Aluminum raw material sourcing - Xometry sucks now. Other suppliers?

JVM · Mar 17, 2021

Hi guys.
I have been buying my raw material (AL 6061 mainly) from Xometry for over a year now. They started off with different promotions, free shipping, etc. They took that away and I was still buying from them because it was relatively cheape than McMaster. Now all of a sudden I see that there is a minimum of $45 for any size bar stock. So in other words, if I want to buy a .75" thick piece of 4" x 6" for a job it is $45. Also, instead of their usual promise of shipping within a day now they are quoting shipping in 5 days. What real machine shop can wait 5 days for a supplier to ship a few pieces of aluminum. We are not talking a pallet of random sizes. We are talking about 5 pieces! I am disgusted with Xometry at this point and would rather pay more even for larger orders than give them my money. I am looking for a new supplier. What does everyone use here for mainly aluminum?

Finegrain · Mar 17, 2021

For full lengths, Coast Aluminum.
For a few inches of this and half a foot of that, Online Metals.

I also use McMaster-Carr now and then, since they are so darn easy and next-day shipping. Sometimes it's worth it to spend $10/# to get what I need next day at 10:00 AM. Not even Online Metals in Ballard WA can get material to me faster.

Regards.

Mike

wheelieking71 · Mar 17, 2021

"Xometry sucks now"

You are 100% wrong there. xometry ALWAYS sucked. The whole idea sucks.

Wsurfer · Mar 17, 2021

I used to dick around with buying small quantities from my local supplier. But realized after a year, that no matter what I buy, it will get used up quickly. I can order 1000+ lbs of various sizes of 6061, and they will deliver for free shipping from Dallas to Austin, and it ends up being 1/2 the cost of buying little pieces. No more driving to pick up metal. I do have a fork lift to offload 12' bars though.

Hardplates · Mar 17, 2021

You could start by buying at least 12' bars, preferably several of them local and delivered. If it's mail order, it's a rip off. The price will go way down and then you will have inventory. Consider it investing in yourself.

You will likely have to beat up your local yard on price and maybe make a commitment to buy a minimum but in the long run it's worth it.

wheelieking71 · Mar 17, 2021

surely you have some kind of yard that sells aluminum fairly local, no?
These places will usually have a remnants section where you can pick & chose random bits at fair prices.

JVM · Mar 17, 2021

wheelieking71 said:
surely you have some kind of yard that sells aluminum fairly local, no?
These places will usually have a remnants section where you can pick & chose random bits at fair prices.

There is one place really, about 18 miles from me. The machining I do is mainly for prototypes of components and assemblies my company designs for clients. I do the design work and almost most of the machine work, except when I am buried in work I have someone come and help me for a few days. I've been running my company like that for a few years now. The point is, I don't do regular machining like a typical machine shop and buying a bunch of bars to sit around does me little to no good. I have, or had, a huge benefit from a company like Xometry that cuts to size and offers(or actually USED to offer) reasonable prices and fast service. McMaster ships fast but a lot of times you end up scrapping part of the standard size piece they carry, that is overpriced to begin with. I guess Xometry had to make it too good to be true to build up their client base and now they could care less if they loose 20% of their customers and only leave the big buyers.

JVM · Mar 17, 2021

Wsurfer said:
I used to dick around with buying small quantities from my local supplier. But realized after a year, that no matter what I buy, it will get used up quickly. I can order 1000+ lbs of various sizes of 6061, and they will deliver for free shipping from Dallas to Austin, and it ends up being 1/2 the cost of buying little pieces. No more driving to pick up metal. I do have a fork lift to offload 12' bars though.

That sounds like a great idea for a regular machine shop that does machining non-stop. However my company does design and prototyping and then the clients take over to source their own large scale manufacturing. Imagine my company more like one in an office with a couple of machines around rather than a shop in a large warehouse type of setting. Storing 12' bars of various sizes is almost not possible for me.

mjk · Mar 17, 2021

If you can't justify maintaining stock of material. use McMaster.

Booze Daily · Mar 17, 2021

JVM said:
That sounds like a great idea for a regular machine shop that does machining non-stop. However my company does design and prototyping and then the clients take over to source their own large scale manufacturing. Imagine my company more like one in an office with a couple of machines around rather than a shop in a large warehouse type of setting. Storing 12' bars of various sizes is almost not possible for me.

Definitely McMaster.

plastikdreams · Mar 17, 2021

McMasters pricing is usually pretty decent, delivery is quick, and they stock all kinds of stuff. We use yarde metals and another large vendor for stock orders. If it's something that we don't stock, McMaster gets the call...copper, brass, aluminum, stainless of all types, even inconel...

Really though, if you are moaning over 45 bucks...you need to charge more.

cgrim3 · Mar 17, 2021

Take this for what it's worth, but we bought aluminum 6061 from xometry a couple weeks ago, and they were cheaper than everybody else by a factor of 1.5 to 2.

271 dollars from xometry vs 500 dollars from Alro, 700 dollars from Yarde, 450 from McMaster Carr (goes to show how overpriced everybody else is if your higher than McMaster Carr), and 425.00 from Howard Precision metals.

I have found that everything else they sell besides aluminum is high.

Now, I did talk to the material guy at Xometry and he said that he wasn't competitive in aluminum right now. That was 2-3 weeks ago. How to interpret that, I am not sure. Perhaps he meant he was too low compared to everybody else?

We have not experienced the minimum price for bar stock. We were a new customer so maybe that is why but I don't know.

