calculating materials cost

[Bigred1o1]

hi can anyone recommend a good web sight to look up various steels to get a good idea as to what a project would cost

i have not found a good sight for just lists of prices for channel and angle and the like by the foot that you can just page through

i have quite a bit of channel and flat stock on hand and recently realized how much prices have gone up and that as a result i have not been charging enough for materials on some projects

 

thanks all

[ThorsHammer82]

you really need to talk to your supplier. There is a big difference between each one. Local vs local, and local vs website. just have list of materials and lengths and they'll be able to tell you the cost on that given day. Prices rise and fall on a daily basis.

[Jim Coke]

Greetings Red,

 

I always priced a job at currant steel prices..   Develop a cut list ... Order you iron in full lengths...   And don't forget to charge for what you draw form your inventory..    When it is all said and done the material is the smallest part of the job...  I always approximated the material cost for a quote because the design seems to change..  

 

Good luck

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

[Bigred1o1]

this is more i have about 45ft of 3x 1 1/2 channel  similar lengths of square 1x1 1 1/2x1 1 1/2  and several hundred feet of flat stock and another 80ft of 1x1 by 1/4 angle

and a lot of other odds and ends i don't need my prices to be perfect but i would like to know that i am charging close to what it will cost me to restock

 

as well my local steel supplier is a 2 man shop and its all still done with hand written price ledgers and I feel bad stopping them from working to run down prices on something i am not going to be buying from them

 

most everything that is not flat stock is hot rolled a36

 

 

 

this was more so i can make up a "shopping list" for a project and have a rough idea as to costs

 

i don't know if that clarify things at all

[ThorsHammer82]

If it's a two man shop, and they are filling orders and such, I'd either email them, or drop off a materials list and just let them know to get it to you when they aren't super busy. If it's a good outfit they'll get back to you in a day or two at the most. but the really good ones will get it to you same day. most of the time it's just a matter of looking at charts. Which isn't that hard of work for them.

[Glenn]

The local steel yard will quote a price only until the next day when their new prices come out. Many folks make this as part of their quote also, price WILL reflect the current price when the client's order is confirmed to the blacksmith. Any difference will be added to the next payment or final check.

 

 

The price quote is for full lengths of stock, not cut material. If you only need 10 feet of material, charge for a 20 foot stick and the rest goes into your stock.  If you need 10 each 12 inch pieces and can pull them from the scrap bin (resource center) charge for a full 20 foot stick of material. The difference helps cover welding rod, electric to run the shop and machines, Ox/Ac gas, broken drill bits, and other items you otherwise would donate to the job.

 

The steel yard charges you for cutting steel, and this can be passed on to the client at $X.xx per cut when you do the cutting.  The steel yard charges you for drilling holes, and this can be passed on to the client at $X.xx per hole when you do the drilling.  This is a cost of doing business for the steel yard and a cost of doing business for you. 

 

Did you remember to charge for picking up the steel in your truck or delivery of the finished product?  What about the plywood to protect the yard or driveway from the delivery truck?

 

The more business you quote, and the more projects you complete, the better you become at making good quotes. Keep excellent notes on each project, counting each inch of steel, each welding rod, each nut, bolt, and washer, and keep track of your time down to the minute. Keep track of the mileage on put on your vehicle.  Everything adds up with the bottom line being the actual cost of the project. Making a quote is done before hand and is your best guess as to the costs, plus labor and (hopefully) a profit.

[Judson Yaggy]

Red, call the guys at Capitol Steel down in Montpelier.  Even if you rarely buy anything from them they have several office people who's job it is to quote prices all day long.  If you are ever down that way they are worth a visit, they sometimes have bundles of steel that got too rusty for the welders that they sell for cheap (but you have to buy the whole lot).  

 

Ever tried to buy steel from across the border?  Must be some big yards up in Sherbrooke. Don't now if NAFTA made it easy or if it's a PITA.

