Ferrous, Grade Information
Mixed Tool Steel
High-speed steel drill bits, end mills, taps, dies, reamers and broken cutting tooling. M2, M3, M42, T1, T2 and the rest — pays far more than ordinary ferrous because of the tungsten, molybdenum, vanadium and cobalt content.
Mixed tool steel in at our Sheffield depot — drill bits, end mills, reamers and broken cutters from a regional engineering customer.
What Tool Steel Actually Is
Tool steel is not one alloy but a whole family of them — carbon and alloy steels engineered specifically to make the tools that make everything else. Drill bits, milling cutters, taps, dies, punches, broaches, lathe tools, shear blades, plastic injection moulds, forging dies. What links the family together is a set of properties ordinary structural steel can't deliver: extreme hardness once hardened and tempered (often above 65 HRC), the ability to keep that hardness at red-hot temperatures during cutting, dimensional stability through heat treatment, and resistance to abrasion and chipping. To get those properties, tool steels are alloyed with significant percentages of tungsten, molybdenum, chromium, vanadium, cobalt, and sometimes nickel — every one of which is far more expensive than the iron that makes up the bulk of the steel. That alloy content is also what makes mixed tool steel a much better scrap grade than ordinary ferrous. It pays multiples of standard steel per tonne.
The AISI Categories — A Quick Tour
The American Iron and Steel Institute classification is the universal shorthand for tool steel grades, used by every UK toolroom, every machine shop, and every scrap yard that handles the material. The categories are denoted by a single letter, followed by a number. Knowing the letter usually tells you roughly what the steel does. M-series are molybdenum high-speed steels — M2, M3, M4, M7, M42, M50. These are the modern workhorses of cutting tooling, used in everything from £5 hardware-shop drill bits to expensive industrial milling cutters. T-series are tungsten high-speed steels — T1, T2, T4, T15. Older specifications that were the standard before molybdenum largely displaced tungsten in HSS, but T1 (the classic 18-4-1 alloy: 18% tungsten, 4% chromium, 1% vanadium) and T15 are still produced for premium applications. D-series are high-carbon, high-chromium cold-work tool steels. H-series are hot-work tool steels for die casting and forging. O-series and A-series are cold-work tool steels for press tooling. S-series are shock-resisting steels for chisels and punches. P-series are plastic mould steels. All of them turn up in a mixed tool steel skip.
The Common Grades You'll See in a Skip
By volume, the grade we see most often is M2 — the standard high-speed steel for drill bits, taps, reamers, hacksaw blades, and general-purpose cutting tools. M2 is roughly 6% tungsten, 5% molybdenum, 4% chromium, 2% vanadium, and 0.85% carbon. It accounts for the largest share of HSS production globally and probably 60–70% of the mixed tool steel coming through our gates. M3 is a higher-vanadium variant for harder-wearing applications. M42 is the premium grade — 8% cobalt, 9.5% molybdenum — instantly recognisable to engineers as the gold-coloured "cobalt" drill bits sold for stainless steel and other tough materials. M42 pays at the top of the tool steel scale because cobalt alone is one of the more expensive industrial metals. T1 and T2 are the tungsten HSS classics — heavy, dense bits often from older machine shops. We also routinely see M23, F25, and various European DIN-equivalent grades from imported tooling. For a mixed load coming into a scrap yard, individual grade identification is normally impractical — the load is priced as mixed tool steel on the assumption of average HSS alloy content.
How to Recognise Tool Steel
A few quick checks separate tool steel from ordinary steel scrap. First, weight in the hand. Tool steel is dense — a 12mm HSS drill bit weighs noticeably more than the same-sized mild steel rod, because tungsten and molybdenum are heavier than iron. Second, the shape and finish. Drill bits, end mills, taps, dies, reamers — these are precision-ground items with helical flutes, cutting edges, or geometric form. They don't look like structural steel. Third, the markings. Most quality HSS tooling is laser-etched or stamped with the grade designation — "HSS", "HSS-Co" (cobalt), "HSSE", "M2", "M42", or sometimes manufacturer-specific codes. Fourth, the spark test, which yards occasionally use for verification. Tool steel throws a characteristic short, dense, dark-orange spark stream with multiple bursts at the tip — distinct from mild steel's long bright yellow sparks. The simplest rule: if it was made to cut, drill, mill, tap, or form metal, it's almost certainly tool steel.
