Scrap carbide, in any form

Recyclers split tungsten carbide scrap into two kinds. Hard scrap means solid pieces: inserts, end mills, drills, rod, blanks, dies, wear parts and the tips on saws and rock bits. Soft scrap is what ITIA, the tungsten industry association, lists as "cutting or grinding sludge, sweepings, powders, turnings".

The cards above follow that split. Six cover hard forms, one covers grindings, sludge and powder, and the mixed bucket card is for a lot that all came out of one container.

Carbide still fixed to steel counts too. A brazed lathe tool, a saw blade with its tips on, or a road-milling tooth in its steel body goes under the brazed card or the mining card.

Sources: ITIA: Recycling of tungsten, part 2.

Shape will not settle it. High-speed steel gets made into the same drills, taps, milling cutters and saw blades, and ITIA puts about 95% of all high-speed steel into machining tools like those.

Weight is a better clue. A US government profile lists tungsten carbide at 15.6 grams per cubic centimeter, two measured commercial grades came in at 15.17 and 14.91, and NIST lists pure iron at 7.874. A carbide end mill therefore weighs roughly twice what the same shape in iron would.

We buy high-speed steel scrap as well, so put any doubtful tools in a separate bag and note it on the form. The magnet guide explains what a magnet can and cannot tell you.

Sources: ITIA: Tungsten in steel; NTP Report on Carcinogens: cobalt-tungsten carbide; OSTI: cemented tungsten carbide grades; NIST X-ray mass attenuation tables (densities).

Carbide is our main line, but not the only metal we take. Tungsten heavy alloy, titanium, Inconel and other nickel alloys, Stellite and cobalt alloys, tantalum, niobium, molybdenum and high-speed steel each have a card below. The exotic metals page explains how to keep each alloy separate.