Metal stock

[coolgoose]

Are there any member from Seattle or Redmond area? If yes, Where do you guys buy your metal stock for projects?

 

[stewburner]

You can try Online metals , their physical location is 1138 west Ewing Seattle,wa. 98119 . On the southside of the ship canal just east of the Ballard bridge. They have a will call desk and a sales area where you can look before you buy, as well as pre-cut scrap bins of material to rummage through and choose what you want and pay by the pound. ;D

 

[zeeprogrammer]

I ordered from On-Line a few weeks ago.
Amongst other things I ordered 3 foot of 1/2 and 5/8 aluminum.
They sent me two of the 1/2 inch.

They made it right.

Told me to keep the extra 1/2 inch and they sent me the 5/8 I wanted.

 

[Foozer]

You can try Online metals , their physical location is 1138 west Ewing Seattle,wa. 98119 . On the southside of the ship canal just east of the Ballard bridge. They have a will call desk and a sales area where you can look before you buy, as well as pre-cut scrap bins of material to rummage through and choose what you want and pay by the pound. ;D

A drive thru Seattle shudder, maybe thats why even from them, I have it shipped,

but then the Bride says I never take her anywhere, HMM

Robert

 

[rake60]

I've bought from Online Metals and have few complaints.
I have also bought from Speedy Metals with even fewer complaints.

A better source is any local family owned small machine shop.
Check your local yellow pages and look for the shops that have little one line listings.

Take something you made in and ask them where you might find the stock you're looking for.
Chances are, they'll sell it to you at their cost under the condition you bring back what you made
for them to see.

Good old American greed still passes over the REAL machinist craftsman in this country.
They want to see another budding machinist come alive.

Don't bother going to the shops that have full page ads in the yellow pages.
They charge their customers $150 per hour to even put a job on a machine.
The craftsman who work for those shops are nothing more than an operating expense.

Rick

 

[coolgoose]

Thanks guys for the suggestions! I will try local machinist shops first.

 

[milotrain]

There is a massive metal supplier near me who sells out of a remnants bin. I've been debating going there once a week or so, grabbing a pile and then selling it online by weight for little more than I got it. (More of a pay it forward thing than a side hustle thing)

Still figuring out if it's worth it or if people would be interested.

For reference the "bricks" in the front are 6x3x2.5.

 

[shred]

If you could make the economics work out with shipping, I bet there's a bunch of potential customers out there not close enough to a good supply of machinable scraps.

 

[multihobbyguy]

Did anyone else click on milotrain's profile to see if their location was posted? ;D I wish I could find a place like that close to me.

 

[milotrain]

I'm in Los Angeles. Place is called IMS (Industrial Metal Supply).

multihobbyguy I used to live in Fairfax and I found a small metal supply company that sold me some aluminum when I lived there. I'll try to get their info.

Shipping should be pretty easy, work gets 80% off FedEx rates and I can reimburse them. To make things easy I'm thinking of doing it as sort of a grab bag. 20lbs of bit or 20lbs of chunk. Chunk being large pieces with some bits to equal 20+lbs and bits being all smaller pieces up to 20+lbs. Maybe I'll stick to aluminum for now and see how it works out.

 

[coolgoose]

Milotrain I have just sent you a personal message

 

[multihobbyguy]

Milotrain it sounds like you have a good potential to help people out and make few extra bucks in the process. Also if you do come up with the info for the metal supply company that would be spectacular. Thanks, Chris.

 

[milotrain]

multihobbyguy I did a bunch of searching last night and couldn't find it. Unfortunately this was over eight years ago. Potomac Metal and Supply, Inc. might have a good direction for you.

Ok I think I'll give it a shot this weekend, sort of a prelim testing of the waters. Here's how I think it should go. People can PM me if they want to be on "the list" and you can request 10lbs of bits. I'll go to the supplier on Saturday morning and pick up a pile. I'll then check with everyone on the list on Monday for payment (I don't want money until I have metal in my hands), and then ship Monday or Tuesday. I'll take paypal.

For this prelim "test" I'm only going to do aluminum bits and only 10lbs. Figure I always bite off more than I can chew so this is a safety measure, also much cheaper to ship 10lbs. I'm going to use a flat shipping rate of around $15, this may change a little but it shouldn't change up in price.

10lbs of bits = ~$17 raw after tax, ~$15 shipping = ~$35 total shipped

Thoughts? Interest?

 

[rleete]

I'd soon be broke with a place like that nearby.

 

[milotrain]

Just posted a link to this in the For Sale/Trade section. Let's see how the first run goes, even if it's just coolgoose :big:

I mean it's not like I can start the weekend off without going there anyway right?