Where Tool Steel Scrap Comes From
Engineering workshops are the largest source. Every CNC machining shop, toolroom, and production engineering business goes through cutting tools at a steady rate — drill bits dull, end mills chip, taps break, inserts wear out. The broken and worn tooling accumulates in a skip or barrel until it's worth a trip to the scrap yard. Tool and die makers generate higher-value material because their work involves larger, heavier tool steel components. CNC machining centres can consume hundreds of pounds of tooling per month on a busy production line, especially in aerospace, automotive, or precision medical work where part tolerances are tight and cutters are replaced before they wear visibly. Sharpening services that re-grind drill bits and milling cutters reach a point where the tool is too short to reuse — those go for scrap. Tool resellers and engineering suppliers occasionally clear obsolete stock. Demolition of older factories sometimes uncovers entire toolroom inventories. We also see hobbyist machinists and home workshop clearances bringing in respectable quantities now and again. The image at the top of this page was taken at our Sheffield depot — a regional engineering customer's tool steel skip, drill bits and milling cutters predominating, with the larger pieces being broken end mills and a worn-out shell mill.
Why It Pays More Than Regular Steel
The headline numbers tell the story. Mixed tool steel typically pays in the £500–£900 per tonne range at UK scrap yards — several times the £150–£200 per tonne that ordinary heavy steel commands. The reason is the alloy content. A tonne of M2 contains roughly 60kg of tungsten, 50kg of molybdenum, 40kg of chromium, and 20kg of vanadium. At late-2025 prices that alloy load alone is worth in the order of £1,500–£2,500 to a specialist alloy steel mill, before counting the iron. The yard price reflects a discount for the cost of sorting, transporting, and remelting, plus the practical reality that a mixed load contains lower-alloy grades alongside the premium ones. Loads that have been pre-sorted by grade — pure M42 cobalt drill bits, for instance, separated out from a general HSS skip — can pay considerably more. Yards with the volume to justify proper alloy testing will sometimes pay grade-specific rates on identifiable loads of M42, T15, or other premium grades.
How Tool Steel Is Remanufactured
Tool steel scrap is bought by specialist alloy steel mills and ferro-alloy producers because of the recoverable tungsten, molybdenum, cobalt, and vanadium content. After yard weighing and verification (sometimes including XRF testing on suspect loads), bales of mixed tool steel are sent to mills equipped for high-alloy melt. The material is charged into an electric arc furnace alongside iron units and selected alloy additions, then refined in an argon-oxygen decarburisation (AOD) vessel or ladle furnace to hit the target chemistry for a new heat of HSS or tool steel. The tungsten, molybdenum, cobalt and vanadium are not "burnt off" — they survive the melt and become the alloy content of the new steel. This is why tool steel scrap is genuinely circular: a worn-out M2 drill bit can come back as a new M2 drill bit within months, with the expensive alloy elements never leaving the loop. UK alloy mills no longer make HSS in volume — most HSS scrap is exported to specialist producers in Italy (Cogne Acciai Speciali), Sweden (Erasteel), Austria (Voestalpine BÖHLER), and Asia.
Price Trend & Outlook
Tool steel scrap prices are driven primarily by the tungsten and molybdenum markets rather than by carbon steel. Both metals have been on a generally rising trend through 2021–2026. Tungsten APT (ammonium paratungstate, the trade benchmark) has moved from around $260/mtu in 2021 to over $400/mtu in early 2026, with China's dominance of supply and Western reshoring of critical mineral supply chains both supporting prices. Molybdenum oxide has been even more volatile, swinging from below $10/lb in 2021 to over $35/lb in 2023 and settling in the $20–$25 range through 2025. Cobalt prices have come off their lithium-ion battery boom peak but remain significant. For UK scrap yards, the net effect is that mixed tool steel pricing has been on a slow upward trend, with periodic spikes when alloy markets tighten. The structural drivers — defence manufacturing, aerospace tooling, EV component machining — all point to continued strong demand for new HSS production, which keeps demand for HSS scrap intact. Check today's price →
Note: All scrap yard prices paid by QuickStop Metals are calculated as a percentage of the prevailing LME or spot market price, updated daily. Check today's prices →
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