or US military photo ID. Nevada keeps a copy of a state or territory ID card or driver’s license, a US military ID, or another accepted form of ID.
- A photo of you and a fingerprint. Arizona and Nevada buyers record a photograph or video of the seller and the right index fingerprint.
- A statement that the material is yours. California’s record includes a statement that the seller owns it, or the name of the person it came from. As the Senate Public Safety Committee describes it, a 2025 law (AB 476) has the seller sign that statement with a legal name, date of birth and home address.
- A description and a weight. Arizona and Nevada buyers record what the scrap is and what it weighs, and hand the seller a receipt showing both. Those are the same details the quote form asks for, though the law governs the sale, not the form.
- Your age, in Arizona. Sellers there must be at least 16.
Business sellers have their own exceptions in California and Arizona. The full list, statute by statute, is in our guide to scrap metal rules in California, Arizona and Nevada.
Sources: California Attorney General Information Bulletin 2025-DLE-12; California Attorney General: Secondhand dealer and pawnbroker laws; California Assembly Business and Professions Committee, 2025 bill summary; California Senate Public Safety analysis of AB 476; Arizona Revised Statutes 44-1642; Nevada Revised Statutes chapter 647.
Questions sellers ask
How do I get a carbide scrap quote without the online form?
Call (877) 838-9920 or email photos and a rough weight to help@carbidebuyerusa.com. Tell us what form the carbide is in and whether you want to ship it or have us pick it up.
Do I need to know the grade or the cobalt content?
No. The form, the photos and the weight are enough to quote from. If old boxes, labels or paperwork show the grades, put them in the notes.
Can one quote cover a mixed bucket and some exotic metal?
Yes. Tick every carbide form in the bucket, tick Exotic metals and type the alloy, such as Inconel turnings or titanium solids. Keeping each kind in its own bag helps, and the sorting guide shows how to split a lot.
Should I break pieces up so they pack smaller?
No. Leave them whole and send them as they are. If something is too big for a box, describe its size in the notes instead of cutting it.
Do you pick up outside California, Arizona and Nevada?
No. Pickup is only in those three states, and there it reaches every city. From the rest of the country you ship the carbide to us, and we pay the shipping.
Keep reading
Get a quote
What form, how much, a few photos
Learn more
Ship your scrap
Ship from anywhere in the US; we pay the shipping
Learn more
Pickup
We come to you anywhere in California, Arizona and Nevada
Learn moreSell carbide scrap
Ship it to us from anywhere in the US, or we pick up in CA, AZ and NV
Learn more
Scrap metal rules in CA, AZ and NV
What the state laws ask of sellers: ID, records and payment
Learn more
How to sort carbide scrap
Keep it clean and separated to get the most for it
Learn moreGet a quote for your carbide
Tell us what form it is in, about how much it weighs, and send a few photos. Ship it to us from anywhere in the US and we pay the shipping, or we pick up in California, Arizona and Nevada.