Just our experience. Other people's experiences may be different

Wsurfer · Mar 17, 2021

JVM said:
That sounds like a great idea for a regular machine shop that does machining non-stop. However my company does design and prototyping and then the clients take over to source their own large scale manufacturing. Imagine my company more like one in an office with a couple of machines around rather than a shop in a large warehouse type of setting. Storing 12' bars of various sizes is almost not possible for me.

I certainly get it. I'm a one man one machine shop myself. I'm a designer who machines, not a machinist.. yet, but a work in progress:-). I just happen to have the space. As others have said, Mcmaster is not bad for those immediate jobs. Inexplicably, they seems to be pretty competitive with plastics. I can get glass filled peek, ultem and HDPE for about the same as US platics and other vendors. If there is a bettet vendor for plastics, I'm all ears.

cgrim3 · Mar 17, 2021

Wsurfer said:
I certainly get it. I'm a one man one machine shop myself. I'm a designer who machines, not a machinist.. yet, but a work in progress:-). I just happen to have the space. As others have said, Mcmaster is not bad for those immediate jobs. Inexplicably, they seems to be pretty competitive with plastics. I can get glass filled peek, ultem and HDPE for about the same as US platics and other vendors. If there is a bettet vendor for plastics, I'm all ears.

Hi Wsurfer,

For teflon ,we usually buy from Enflo. Not sure if you machine teflon, but they have a pretty good selection.

For all plastics, we typically buy from Grim's Plastics in Harrisburg, PA. We use them because the owner has the same last name as us "Grim" hahahaha

We sometimes buy from McMaster Carr.

Eric U · Mar 17, 2021

I’ve used Speedy Metals for years, 95% 6061. Ryerson, EMJ, and other local-ish (100+mi each way) places can’t compete. Speedy has been consistently 25-40% cheaper even including UPS shipping. Key is to work with a salesman and not order off their website. It does help to buy in full bar lengths but it’s still very reasonable on partials. I have them cut all my 3’ spindle length stock as they can do it a whole lot cheaper than I can.

I’ve been running a 4140HT steel job pretty steadily since mid January. Since steel is out of the norm for me, I just had Ryerson, EMJ, and Speedy Metals quote ~200 pounds of round bar 4140HT. For apples-apples comparison: Ryerson and EMJ were both about $200 more than Speedy. UPS shipping from WI (Speedy) in 4x 50 pound boxes is just less than $200, so I’m still ahead. The kicker is that Ryerson and EMJ won’t deliver to my residential neighborhood shop. So if I wanted to use either of the big boys I’d still have to have it shipped, or drive 148mi to EMJ or 124mi to Ryerson one way.

I do live in a black hole of manufacturing so your mileage may vary if you are in a big city.

Hardplates · Mar 17, 2021

Eric U said:
I’ve used Speedy Metals for years, 95% 6061. Ryerson, EMJ, and other local-ish (100+mi each way) places can’t compete. Speedy has been consistently 25-40% cheaper even including UPS shipping. Key is to work with a salesman and not order off their website. It does help to buy in full bar lengths but it’s still very reasonable on partials. I have them cut all my 3’ spindle length stock as they can do it a whole lot cheaper than I can.

I’ve been running a 4140HT steel job pretty steadily since mid January. Since steel is out of the norm for me, I just had Ryerson, EMJ, and Speedy Metals quote ~200 pounds of round bar 4140HT. For apples-apples comparison: Ryerson and EMJ were both about $200 more than Speedy. UPS shipping from WI (Speedy) in 4x 50 pound boxes is just less than $200, so I’m still ahead. The kicker is that Ryerson and EMJ won’t deliver to my residential neighborhood shop. So if I wanted to use either of the big boys I’d still have to have it shipped, or drive 148mi to EMJ or 124mi to Ryerson one way.

I do live in a black hole of manufacturing so your mileage may vary if you are in a big city.

I would expect to pay just over $1 a pound delivered for 4140HR QT. My supplier is over an hour and a half from me and I am in farm country.

The reason service centers "can't compete" is because they don't want to sell 200 pounds of steel.

cgrim3 · Mar 17, 2021

We were buying basic carbon steel and 1144 stressproof from Alro, but their prices got so ridiculous we ditched them. On some stuff, they are double the price of McMaster Carr. One time, we wanted them to waterjet something basic like a piece of carbon steel 10" x 6" x 12" and the price was like 2800 dollars - more money than what we wanted to charge for the actual finished part. We bitched about it, and they dropped it to a couple hundred bucks.

We use Pennsylvania steel company now and they seem to be okay. The one salesman there who seems to be a pretty honest guy said Alro only really cares about their million dollar accounts and not the mom and pop businesses.

Rick Finsta · Mar 17, 2021

I'm a bit spoiled because Howard Precision and Speedy Metals are both local for me so I get next-day delivery to my shop. Howard charges by adding a per-pound surcharge, and Speedy delivers for free. That said, for one-offs, Speedy is hard to beat, but as Eric U said, start an account and get quotes because you'll pay often half what the web price is.

No one can touch Howard for bulk aluminum, so I get all my 12' sticks and other large plate cuts from them, but if you need one little piece, to be honest I don't think they want the business. I always get that stuff from Speedy.

Alro has never been competitive for my quotes on onesy twosy stuff.

Guest · Mar 17, 2021

Where are you at in California?

D Nelson · Mar 18, 2021

Midwest steel and aluminum beats most everyone I have found.
Don

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