Cast Iron Pricing Experience

Many buyers are confused about cast iron pricing issues, especially to gray iron and ductile iron. Pricing iron castings is a complex work, which needs experience and learning about the materials, production processes and some price information. Herein, we listed some main aspects of cast iron pricing, and hope to be helpful for the buyers to evaluate their prices.

1. Cast Iron Materials

Cast iron includes grey iron, ductile iron, malleable iron etc. Different cast irons will have different prices. Each types of cast iron has some different grades, so different grades may have different prices too.

Normally, grey iron will be cheaper than ductile iron, and ductile iron will be cheaper than malleable iron.

As for the same type of cast iron, the low and middle grades will have the same prices, but high grades will cause higher production costs. As for the cast iron grades, please refer to our article "Cast Iron Grades".

The material and its grade is only one factor for pricing. You have to consider the following factors.

2. Iron Casting Production Processes

Different casting production processes will cause large difference to the casting quality, such as tolerance, surface smoothness, casting defects etc. At the same time, they will cause the large difference to the prices too.

For example, the green sand will be cheapest, the resin sand will be more expensive, shell molding process will be more costly than resin sand. The casting processes should be selected by the characters of iron casting parts, and requirements.

You should ask your supplier to denote the casting process they will use for your parts, and you should check if their selection is suitable or not.

3. The Unit Weight of Rough Castings and Machined Castings

In the foundry industry in China, all production costs are calculated according to the unit weight, especially based on the weight of rough castings. The rough casting weight is heavier, then all production costs such as raw materials, manpower, electricity, alloy will be more.

However, the unit weight of rough castings is affected largely by the machining allowance. So, it is difficult to calculate the accurate weight by the suppliers according to the drawings. Therefore, as the buyer, you should try to get the accurate weight information, rough castings or finish parts after machining, then this will be helpful for the suppliers to quote an accurate price per piece.

If the buyer and supplier do not care about the unit weight during pricing stage, then you will face a price adjustment before production. It will be an awkward situation. So, it is better to make it clear and accurate during pricing stage.

4. Coating, Packing, Heat Treatment and Machining Costs

Cast iron pricing also needs to consider the coating, painting types and costs, packing costs.

If it is an iron parts needed special heat treatment, such as quenching, interior stress relieving, then the heat treatment costs will need to be consider.

If it is a iron part that needs machining works, then machining costs will be needed to consider. Machining cost is difficult to be evaluated, unless you have very rich machining experience.

5. Annual Demand

The annual demand is also an important issue during pricing. If your annual demand is very large, then all prices could be reduced some, because it is a big project for suppliers. However, if your annual demand is small, then all prices will be higher than normal.

These five aspects are the main issues that you need to consider when you price the iron castings. If you find other technical requirements on the drawings, such as hardness, nodularity rate, nondestructive inspection, rough casting dimensional tolerance degrees, casting defects requirements etc. You need to check if your suppliers have considered and can meet these requirements, otherwise, the quotation will be insufficient or meaningless.

Tips: I guess many buyers still can not handle these aspects and make an accurate price evaluation. So, we are updating an cast iron price list on our website of Dandong Foundry. These prices are showing the current gray iron, ductile iron and carbon steel prices per kg without machining. Hope these information could be helpful for you.

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