I fairly new to welding, and looking for a cheap supplier of steel (shs, rhs, round tube mild steel). Ideally second hand.
Preferably in the outer east, or south.
A mate recommended finding a big item importer as they after have the packing made out of 25x25 tubing that they don’t want after, but havnt successfully been able to find one.
Any help or direction is greatly appreciated
great advice, really appreciate this. I have been looking out lots around me for hard-rubbish. Mostly wood and old Ikea crap. But sure I'll get lucky soon
Its part luck, but you can raise your chances if you know the right times.
For instance, most people put out their hard rubbish on the weekend. So you drive around sunday evening or monday morning, and you're sure to see things that weren't there on a friday. But even so.. yeah. It is mostly crap. Sometimes you get lucky though. Worth spending half an hour driving around looking imo
I like to tune the welder on a bit of heavy flat steel 3-10mm x 50. Run lines till it sounds and looks good. If it's to high no penetration, To flat to hot, To much splatter turn the wire feed down. porosity in the weld no gas or dirty steel.
6m 50x3 FMS just paid $31 last week
8M 50 x 25 x 1.6 $50 Gal
6.5M 20 x 20 x 1.6 $19 Gal
Brisbane prices
Head to a steel fabricator and ask if you can buy some offcuts. They'll be in better nick than if you go to a scrap merchant (which may be bent/crushed/etc), and probably easier as you can either pick some items from their scrap bins, or they could put some aside for you. Wont be free as there is value in any material as scrap - but will be way cheaper than buying full rate from a steel supplier.
Go to your nearest recycler, take a battery powered grinder with you. Buy it for scrap prices and most times, get better material than you want.
Buying new, everyone buys thin walled sections as its expensive. Opting for thin (1.6mm) thus reduces the pain to a minimum.
Given welding below 2.5mm thick material is hit and miss for beginners, its best to buy thick sections and the scrappers have loads of it
Hard rubbish, esp areas that have a set date for it. If you look past the obvious, there's scrap steel in all sorts of things. A pull out couch will have steel sections. A kids swing set is just RHS steel. BBQ cooking plates are half-inch thick high carbon steel. Expand your search radius and I'm sure you'll find plenty to keep you busy
Ebay/gumtree/facebook. Search via distance, you'd be surprised. I've seen many listings for pickup only for some pile of steel or wood or other strange things.
Steel merchant. These guys buy scrap steel at 20c a kilo, so I'm sure if you went at the right time and offered to pay 5 times that they'd happily sell you a few pieces. You'd have to sort through it, so it's preferable to go at a time when they aren't swinging the crane. Lunchtime or just before knockoff would be my guess
Steel suppliers. These guys sell steel and cut to length, which means they generate a lot of offcuts. They might even give you some for free if you ask nicely, if practising is what you want to do.
Really depends on what you need, and what condition you need it in.