Welding Tips and Tricks

I called a supply company in town and asked them about buying aluminum sheet 5052 2 x 3 ft. .125, they quoted me $248.00 !! Seriously ? I can buy a 2x4 piece on line apparently for a little over 100 dollars with 22 dollars shipping . Is online the only way to affordably buy stock now ? Are they charging more to customers who walk in to discourage them form not buying online ? How do you guys get your stock ??

Where are you located? Often, you can find a branch of Metal Supermarkets near you. They should be more reasonably priced. It is sometimes true that a shop will sell you the piece you desire, but at the cost of the whole sheet because they don’t want to deal in the leftover. You can frequently locate a larger fabrication business who might sell their “drops” at a far cheaper rate. Places like; BMG, Ryerson, Pennsylvania Steel or Metal Supermarkets (their Core business is walk-in trade, small piece stuff).

Having said that, aluminum prices skyrocketed not long. They have come down a bit, but they’re still very high.

Where are you located?

Your fortunate if you live near a Alro metals Outlet

DLCeveryday wrote:Are they charging more to customers who walk in to discourage them form not buying online ?

Most of the time they are hoping the customer has no research skills and thinks they have no other option than to buy at their price, or are hoping that you need it yesterday, so you have to pay what they ask.

There are two kinds of places that generally sell metals. One is just metal sales only, this is the one you want to buy from a supplier. The other is a fab shop, where they also weld and fabricate. They usually are paying a supplier the same price you would get if you bought from them, but then they mark it up to sell it to you.