We buy scrap carbide inserts, used, worn and chipped

An indexable insert is the small, replaceable cutting tip that screws or clamps into a steel toolholder on a lathe, mill or drill. When an edge wears, it is turned to a fresh one (indexed); when every edge is spent, it goes in the scrap can.

ITIA, the tungsten industry's association, lists inserts in turning, milling, grooving, threading and drilling, and notes that one tool can carry up to 300 of them. We take every shape: squares, triangles, rhombic (diamond-shaped), rounds, trigons, grooving and parting inserts, threading inserts, with or without a screw hole or chipbreaker.

What makes them worth saving is what they are made of. ITIA writes that insert tooling is designed around easy insert changes and that "the percentage of tungsten in the inserts is very high (typically above 80%)". Most of the rest is the carbon in the carbide and the cobalt binder, which ITIA puts at 3 to 12% in its metal-cutting grades.

Sources: ITIA: Cemented carbides, a success story; ITIA: Recycling of tungsten, part 1.

Chipped, cratered and broken inserts are all fine: wear does not change what an insert is made of. What matters is what they are mixed with.

• Keep them out of the chip bin. Inserts lost in a hopper of steel turnings are carbide nobody gets paid for. Keep a coffee can at each machine.
• Keep high-speed steel apart. In a 2008 newsletter, ITIA said about 95% of high-speed steel goes into machining tools such as drills, taps and milling cutters, and those tools land in the same buckets as your inserts. It carries 1.5 to 20% tungsten against the 80%-plus in a typical insert, so mixing dilutes the bag. We buy high-speed steel scrap too, bagged on its own.
• Check by heft. NTP lists tungsten carbide at a density of 15.6 g/cm³ and NIST lists iron at 7.874, so carbide is roughly twice as heavy as iron of the same size. Our guide Is carbide magnetic? covers other checks.
• Drain the coolant. USGS lists oil among what must come off before zinc reclaiming. Let wet inserts dry on a rag first.
• Bag by type and label it. Heavy zip bags or lidded cans: coated, uncoated, and unsure.
• Leave them whole. ITIA says normal use of tungsten carbide articles is expected to produce little or no exposure. NTP traces the dust to finishing work such as sharpening or grinding, so never crush or grind inserts before shipping.

Sources: ITIA: Tungsten in steel; ITIA: Recycling of tungsten, part 1; NTP Report on Carcinogens: cobalt-tungsten carbide; NIST X-ray mass attenuation tables (densities); USGS Open-File Report 01-349; ITIA: Health and environment.

We do not post a price for scrap inserts, because no single figure fits every lot; each quote starts from your photos, weight and form. The tungsten market moves it. In its Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, USGS reports that the Rotterdam price of APT (ammonium paratungstate, which ITIA calls the main high-purity tungsten intermediate) rose from $331 to $675 per metric ton unit during 2025. Then the lot itself: clean, dry, sorted inserts are a different material from a bucket shared with chips, HSS and holders.

ITIA says recycling rates for cutting inserts in industrial settings already exceed 95%. For the market side, read carbide scrap price.

Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Tungsten; ITIA: Recycling of tungsten, part 2; ITIA: Supply and circularity.