I need a piece of Square aluminum or steel tubing, 1/4" x 1/4" x 3 or
4 feet.

There used to be a web retailer, Metal Express, that did nothing but
sell various kinds of metal, rods, screws, angle iron, tubing, etc
(and tools probably) but even though it's still in google, its links
are dead.**

Anyone know a place that would have this?


I don't think they sell this at HD or Lowes, but their webpage is so
bad it's not worth checking. I'll go to the store tomorrow, but I
think I would remember. Huh! HD and Lowes online do show it, but not
small enough. Only 3/4 or 1".

Lowes marks its tubing Steelworks, but I havent' found them. HD marks
theirs Crown Bolt which seems to be a wholey owned subsid of HD (well,
no, they're owned by 3 equity firms, like Chrysler), so they won't
have anything HD doesn't. Their webpage isnt' set up for selling
anyhow. Crown Screw and Bolt doesnt' seem to sell tubing and has
only one location, close to where I lived 45 years ago.

Ace Hardware online has it but only in 12 inch pieces.



I don't know the exact length. A guy from Freecycle gave me a
projection screen today, which I plan to give to someone else. The
top, smaller, piece of telescoping square tubing is missing, and I'm
not sure how long it must be. When I find what's for sale, I'll try
again to figure out how long it should be. Four feet, I think.


**"This is Google's cache of http://www.metalexpress.net/. It is a
snapshot of the page as it appeared on Dec 24, 2009 22:24:40 GMT."

So they must have taken down their webapage in the last 9 days.

mm wrote:
I need a piece of Square aluminum or steel tubing, 1/4" x 1/4" x 3 or
4 feet.


http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5

mm wrote:
I need a piece of Square aluminum or steel tubing, 1/4" x 1/4" x 3 or
4 feet.

There used to be a web retailer, Metal Express, that did nothing but
sell various kinds of metal, rods, screws, angle iron, tubing, etc
(and tools probably) but even though it's still in google, its links
are dead.**

Anyone know a place that would have this?


I don't think they sell this at HD or Lowes, but their webpage is so
bad it's not worth checking. I'll go to the store tomorrow, but I
think I would remember. Huh! HD and Lowes online do show it, but not
small enough. Only 3/4 or 1".

Lowes marks its tubing Steelworks, but I havent' found them. HD marks
theirs Crown Bolt which seems to be a wholey owned subsid of HD (well,
no, they're owned by 3 equity firms, like Chrysler), so they won't
have anything HD doesn't. Their webpage isnt' set up for selling
anyhow. Crown Screw and Bolt doesnt' seem to sell tubing and has
only one location, close to where I lived 45 years ago.

Ace Hardware online has it but only in 12 inch pieces.



I don't know the exact length. A guy from Freecycle gave me a
projection screen today, which I plan to give to someone else. The
top, smaller, piece of telescoping square tubing is missing, and I'm
not sure how long it must be. When I find what's for sale, I'll try
again to figure out how long it should be. Four feet, I think.


**"This is Google's cache of http://www.metalexpress.net/. It is a
snapshot of the page as it appeared on Dec 24, 2009 22:24:40 GMT."

So they must have taken down their webapage in the last 9 days.

Try a hobby store. They typically have 1-foot sections. Some have
longer pieces.
Let your fingers do the walking.

mm wrote the following:
On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 00:48:06 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


mm wrote:

I need a piece of Square aluminum or steel tubing, 1/4" x 1/4" x 3 or
4 feet.


http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5


Wow, you're great, and only 27 minutes after I posted, and only $4.78.

But the browser antics are the strangest thing.

When I clicked on your link, it opened in Firefox3, and showed just a
bare-bones page. With one mcmasters graphic at the top.

So I searched the site for square tubing and got a list on the
left, and a list on the rest of the page. Using the rest of the page,
I clicked on aluminum and steel and each page was totally empty. So I
used the left column and got a very nice listing for each metal, but
no size was small enough. The closest was 3/8 x 3/8 in steel, bigger
in aluminum.