[Bigred1o1]

thanks Judson that's is 2 fantastic bits of info thank you

i was also poking around online once more and found metals depot not that i am going to buy from them but for when doing a rough cost they will be perfect but being able to call Capitol Steel for the real price and knowing that i should putt them on my swing by list is a huge help

 

as for buying across the border its a pain i am 4 miles from the border and I do head up now and then when i am in a rush for a odd sized piece of steel for fixing some piece of farm equipment or another plus the only guy that is any good at rebuilding hydraulic pistons is across the border

now and they you get to have an interesting talk with the border guards over how there is no bill of sale bc i own the piston and was just getting it repaired

[JNewman]

Don't forget to mark up the steel as well.  If you are doing as Glenn says that is a markup.  But if you are using full bars you need to mark it up 10-20% at least.  You need to make a profit on all that inventory you are carrying. 

[Bigred1o1]

thankyou all for your input on this i always forget to put in a markup on materials and it has bitten me in the butt on a few fabrication projects

[SmoothBore]

Locally, steel is sold by the pound, ... and charts that list "pounds per foot" of all the common shapes and sizes, are readily available, online.

 

As long as you know the current price per pound, ... it's quite easy to estimate material costs.

[Prokopto]

It is also helpful to get to know the salesman on a first name basis. I don't mind helping pay for their kid's college I just don't want to pay for all of it. I have been quoted prices by different salesmen on the same day at the same distributor that varied by 100%.

[Frosty]

Steel sells by the lb. depending on shape. Eg. channel costs more per lb. than bar stock. Most shape is sold by the web dimension and lb/ft. Eg. 6" x7lb. channel or 8" x18lb wide flange. (FYI I just picked those numbers for example's sake, I didn't look them up so don't say AH HAH, he's BSing us again!)

 

Most steel suppliers are happy to give you a reference book for shapes, size weight  and engineering data such as tensile, deflection, yield, etc. strengths. If you build much from steel you really need one of these references so a person doesn't grossly overbuild not knowing how much is enough. Most guys I've worked with just build everything twice as heavy as necessary because they don't know how much is enough. A 100% safety margin doesn't sound bad till you realize that using steel twice as heavy as needed is actually a 200% margin and this can get a person into trouble with weight.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Cuerna Verde]

hi can anyone recommend a good web sight to look up various steels to get a good idea as to what a project would cost

 

Red - I use this site for prices and usual shapes and sizes.  - grant

http://www.onlinemetals.com/index.cfm

[rockstar.esq]

Structural steel is sold per the ton here.  I've never sourced anything else.  I built a spreadsheet that takes the beam dimensions and calculates volume which correlates to weight.

 

Build a spreadsheet right and it'll have a single variable for the cost per ton which gets updated on bid day.  

 

In my experience website pricing for materials like steel can be a very difficult thing to trust.  Lots of websites aren't updated regularly.  Some of them are checking cookies before giving you an instant quote.

 

What matters is how much does it really cost to get it placed at your shop?  Unless you're buying from that website, you can't expect that price to have any significant bearing on what your local vendor charges.

[Bigred1o1]

i have a very good relationship with the guys i buy from locally and as a result i did not want to bug the over small stuff i have no problem going to them and saying i need a quote for 20ft of x and 10ft of this but if i am say making 2 strap hinges out of 3 x 1/4 and it will only use 7ft of stock i have on hand i don't want to bother them

they are very good guys and they have no cutting fees as long as you don't abuse them

so they cut up a 20ft 3inch channel into 2ft lengths at no charge

i like working with them and i was trying to find a simple work around for when i was doing basic costs

i think i have that now

part of my goal here as well was being able to punch in what i needed and have a final tally show up on the screen this is handy with the good old internet shopping cart

 

the need for this is i am dyslexic and the fewer times i have to copy numbers the better

 

and yes i realize this will not be perfectly accurate but it is a handy work around for roughing out prices i know the internet can be fickle and can lead me wrong that was why i asked for recommendations as to a good web sight

[Glenn]

Record the weights per foot of the materials you use in a notebook. Locally they just calculate on pounds of steel times the cost per unit of weight.  Check to see if your supplier does the same. If so and it is 50 cents a pound and the 20 foot piece is 40 pounds, you are in for $20. If they go to 45 cents a pound, then the price drops. Easy to calculate. 

