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Manufacturing parts for McMaster Carr

NumaNuma

Plastic
Joined
Jul 14, 2020
Hi All,

New to the forum here. I have a small machine shop with a few CNC machines and with extra floor space to add more machines if needed. I was exploring machining parts for McMaster Carr. I know they do not machine of their parts themselves. Have any of you guys ever had experience machining parts for them? All inputs are appreciated.

PS: I hope I am not cluttering the forum by asking a question that has been already addressed. I did search before posting here and couldn't find anything. If I'm mistaken feel free to correct me.

Thanks and best regards,
Preetish
 
Your concept of McMaster-Carr's business model may need a little "tuning". McM is a large distributor of what are essentially large manufacturers' product lines. I doubt that there is much business making "machined parts" for them, as that is more a customized business. If you develop a product line that might be useful to industrial and commercial end users, you might be able to convince McMaster to take on your product line as part of their offerings.
 
Like what is said above, any machined part I have bought from McMaster and I would rather use them than going to Lowe's or Home Depot (A trip to those places kills 2 hrs+ where I am at) are items that are made in high volume.
So unless you are equipped to make high volume parts with the latest and greatest equipment that can run lights out I doubt you could make a profit selling to them at a price they would find acceptable. I doubt there are any mom & pop machine shops on McMaster's vendor list. That is just what my common sense tells me.
 
Your concept of McMaster-Carr's business model may need a little "tuning". McM is a large distributor of what are essentially large manufacturers' product lines. I doubt that there is much business making "machined parts" for them, as that is more a customized business. If you develop a product line that might be useful to industrial and commercial end users, you might be able to convince McMaster to take on your product line as part of their offerings.

Also, even though they have dimensioned prints & CAD files on many of their products, they don't own them.
So you need to develop a product (actually probably a family of them) make toleranced prints, and then offer them to McMaster for inclusion in their catalog.
 
Don't know about McMasters but i have friend who has a small shop with 3 CNC machines that makes specialized items in small quantites for MSC so some big outfits do use small shops to produce their items. You never know until you ask them!
 
Mcmaster certainly contracts small batch custom parts, the one I have seen recently was custom springs... im sure you could run into fasteners etc on there site
 
Thank you everyone for your thoughts. What I currently have in mind is to have these McMaster parts fill in the void between different jobs, instead of letting the machines sit idle. I might be on the lower end of what margins I typically like to have but it would still be better than losing money on idle machines. Also, I have a supplier base overseas and if it turns out to be profitable I can have them manufacture the parts in bulk and ship them over. As of now, these are just thoughts I have as I am trying to expand our capabilities and trying to improve overall efficiency. E-commerce is something I have been thinking about for a while now and this could be a good start.

Thank you again for your opinions.

PS: Apologies for the late response. I didn't get a chance to check the forum after a few days of the initial post.

Cheers!
 








 
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