So I thought the problem was firfox and copied your link above to IE8.
And again it opened up with a black and white outline of a page, and
very little graphics, and no description of the item.. So I put a
"1" in "the number I want" and clicked on Add to Order, and then it
gave me the very description I wanted, "9008K17 Multipurpose Aluminum
(Alloy 6061) 1/4" Square, 6' Length"

I searched the mcmaster website every way I could think of, and didnt'
find this, except the url you gave me. !!!

Does it have to be tubing?
They have 1/4" square rod in 6 and 8 foot lengths.
http://www.mcmaster.com/#aluminum/=57vbby


--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
In the original Orange County. Est. 1683
To email, remove the double zeroes after @

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:45:47 -0500, willshak
wrote:

mm wrote the following:
On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 00:48:06 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


mm wrote:

I need a piece of Square aluminum or steel tubing, 1/4" x 1/4" x 3 or
4 feet.


http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5


Wow, you're great, and only 27 minutes after I posted, and only $4.78.

But the browser antics are the strangest thing.

When I clicked on your link, it opened in Firefox3, and showed just a
bare-bones page. With one mcmasters graphic at the top.

So I searched the site for square tubing and got a list on the
left, and a list on the rest of the page. Using the rest of the page,
I clicked on aluminum and steel and each page was totally empty. So I
used the left column and got a very nice listing for each metal, but
no size was small enough. The closest was 3/8 x 3/8 in steel, bigger
in aluminum.

So I thought the problem was firfox and copied your link above to IE8.
And again it opened up with a black and white outline of a page, and
very little graphics, and no description of the item.. So I put a
"1" in "the number I want" and clicked on Add to Order, and then it
gave me the very description I wanted, "9008K17 Multipurpose Aluminum
(Alloy 6061) 1/4" Square, 6' Length"

I searched the mcmaster website every way I could think of, and didnt'
find this, except the url you gave me. !!!

Does it have to be tubing?

No. I jumped to that idea because it slid inside a piece of square
tubing! But rod is better, stronger, and probably no more money. It's
part of a projection screen, for movies and slides and powerpoint, and
it's from the 50's or 60's and I haven't seen one of these for more
than 30 years. So I forgot. It's the part that pulls up and stays up
and the screen hooks on to a bracket on the top end of it.

They have 1/4" square rod in 6 and 8 foot lengths.
http://www.mcmaster.com/#aluminum/=57vbby

Very good. Thank you.

I passed by two Home Depots today and one had almost twice as much rod
and tube as the other. That one had a 3 foot steel piece, but it
seemed heavy and might not be long enough. Strangely, though they
don't stock everything the standard sign mentions, the sign for
aluminum has round and square tube, and round rod, but no square rod.

It's not for me. I have a big old, in perfect condition screen that I
advertised for free for a charitable contribution. The first time no
one called, but the second time 3 people called. This is a smaller
cheaper screwen, and I'm going it to give this to one of them.

So McMasters it is. I hope the shipping's not too much.

In article ,
mm wrote:

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 12:26:22 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:

Smitty Two wrote:
In article ,
"Ed Pawlowski" wrote:

mm wrote:
I need a piece of Square aluminum or steel tubing, 1/4" x 1/4" x 3
or 4 feet.


http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5

I was going to suggest McMaster, but the link you provided wasn't
tubing. I did see some brass that's 1/4" square, but only 1' long. And
the smallest I saw on steel was 3/8" square. It does seem like maybe a
hobby store item, or maybe McMaster could get a longer piece of the
brass stuff, if that would work, for mm if he calls them.

I read the intended use and bar stock seemed to be what was needed so the
tubing part did not register in my brain. Tubing that size wold br pretty
flimsy.