[SmoothBore]

 Most guys I've worked with just build everything twice as heavy as necessary because they don't know how much is enough. A 100% safety margin doesn't sound bad till you realize that using steel twice as heavy as needed is actually a 200% margin and this can get a person into trouble with weight.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

As a young, inexperienced Engineer, I had the good fortune to work under an "Old School" Engineering Supervisor.

 

When I questioned the "over Engineering" of the steel, in a fabrication project that He had Me oversee, He explained a few "realities" that don't appear in textbooks.

 

#1 - The cost of the additional steel, amounted to less than 5% of the overall cost of the project.

 

#2 - Try as you will, you can NEVER factor in all the potential variables that might affect the future integrity of the project.

 

#3 - If a failure EVER occurs, the 5% savings will NEVER be credited, ... but YOUR REPUTATION will be forever damaged.

 

 

To elaborate on what that wise man was teaching Me, ... and what I've come to know as true, after 40 years as a Design Engineer ;

 

When you are hired to Design anything, ... you're being chosen, and paid, for your knowledge and experience, as well as your skills.

 

For that reason, you have a responsibility to Design-in load bearing and durability factors, that, on the face of it, often seem extreme.

 

 

As we all know, it's difficult to prove a negarive.

 

The breakdown that didn't occurr, ... the injury that was avoided, ... the longevity of the device's useful life, ... are all things that cannot be accurately quantified.

 

But those aspects of the project, are integral to the initial design and specification of materials.

 

 

Frosty is absolutely correct in pointing out the problems that result from grossly over-speced designs, ... but, lacking the ability to see into the future, ... or to anticipate the actions of others, ... My advice will always be, to build it to last forever, ... or maybe a bit longer.

 

 

*********************************************************************

 

One of my Dad's pet phrases also seems relevant.

 

"It only costs a nickel more, to go First Class."

 

 

 

 

.

[Bigred1o1]

i over build most things that i make for the simple reason that you never know where rust will get in and eat away at an engendered part and cause it to crumple if you over build you have given your project extra meat to deal with the environment and the chance that people will clime on something that was not intended to have people clime on it

on another good example the last set of ramps i build for a trailer were to load  a 55horse JD the next time i saw them in use the tractor had had a bucket added to it and a backhoe attachment on it so it gained a bit of weight

[Frosty]

You have it down cold SmoothBore. I did indeed mean gross ever engineering, as in 2x as much steel as needed actually = 4x the weight.

 

Truth is you can NOT make things fool proof because fools are so inventive. You must allow for folk and conditions, absolutely. I built a 9,000lb flat bed trailer at work for one of the other crews. What they asked for was a 5,000lb. trailer. A while later I get a message, the guy actually sounded proud. They'd crushed it under load. The load? You got it a D-6 dozer, about 36,000lbs.

 

Overbuild, you bet, you have to even if it's just to cover your butt.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[DSW]

i have a very good relationship with the guys i buy from locally and as a result i did not want to bug the over small stuff i have no problem going to them and saying i need a quote for 20ft of x and 10ft of this but if i am say making 2 strap hinges out of 3 x 1/4 and it will only use 7ft of stock i have on hand i don't want to bother them

 

 

It might help to set yourself up either a spread sheet or use a program like Quickbooks to help with things like this. The idea is when you buy material, you note down how much and what  you paid for it. Then it's a bit easier to track and account for what you use and it can give you a rough number to start from when thinking about estimates.

