HMS 1
When traders anywhere in the world talk about a ferrous scrap price, HMS 1 is often the reference point they're actually quoting against. It's the strictest common heavy steel grade, and understanding why it holds that position helps explain why clean, heavy steel is worth pursuing over a mixed pile.
HMS 1, Heavy Melting Steel grade 1, is clean steel a quarter inch (roughly 6mm) thick or heavier, with absolutely no tin coating, galvanising, paint, or other contamination. That's a genuinely strict bar. Plenty of scrap steel is heavy enough but carries a coating of some kind, which immediately drops it out of HMS 1 and into HMS 2 territory instead, still valuable, just a step down.
In practice, HMS 1 comes from heavy structural offcuts, machinery components, thick plate, and demolition steel that's genuinely bare metal, no paint, no galvanising, no attached non-metal parts. It's worth checking a piece carefully rather than assuming heaviness alone qualifies it.
A simple test before you list anything as HMS 1: run your hand or a scraper across the surface. Bare steel feels consistent and uniform. Any coating, even a thin one, usually shows as a slightly different texture or a colour change where it's been scratched. Surface rust on otherwise bare steel doesn't disqualify it, rust is oxidation of the steel itself, not a coating, but heavy scale or flaking rust is worth flagging honestly since it can affect how a buyer assesses the piece.
Ferrous scrap trades globally, and HMS 1&2 pricing is one of the most commonly quoted international benchmarks in the industry, similar in role to how a commodity index works for other raw materials. That doesn't mean every local transaction happens at exactly that price, freight, local demand, and buyer-specific factors all matter too, but it does mean HMS 1's definition is unusually consistent and well understood compared with more locally-specific grading systems.
That consistency is exactly why it's worth learning the real definition rather than assuming, a genuinely accurate HMS 1 listing is easy for any buyer, anywhere, to assess quickly and confidently.
ScrapTrade's live-priced HMS 1 category matches this definition exactly: clean heavy steel a quarter inch and over, with no tin, galvanising, or coating. If there's any coating or contamination on your steel, list it as HMS 2 instead, an accurate grade gets a more confident offer than an optimistic one.
Check today's HMS 1 priceHeavy, clean steel follows genuine industrial and demolition activity. Newcastle and Wollongong are both genuine steel towns in their own right, built around major steelworks history, and both carry a dense concentration of heavy industry generating real HMS 1-grade volume, not just small trailer loads.
Neither city is a requirement. Demolition contractors, engineering shops, and heavy equipment maintenance operations generate this material anywhere in Australia, and ScrapTrade connects buyers and sellers nationally regardless of where a listing is posted from.
Clean, uncoated, heavy steel needs almost no preparation before a furnace can melt it down, no burning off paint, no separating out galvanising, nothing to strip. That's the entire basis for HMS 1's premium over every other ferrous grade: the less work a buyer has to do, the more of that saved processing cost gets passed back to you as a seller. Steel also recycles without any loss of quality, so genuinely clean scrap goes straight back into new steel production with none of the compromise some other materials face after repeated recycling. That's a genuine advantage steel has over materials that degrade slightly with each recycling pass, HMS 1 today is chemically no different from HMS 1 melted down and reformed a dozen times before.
Because HMS 1 is the benchmark grade, it's also the one most sellers assume any buyer will price fairly without checking. On ScrapTrade, you confirm that assumption with a live reference price first, then list at a fixed price, run it as a live auction so verified buyers compete for it, or negotiate directly, negotiation is on by default on every listing. Every listing is GPS-video verified before it goes live, and payment sits in escrow from the moment a deal is confirmed until pickup or delivery is done, so neither side is exposed first. The full case for why that beats a single yard quote is on Why Choose ScrapTrade and Trust & Safety.
Clean, heavy steel a quarter inch (about 6mm) thick or more, with no tin coating, galvanising, paint, or other contamination. It's the strictest common ferrous grade, genuinely clean and genuinely heavy, both at once.
Because it's a consistent, widely-understood standard, buyers and sellers everywhere broadly agree on what HMS 1 means, which makes it a reliable reference point for quoting and comparing ferrous scrap prices across regions and even across countries, the way a commodity benchmark works for other markets.
No, galvanising is a zinc coating, and HMS 1 specifically excludes any coating at all. Galvanised steel is still valuable scrap, it just grades lower, typically as HMS 2 or a mixed category, not the clean HMS 1 tier.
Roughly a quarter inch, about 6mm, is the common threshold. Thinner clean steel doesn't disqualify itself entirely, it's more likely to fall under light iron or sheet metal instead, still real value, just a different grade with a different price.
Sometimes, if the contamination is minor and easy to remove, a bit of surface rust or a small attached bracket, for example. Genuine coatings like galvanising or paint aren't practically removable by hand, so material with those should just be listed accurately as HMS 2 rather than chasing a grade it can't reach.
No, ordinary surface rust is oxidation of the steel itself, not an external coating, and doesn't disqualify a piece from HMS 1 on its own. Heavy scale, flaking rust, or rust hiding actual contamination underneath is worth checking more carefully and describing honestly in your listing.
Where practical, yes. Small steel fasteners and brackets don't necessarily disqualify a piece, but non-steel attachments, plastic, rubber, or other metals like brass fittings, should come off first. A quick check and strip of the obvious non-metal parts gets a cleaner, more confident offer.
The grading criteria don't change with volume, a single clean, heavy piece is HMS 1 just as much as a full trailer load is. What does change is how buyers respond, genuine bulk volume tends to attract more competitive interest and is worth listing with that scale clearly noted.
Check a live price, then sell at a fixed price, run an auction, or negotiate directly.
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