Dang, even when I read Smitty's post above, I didn't figure out what
was going on. Only when i read yours and went back to look at the
webpage, did I realize you had found square rod, not square tubing.
And come to think of it, I don't need tubing. The bigger piece has to
be a tube because this smaller piece goes in it. But rod is better
for the small piece!

This accounts for why I couldn't find something small enough under
tubing!!! That was a big part of what I thought was wrong.

And the page isn't so barebones after all.It does have one graphic and
words at the top and the bottom.

But it is still bad that the link you gave gives only the part number
and no description or picture. The entire right 3/4s of the page is
blank. Okay, I started at a list of products and went from square
steel rod to 1/4W to 1/4T etc and then everything is there. Then I
took the url at the top of that page and put it in a new page, and got
the same sort of thing, no picture or description, etc.

I hope to send them a selection from these posts and maybe they can
solve this problem, which I'm sure is system wide, and will like Jules
said, cost them at least some sales.

The BEST part of McMaster is the NO NOISE website! I LOVE their website.
It's the best product website on the whole web. You do have to get used
to how it works. Usually you can click on the part number and you'll get
specs, pics, drawings, whatever.

I love their sorting scheme. You can type in "screw" on the home page,
then narrow it parameter by parameter until you get to what you want.
Sort by length, diameter, head style, thread, material, etc. etc.

In article . com,
Jules wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:15:06 -0500, mm wrote:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5

Wow, you're great, and only 27 minutes after I posted, and only $4.78.

But the browser antics are the strangest thing.

FWIW, it does exactly the same thing as you describe here with Firefox 2
under Linux. Whoever designed their site needs kicking in the butt, & they
must be losing lots of potential sales over it...

cheers

Jules

Wow. I tell every single one of my suppliers that they should model
their websites on McMaster. It is absolutely the best website on the
net. No ****ing garbage, no noise, extremely easy to search and sort.

Smitty Two wrote:


Wow. I tell every single one of my suppliers that they should model
their websites on McMaster. It is absolutely the best website on the
net. No ****ing garbage, no noise, extremely easy to search and sort.

I also enjoy using their website. The other feature which I like is that
once you find what you are looking for, you can see that item as it is
represented in their catalog, along with the other items nearby. Then you
can go up and down in the catalog to find other related items.

It isn't the only website with that feature, but it makes it really easy to
find more things to need.

Jon

mm wrote:

There used to be a web retailer, Metal Express....

I didn't reply to your initial message because I didn't know you were
looking for bar stock, but you might bookmark this site for future
reference:

http://www.onlinemetals.com/

Jon (unaffiliated with onlinemetals.com)

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:40:23 -0800, Smitty Two wrote:
FWIW, it does exactly the same thing as you describe here with Firefox 2
under Linux. Whoever designed their site needs kicking in the butt, & they
must be losing lots of potential sales over it...

cheers

Jules

Wow. I tell every single one of my suppliers that they should model
their websites on McMaster. It is absolutely the best website on the
net. No ****ing garbage, no noise, extremely easy to search and sort.

Oh, I'm all for keeping it simple - I completely hate 'busy' sites. But it
would seem they've got some form of scripted stuff going on that wasn't
sufficiently tested (unless "can't see details about the product until
you've typed a quantity in" is an intended feature, but that seems a bit
strange)

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:40:23 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article . com,
Jules wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:15:06 -0500, mm wrote:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5

Wow, you're great, and only 27 minutes after I posted, and only $4.78.

But the browser antics are the strangest thing.

FWIW, it does exactly the same thing as you describe here with Firefox 2
under Linux. Whoever designed their site needs kicking in the butt, & they
must be losing lots of potential sales over it...

cheers

Jules

Wow. I tell every single one of my suppliers that they should model
their websites on McMaster. It is absolutely the best website on the

If they take your advice, I doubt if they will implement this one
problem part the way McMasters did. (Unless they have a mole and
steal their code.)