 

I know it's a real pain to do this. I absolutely HATE office work, but I'm finding more and more I really NEED to track all the little sundry things so that I'm not the one paying for stuff like that.

 

I will note one other thing. My small supplier keeps a notebook in the warehouse with the pricing per foot noted. The guys pretty much know me and I usually just say Hi and tell them I need to check some prices and they hand me the book. I'll often note down not only what I need now, but also take a few notes about materials I might need later on for reference. Last time I was there I remember noting that just about any mild steel round or square stock under 5/8" was $1/foot or less, and flat bar 1/4" thick or less under 1 1/4" wide was also $1 or less. That gives me a good rough number to work out an approximate material cost for steel on most small projects. Anything bigger I can get quoted when I need it.

[rockstar.esq]

Frosty's comment about inventive fools reminded me of an old saying.  "Never argue with a fool, they'll bring you down to their level then beat you with experience".

 

BigRed,  Doing stuff by the seat of your pants - risks the seat of your pants.  Estimating, accounting, and scheduling are the tasks that often get treated like an obligation rather than a part of the job.

 

Most graduates of Construction Management want to be Project Managers because they get credit for "building stuff".

 

I genuinely believe that accurate estimating doesn't need to be a miserable way to spend your time.  The hook is that you've got to spend sufficient time to develop a system that will get you what you need.

 

I've refined my technique to the extent that I can now bid five times faster than when I started.  It may sound counter-intuitive but the key is to reduce the amount of information you're recording for each estimate.  

 

Pricing steel by weight reduces your supplier variable to a single number.  Building a spreadsheet that automatically calculates the weight isn't too bad.  As Frosty pointed out - even if they don't think they're doing things by weight - it probably correlates really closely anyway.

At that point you could make a little function that takes their quote for a specific piece of stock and interpolates the cost per pound.

 

Going through the effort to build a spreadsheet that itemizes everything pays dividends when you can use it for a cut list, a proposal, an invoice, and an account statement.  It's really easy to have worksheets in excel that copy the data over into various templates so your client sees only what you want them to see on the printouts..

[Steve Sells]

when I ran my own electrical shop. I hated the estimating the mosts. (ok.. not getting paid on time honked me the most..)

 

I used Quickbooks to help track what I was paying for everytihig.  It pointed out trends in rising costs so I could plan a bit for higher costs for a bid on a job for the next year down the road.  When there was a major jump in a purchace price, or Insurancce costs...  it taggged that for me to notice so I could know to look and see why,  maybe the cost did go up a lot, maybe an employee got it at wrong place? maybe employee is taking too long to run up his labor by forcing me to allow Overtime? (Yes it has happened before) ? I needed to know these things, and the cost of the program was offset the first month I used it. 

 

Did I mention it does taxes for payroll also?

 

I do not own stock in quickbooks, but I had to chime in about its value to me over the past years.

[Bigred1o1]

thank you all for your thoughts and comments

 

there dose seem to be a common trend on this sight though people can ask a simple question and end up getting very complicated responses

 

all i was looking for was if anyone knew of a web sight that had a current prices on steel

 

between blacksmithing on the side and repairing farm equipment there is never three days in a row where i use similar sized stock one day i can be using 1/4 inch square next day it can be 8inch channel

 

today i cut up some 8inch channel to get 2 six foot pieces i needed for some run up ramps for a bridge

 

i pulled some scrap out of the pile and went to work there is no way i would charge new prices for it but a quick ball park check on line would have been nice

 

[SmoothBore]

For what it's worth .....

 

Many years ago, a friend of mine who did Carpentry and re-modeling, told me about the system his Dad had taught him, ... for doing quotes.

 

You take the material cost, times 4 ( M x 4 ) and that covered the labor and profit margin.

 

As long as you factor in enough for materials, ... everything else extrapolates in correct proportion.

 

 

It isn't a perfect system, ... but if you credit back all the time and aggravation you save, over using more complex formulas, ... in the long run, you win.

 

 

 

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