03-20-2009, 08:09 PM
Quote:Silver Lining:The price of metals has dropped dramatically now that industry has come to a crashing halt. My sculptures are costing much less to cast these days.
Hmm, I think that might be true overall, but it's the specifics and regional differences that I want to find out.
On some machining forums I read, aluminum seems to be priced fairly low. Low enough to hear some folks there saying buy stocks now if you can, because the price will go back up once this 'ecomony' picks up. Not sure if they meant paper stocks or actual bar stocks, machinists are usually precise (nyuk nyuk nyuk).
It wasn't that long ago when copper and bronze (probably related because of copper) rose at a ridonkulous rate. To the point of thieves stealing copper pipes and wires, and robbing cemetaries for bronze vases and fixtures. I had to check my eyes when I saw a Home Depot copper pipe elbow that used to cost around 50 cents, jumped to about a $1.50 in less than a week.
One company I know of that machines out boutique products, had to stop producing brass versions of their wares because they can no longer keep up with the cost of material. Now that was maybe a couple of years ago, so perhaps they were just caught in bad timing.
The demand for steel seems to be weak, at least that was the reason given for the layoffs to one plant near my area. Steel prices seems to be lower, which is good news since I am looking for some flat stock 1080 carbon steel. The bad news is, I downgraded my 'looking to buy' to 'just looking for now'. It's actually closer to 'do you have a free scrap bin?'