I have no objection to its simplicity, but it did remind me of
mal-displayed webpages I used to see somewhere else.

I thought the two things were related here, but they weren't.

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:37:50 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
mm wrote:

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 12:26:22 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:

Smitty Two wrote:
In article ,
"Ed Pawlowski" wrote:

mm wrote:
I need a piece of Square aluminum or steel tubing, 1/4" x 1/4" x 3
or 4 feet.


http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5

I was going to suggest McMaster, but the link you provided wasn't
tubing. I did see some brass that's 1/4" square, but only 1' long. And
the smallest I saw on steel was 3/8" square. It does seem like maybe a
hobby store item, or maybe McMaster could get a longer piece of the
brass stuff, if that would work, for mm if he calls them.

I read the intended use and bar stock seemed to be what was needed so the
tubing part did not register in my brain. Tubing that size wold br pretty
flimsy.

Dang, even when I read Smitty's post above, I didn't figure out what
was going on. Only when i read yours and went back to look at the
webpage, did I realize you had found square rod, not square tubing.
And come to think of it, I don't need tubing. The bigger piece has to
be a tube because this smaller piece goes in it. But rod is better
for the small piece!

This accounts for why I couldn't find something small enough under
tubing!!! That was a big part of what I thought was wrong.

And the page isn't so barebones after all.It does have one graphic and
words at the top and the bottom.

But it is still bad that the link you gave gives only the part number
and no description or picture. The entire right 3/4s of the page is
blank. Okay, I started at a list of products and went from square
steel rod to 1/4W to 1/4T etc and then everything is there. Then I
took the url at the top of that page and put it in a new page, and got
the same sort of thing, no picture or description, etc.

I hope to send them a selection from these posts and maybe they can
solve this problem, which I'm sure is system wide, and will like Jules
said, cost them at least some sales.

The BEST part of McMaster is the NO NOISE website! I LOVE their website.
It's the best product website on the whole web. You do have to get used
to how it works. Usually you can click on the part number and you'll get
specs, pics, drawings, whatever.

I love their sorting scheme. You can type in "screw" on the home page,
then narrow it parameter by parameter until you get to what you want.
Sort by length, diameter, head style, thread, material, etc. etc.

Yes, I noticed. That's good. For example, I don't know what kind of
steel or alumimum I wanted to use, and didn't want to rely on the
chart they provide, but I could save Material for last and then look
at the same dimensions in each material.

Though it turned out that 1/4" square aluminum rod only came, it
seems, in one length and material. That's fine with me.

In article ,
mm wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:40:23 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article . com,
Jules wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:15:06 -0500, mm wrote:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5

Wow, you're great, and only 27 minutes after I posted, and only $4.78.

But the browser antics are the strangest thing.

FWIW, it does exactly the same thing as you describe here with Firefox 2
under Linux. Whoever designed their site needs kicking in the butt, & they
must be losing lots of potential sales over it...

cheers

Jules

Wow. I tell every single one of my suppliers that they should model
their websites on McMaster. It is absolutely the best website on the

If they take your advice, I doubt if they will implement this one
problem part the way McMasters did. (Unless they have a mole and
steal their code.)

I have no objection to its simplicity, but it did remind me of
mal-displayed webpages I used to see somewhere else.

I thought the two things were related here, but they weren't.

If your browser is more than a couple of years old, that may be the
problem. I have one browser that's too old for their site, and I can't
upgrade because my OS won't support a newer version. But then it's a
problem with a lot of websites, not peculiar to them.

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 20:30:03 -0800, "Jon Danniken"
wrote:

mm wrote:

There used to be a web retailer, Metal Express....

I didn't reply to your initial message because I didn't know you were
looking for bar stock, but you might bookmark this site for future
reference:

http://www.onlinemetals.com/

Jon (unaffiliated with onlinemetals.com)


Thank you. And for what I want, it appears to be cheaper.

