FOUNDRY SCRAP If you’re not fastidious, forget sourcing the foundry mart

Jan 01, 2008 | 11:03 AM |

Sorting scrap iron and steel is done daily at all scrapyards, but a select few have raised the task almost to the level of an art form the yards that ship ferrous scrap to iron foundries.

The castings makers are among the fussiest scrap buyers. They're not happy with steel mill grade busheling; it has to be black busheling without a zinc coating and many of the tramp elements that steelmakers might deem tolerable for their furnaces. Shredded not only must be low in copper (0.20 percent, much like the material that steel mills buy), but also low in other elements, like manganese and chrome.

Mark Lasky, president/owner of Sadoff & Rudoy Industries LLP, Fond du Lac, Wis., said his company and a few others like it have carved out a niche in the foundry scrap market by sorting carefully, keeping non-conforming material out and giving foundries a tight specification package for the melt. That puts more value-added into the scrap. ....