Source for square tube steel?

Langadune

Langadune

Joined
Apr 19, 2012
Messages
212
I'm working on a NWG. Already have a good motor and am hoarding my money for all the wheels but I'm coming up short on square tube steel. What are good "local" type places to get that? I've in a small town/rural area so there's not alot of industrial supply places close by. I've been working alot of nights so I haven't been able to get out and check with the mechanic shops, although I'm not sure they'd have what I want. I'm looking for .125 (or close to it) thickness stuff so I can tap for bolts. I've seen the stuff on USAKnifemaker and it looks like good prices but I'd like to get stuff to cut for myself to allow for design tweaks and different custom arms. Home Depot only sells thin wall stuff and so far most of the online suppliers have pretty high shipping costs.

Any advice or help would be great. Thanks.
 
Try the yellow pages of the phone book under steel

Rural areas sell to farmers and farm related manufacturing.
 
Try a local sheet metal fabrication shop or welding shop in your area? They usually have cut-offs that are too small to really use so they will sell them for cheap! Plus, they are just a good source for a lot of other items too!
 
PaMtnBkr said:
Try a local sheet metal fabrication shop or welding shop in your area? They usually have cut-offs that are too small to really use so they will sell them for cheap! Plus, they are just a good source for a lot of other items too!
Click to expand...

Thanks... I may try that when I get a chance. There's also a scrap metal guy near by but I think he's usually trying to build up enough to sell in bulk so I don't know if he'd let be pick through for a few pieces here and there.
 
Don't know how far away you are but South of Stillwater, Oklahoma is " The Railroad Yard" . ALL kinds of angle iron and square tubing.
 
The NWG is a great grinder to customize. One thing I did that I'm happy about was use 2" (1/4") wall for the tool rest and tool arm receivers. The tubing had an internal weld near one corner and I found that the 1 1/2" tubing for the arms liked to go in one way (out of 8 possibilities), so I had to pay attention to that. I recently put some 1 1/2" square rod in the tool rest receiver and had to modify it for the same reason and the rounded corners on the receiver.

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McMaster-Carr is usually a pretty good source for that sort of thing, might be a bit pricey. + the shipping....
 
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