McMasters was $4.78 for a 6 foot length.
Online is $2.36, plus it has
5 foot for 2.02 and
4 foot for 1.70.

Same alloy, 6061.

They might make it up on shipping, Neither company will tell me the
shipping charge unless I fill out my name and address, etc. This one
insists on a phone number, email address, and makes me pick a
password, which I have to enter twice.

And the cheapest shipping is $15.52. For that, I have to think about
this for a while if I can buy something else at the same time. And
is it worth 18 dollars to fix a 40 or 50 year old projection screen,
that I'm giving away. I have to pull the screen out of its holder and
see if it's in good condition. (Maybe I should have done that even if
the cost were one dollar, or even if no part needed, before offering
it to someone.)

When I changed to 4 feet, shipping was 10.52. **
And when I changed to shipping to a friend who runs a business, it
went down to 8.52.

(Some vendors charge more to ship to a home because sometimes no one
is there, or something like that. No one has ever stolen a package
left at my door, but it could happen.)

For a 6 foot length, it was 13.21 when shipped to a business address.

**Maybe it's hard to wrap a 6-foot rod.

Plus a friend said he might have it. He probably doesn't but he
wanted a day to check.


They give an explanation about shipping charges: "You only offer
shipment via UPS on your site. Why is this?
Our UPS representative has good tickets for Seattle Mariners games.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get those things? (Not hard at
all lately. They Mariners are not very good. But they were at one
time.) Actually, we have some pretty good reasons -"

:-)

So they must be near Seattle. McMaster's has one of their warehouses
in New Jersey, and I'm about 3000 miles closer to that one, so I'll
check their shipping charge.

On Jan 3, 12:15*pm, mm wrote:
On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 00:48:06 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:

mm wrote:
I need a piece of Square aluminum or steel tubing, 1/4" x 1/4" x 3 or
4 feet.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5

Wow, you're great, and only 27 minutes after I posted, and only $4.78.

But the browser antics are the strangest thing.

When I clicked on your link, it opened in Firefox3, and showed just a
bare-bones page. *With one mcmasters graphic at the top.

So I searched the site for * square tubing * and got a list on the
left, and a list on the rest of the page. *Using the rest of the page,
I clicked on aluminum and steel and each page was totally empty. *So I
used the left column and got a very nice listing for each metal, but
no size was small enough. *The closest was 3/8 x 3/8 in steel, bigger
in aluminum.

So I thought the problem was firfox and copied your link above to IE8.
And again it opened up with a black and white outline of a page, and
very little graphics, and no description of the item.. * *So I put a
"1" in "the number I want" and clicked on Add to Order, and then it
gave me the very description I wanted, "9008K17 Multipurpose Aluminum
(Alloy 6061) 1/4" Square, 6' Length"

I searched the mcmaster website every way I could think of, and didnt'
find this, except the url you gave me. *!!!

I've found McMaster's web site to be problematic to hotlink. Best
practice that I have found so far is to post the part number so
another reader can find it quickly.

nate

In article . com,
Jules wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:40:23 -0800, Smitty Two wrote:
FWIW, it does exactly the same thing as you describe here with Firefox 2
under Linux. Whoever designed their site needs kicking in the butt, & they
must be losing lots of potential sales over it...

cheers

Jules

Wow. I tell every single one of my suppliers that they should model
their websites on McMaster. It is absolutely the best website on the
net. No ****ing garbage, no noise, extremely easy to search and sort.

Oh, I'm all for keeping it simple - I completely hate 'busy' sites. But it
would seem they've got some form of scripted stuff going on that wasn't
sufficiently tested (unless "can't see details about the product until
you've typed a quantity in" is an intended feature, but that seems a bit
strange)

Like I told mm, make sure your browser is relatively up to date. After
that, yeah, I remember being a little confused by the site originally,
but once I learned how to use it, which didn't take but 10 minutes or
so, I have zero problems with finding exactly the info I want, full
details, pictures, specs, etc.

