Carbide value estimator.

Profile your lot

Pick the closest material type, enter the weight, and choose the condition. The estimator profiles the lot into a value tier and tells you what moves the offer in your favor.

What the value tiers mean

The estimator sorts lots into tiers that mirror how processors actually think. Top tier is clean solid carbide — end mills, drills, blanks, rods — high, consistent tungsten content and easy verification. Strong tier covers inserts and indexable tooling plus dies, punches, and wear parts: real value, with coatings and mixed grades handled as a blend. Mid tier is brazed tooling, where value follows the carbide share of the total weight. Lower tier is sludge, swarf, and powder — recoverable, but the most processing-intensive form, sometimes evaluated by laboratory assay. A mixed lot is evaluated as a blend of what is in it. Condition then moves you within the tier: sorted, dry, honestly described lots verify fast and earn the stronger end; dirty, oily, mystery-drum lots carry a verification discount because the buyer prices in the unknown. None of this is a price — it is the shape of the offer before numbers enter the picture. The numbers come from today's market and your specific lot, which is why the last step is always the same: send photos for today's price.

Watch the estimator think

Take a typical tool-room cleanout: a bucket holding about 60 pounds of mixed inserts, some still in labeled packaging, a few loose end mills at the bottom, ordinary shop condition with light coolant residue. Run it through the estimator as a mixed lot at 60 pounds, typical condition. The profile comes back "Blended," and the guidance is immediate: the inserts are strong-tier material, the end mills are top-tier, but blended together they verify as a blend — the end mills' advantage is diluted by the mix. The "what hurts" note flags the coolant residue and the unknown share of grades. Now change one input: imagine the same 60 pounds pre-sorted into inserts and solid tools, wiped down, with the packaging labels kept. Same weight, same material — but the condition input moves to clean and sorted, and suddenly the profile describes two strong lots instead of one blended compromise. That is the whole lesson in miniature: the estimator cannot change what you own, but it shows you exactly where an hour at the workbench moves the needle. The last step never changes either way — photographs, an honest description, and today's price against the current market, not a number from a chart.

What the estimator cannot do

Three things, stated plainly. First, it cannot see your material. A "solid carbide tools" selection assumes actual carbide — if high-speed steel look-alikes are mixed in, the profile is optimistic and verification will correct it downward. Second, it cannot price anything. Tungsten markets move, and every lot's offer reflects the day it is quoted; the optional math box exists only so you can run your own numbers, not so the page can imply ours. Third, it cannot replace the human review. Grade families, coatings, brazed content, and contamination all have edge cases — a bucket of mining buttons is not a bucket of inserts even at the same weight. Treat the profile as orientation: it tells you where your lot sits, what to fix, and what to send. Then send it.

Carbide questions, answered.