Recommended material suppliers

Well yould you look at that the local steel stockist just closed after 200 years.

This leaves me with a notable gap in my supply chain since I bought pretty much all my steel, brass, etc etc from there.

Anyone know of good materials suppliers? Online or around Macclesfield area?

You are ideally placed for Macc Model Engineers, I use them most of the time these days apart from any odd stuff they don't do.

Good website & prices and delivery virtually by return I have found.

Bill D.

Yep +1 for Macc, prompt delivery,good service,quality products,highly recommended

Mick

I've just ordered some pb102 phosphor bronze from Maccmodels. Some one asked me today to turn a 350mm length of 26mm diameter pb102 down to 1/2" diameter. I had to check twice that I had heard him correctly. He has to buy from approved suppliers for his stock material and he asked for 1/2" diameter and got the 26mm at the price for 26mm bar. I said it seemed stupid to throw 3/4 of it away as swarf. We struck a deal instead, I keep the 26mm diameter bar and supply him with two lengths of 200mm x 1/2" which is what I have ordered. It saves him from having to pay for the machining (some bottles of beer in my case) to get the size he wants and I get a nice piece of raw material.

Martin

I'm checking through it and they are not one for keeping metric stock. Which is fine for the round stuff since I can have it turned down fairly easily but shaping the flat bar to metric sizes would be a pain.

However a supplier of round stock is a good start and they have a better range of materials than my old supplier. Old place didnt do phosphor bronze or ground flat stock

I used to use MCM as they seemed to have a far better range of metric stock than anyone else I could find. I'm not sure if they're still in business, although if they are, I have a feeling that I read somewhere that they were only dealing with the trade now.

Brian

Are these people any use to you?

http://www.m-machine-metals.co.uk/metals_database.html

UH? If he has to buy from approved suppliers - are you one of them ??

Not in Macc but I have found 'Noggin End' (situated in Stoke) provide an excellent service. No connection other than being a satisfied customer.

Have the mods removed a posting from this topic? Speedy Builders message make no sense otherwise.

Ian P

.

Ian,

I think it was a response to Martin Connelly.

MichaelG.

No, Speedy Builder5, he works for a Peterborough engineering company but they have a small workforce embedded in the place I work. He has to buy his materials through the Peterborough purchase department but what we are doing is not a formal setup. He has a regular requirement to supply a short piece of 1/2" diameter phosphor bronze so just wants to cut a piece off a bar with a hacksaw and file it flat on the ends. Almost all the machining done in the place I work is now done on CNC machines and anything else is put out to sub-con. The last manual machining department was closed last year. Add on the £70 an hour labour cost for in house work and you can see why he wants to use an informal system to keep his costs down.

I am buying the 1/2" diameter personally and so keep the larger diameter personally. He has already paid out for the large diameter bar but gets what he wants without any further cost reducing its diameter. I get the large diameter bar for the cost of the small diameter bar. Hope this makes more sense now. 

Martin

Edited By Martin Connelly on 05/01/2016 21:47:20

I could not work out what the UH meant or whether it was an abreviation. You are a lot more perceptive than I am Michael!

Ian P

Hi Peak Steels are a pretty good supplier and are reasonably local to Macclesfield They are based in Glossop.

Noggin end support model shows and will take pre-orders for collection at a show if you give him notice. He likes that as he knows it is stock he won't have to take home.

But the 'closing after 200 years' is really sad. Just think of the industrial development they must have had a hand in.

To be specific the owners retired and had no children to pass the business down to. They didnt want to sell it on because to have their surname on another mans business didn't seem right to them.

They have been up to all sorts I think. Nail manufacturing, gate making, forging, wagon wheel rimming, machining. When they closed aside from being a stockist they also did light fabrication and wrought iron work.

The company started as a partnership in 1823 and there had been another one before that so it is even older.

Sad News indeed, Rainbows

... Some nice old photos in the Newspaper article **LINK**

MichaelG.

If its bar stock in different lengths 30cm to 3mtrs. them Metal4U takes some beating

Another vote for Metal4U have had several orders and been pleased with the service and quality of the metal , ive had stainless round bar , bronze tube and aluminium round and flat from them so far.

Hi Rainbows.

As another mourner of the former kenyons, I've also been looking for new suppliers as well. I'm currently talking to Macc Laser (off brook st) about some sheet metal, and wondered about Hall and Pickles at Poynton.... did you try them? There's still some angle and plate at Swindels Scrap metal off Windmill street but nothing like there used to be when they took stuff from local engineering firms (Scraggs, Sisis, AZ) etc.

I also buy stuff from Joe at Macc Models, and he's very helpful and has an increasing stock range.

After those I don't know where to go locally, I fix odd bits of farm stuff for friends and sometimes need bigger "lumps" of material they mostly seem to come from scrap or by post

have you tried:-
Smiths Metal Centres Ltd
Stratton Business Park
London Road
Biggleswade
Bedfordshire
SG18 8QB

Biggleswade Sales:

t: +44 (0)1767 604604
f: +44 (0)1767 600466
e: [email protected]

Used them a lot before Emigrating. They used to have an off cuts box !!
BobH