Try this. Go to the home page, and you should see most of the window is
devoted to displaying illustrated product categories, with icon-like
illustrations.

Then type "screw" into the search box in the upper left. You should see
a long list of types in the left column, and again, illustrated
categories of screws in the big part of the window.

If that isn't happening, your browser isn't compatible with their site.

In article ,
mm wrote:

Though it turned out that 1/4" square aluminum rod only came, it
seems, in one length and material. That's fine with me.

Square stock or rectangular stock is called "bar stock," not "rod." I
guess if you searched for aluminum, then that's the material you'd get.
But if I do a search for bar stock, I see it in aluminum, brass, bronze,
copper, iron, lead, stainless steel, steel, tin, titanium, plastics,
rubber and foam.

Go to some of those and I see it available in several different alloys,
and several lengths.

I narrowed the aluminum down to 1/4" wide and 1/4" thick, and see it in
3 different alloys, two of which come in 6' lengths and the other one in
8' lengths. I guess since it's less than $5, they don't bother to sell
shorter pieces. 1/4" square brass shows it available in 2', 4', 6', or
8'.

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:47:34 -0800, Smitty Two wrote:
Like I told mm, make sure your browser is relatively up to date. After
that, yeah, I remember being a little confused by the site originally,
but once I learned how to use it, which didn't take but 10 minutes or
so, I have zero problems with finding exactly the info I want, full
details, pictures, specs, etc.

Try this. Go to the home page, and you should see most of the window is
devoted to displaying illustrated product categories, with icon-like
illustrations.

Then type "screw" into the search box in the upper left. You should see
a long list of types in the left column, and again, illustrated
categories of screws in the big part of the window.

Yes, all of that works fine.

The goofy thing is, it's *not* showing the same problem that mm and I saw
the other day (mm, can you see if it's OK for you now?). Maybe it was a
temporary glitch that they fixed, or there's some other dependency
(perhaps a 'direct' link depends on a cookie that's only being transferred
when I first went to the home page of their site, or something odd like
that)

cheers

Jules

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 20:30:03 -0800, "Jon Danniken"
wrote:

mm wrote:

There used to be a web retailer, Metal Express....

I didn't reply to your initial message because I didn't know you were
looking for bar stock, but you might bookmark this site for future
reference:

http://www.onlinemetals.com/

Jon (unaffiliated with onlinemetals.com)

McMaster's woudln't tell me what the shipping charge would be until I
gave them a name, phone number, email address, and what's worse, a
credit card number!! I really don't like that.

I wrote them complaining abou this, and also telling them about the
flaw in their webpage.

(I did more testing on the webpage in IE8, and entering a url for the
particular product I wanted to buy, which had never dealt with
McMasters before, ended up giving me the menu for all aluminum
products. Very strange. I told them about this too.)

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:59:57 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
mm wrote:

Though it turned out that 1/4" square aluminum rod only came, it
seems, in one length and material. That's fine with me.

I was wrong about this. It came in 3 materials, different kinds of
aluminum, and I did read and rely on the chart. But it would have
been easy to go back a screen and check out all three materials.

For the all-purpose aluminum, it only came in 6 feet and 8 feet.

FWIW, at onlinemetals.com, it came iirc in 1(maybe),2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8
feet. They even had a note "cut to length". FTR, they also sell
plastic.

Square stock or rectangular stock is called "bar stock," not "rod." I

Sometimes. It's not the most pro-oriented location, but the display
for steel at Home Depot referred to round tube, square tube, round
rod, and square rod. (For aluminum they had three of these but
neither square rod nor bar stock.)

guess if you searched for aluminum, then that's the material you'd get.
But if I do a search for bar stock, I see it in aluminum, brass, bronze,
copper, iron, lead, stainless steel, steel, tin, titanium, plastics,
rubber and foam.

That's good that it gives all that, but I started with aluminum.

