Worn carbide end mills, inserts, dies and high-speed steel tooling accumulate fast in a machine shop, tool room or fabrication workshop across Perth’s industrial precincts. We sort each batch by alloy family at the Malaga yard, weigh it on scale and price each alloy against its own reference.
Tool-room bin · Malaga A tool-room bin rarely holds one material. Solid carbide end mills, coated inserts and high-speed steel drills end up in the same container because they all look the same once they’re worn and pulled off a machine. Priced as one mixed load, the whole bin is valued as the cheapest thing inside it, which usually means the carbide gets priced like high-speed steel.
Kept apart, each material is priced on what it contains. Carbide end mills, inserts and dies are assessed for tungsten and cobalt content against the current market price for tungsten, and high-speed steel is priced against its own reference. Grinding sludge is assessed for the carbide fraction it still holds, drum by drum.
For detail on how carbide inserts are priced, see carbide insert recycling, and for high-speed steel tooling see high-speed steel recycling. If solid carbide and HSS look identical once they’re worn, our carbide identification guide covers density, spark and magnet tests you can run on the bench before you call us.
Whether we provide a bin depends on the relationship, location, material and weight, decided case by case rather than a standard offer. A one-off drill bit bin normally needs more than 2,000 kg to make sense; smaller workshop loads can still be brought to Malaga by appointment or quoted individually. Yard visits and walk-throughs are free, but call ahead or book first, because the team isn’t always on site.
Every quotation we issue states its own expiry on the document itself, either 24 or 72 hours depending on the material and market conditions, so you know how long the number holds.
Tool-room bin · Malaga Whether it’s one tray of inserts or a full tool room clear-out, everything is sorted into one of four streams before it’s priced.
Whether it’s one tray of inserts or a tool room clear-out, the sequence doesn’t change.
Whatever comes off your machine or press, every batch that leaves your workshop gets the same treatment at Malaga.
Every load is weighed on scale at the Malaga yard before it’s priced, so the number you’re paid on matches what’s on the docket.
Carbide, high-speed steel and stainless offcuts are separated by alloy before anything is assessed, so one material never drags down the value of another.
A batch record travels with every collection, listing weight, grade and destination, useful alongside your own workshop quality records.
No cost for the bin, no cost for the freight, it travels back to us on an existing backload. Bins are generally for repeat customers, and the full bin moves on your existing backload rather than on a pickup we run.
Tungsten is a critical mineral with a finite global supply, and most of what a tool room retires is still recoverable alloy. Independent research (Furberg, Arvidsson and Molander, Journal of Cleaner Production 209, 2019) found that recycling metal cuts environmental impacts by 22 to 100 percent depending on the category.
Weight, alloy grade and destination are logged for every collection off your workshop floor, useful documentation to sit behind your own quality and reporting records without you building the audit trail yourself. That matters most on a tool room clear-out, when what leaves the workshop needs accounting for like anything still on the shelf.
Clearing out a tool room or gearing up for a shutdown? Send photos of what’s in the bin and we’ll give you an indicative view of what it’s worth, including how the free bin and freight work.
Malaga, WA · Free bin and freight, on backload · Priced by grade and alloy content