Go to some of those and I see it available in several different alloys,
and several lengths.

I narrowed the aluminum down to 1/4" wide and 1/4" thick, and see it in
3 different alloys, two of which come in 6' lengths and the other one in
8' lengths. I guess since it's less than $5, they don't bother to sell
shorter pieces. 1/4" square brass shows it available in 2', 4', 6', or
8'.

Very interesting. I would think before the web, it would have been
taken forever to find this much variety.

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:40:07 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
mm wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:40:23 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article . com,
Jules wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:15:06 -0500, mm wrote:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#9008k17/=57j16a

Less th an $5

Wow, you're great, and only 27 minutes after I posted, and only $4.78.

But the browser antics are the strangest thing.

FWIW, it does exactly the same thing as you describe here with Firefox 2
under Linux. Whoever designed their site needs kicking in the butt, & they
must be losing lots of potential sales over it...

cheers

Jules

Wow. I tell every single one of my suppliers that they should model
their websites on McMaster. It is absolutely the best website on the

If they take your advice, I doubt if they will implement this one
problem part the way McMasters did. (Unless they have a mole and
steal their code.)

I have no objection to its simplicity, but it did remind me of
mal-displayed webpages I used to see somewhere else.

I thought the two things were related here, but they weren't.

If your browser is more than a couple of years old, that may be the
problem. I have one browser that's too old for their site, and I can't
upgrade because my OS won't support a newer version. But then it's a
problem with a lot of websites, not peculiar to them.

My brower is FireFox 3.56, which is only a couple weeks old. I'm
running WinXP SP3, with all the updates they've been willing to send
me, include some 2 weeks ago.

A similar, but strangely different problem happens with Int. Expl. 8,
which I installed only 2 weeks ago. I took a url that I got by
searching in Firefox for the part I wanted. Then I put it in IE8,
which had never accesssed McMasters, and what I got was the selection
page for all aluminum products. Then I took the url that Ed found for
me and it worked, but I think that had something to do with my not
being able to delete the first tab. And I can't find a cookie manager
in IE like there is in Firefox. I think if I had used Ed's url first,
before another McMasters page, it wouldn't have worked right either.

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:43:18 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 20:30:03 -0800, "Jon Danniken"
wrote:

mm wrote:

There used to be a web retailer, Metal Express....

I didn't reply to your initial message because I didn't know you were
looking for bar stock, but you might bookmark this site for future
reference:

http://www.onlinemetals.com/

Jon (unaffiliated with onlinemetals.com)

McMaster's woudln't tell me what the shipping charge would be until I
gave them a name, phone number, email address, and what's worse, a
credit card number!! I really don't like that.

I wrote them complaining abou this, and also telling them about the
flaw in their webpage.

(I did more testing on the webpage in IE8, and entering a url for the
particular product I wanted to buy, which had never dealt with
McMasters before, ended up giving me the menu for all aluminum
products. Very strange. I told them about this too.)

Well, to follow up, I wrote them at 11:42 my time, which is 8:43 their
time, and I already got an answer at 1:09 my time, less than 90
minutes later. And one that was plainly written by a human, though he
may well have copied parts, and that's fine, from a form letter or
two:

Hi Mike,

The problem you referenced from point 1 is an issue we're aware of and
working to resolve. There are currently 2 options that will cause the
correct information to load correctly after clicking on the link your
friend provided.

Option 1) After clicking on the link, enter a quantity and click ADD
TO ORDER. Once the description information loads down the left panel,
click on the "Catalog Page" link. Once the catalog page loads in the
main frame, you can click on any of the other links (i.e. Product
Specifications, More About Aluminum and Aluminum Alloys, etc.) and the
information should load like normal in the main frame.

Option 2) Create a profile by going to the CURRENT ORDER page,
selecting the "I am new to this website" option and completing all of
the requested fields. Once a profile is established and you have
placed your first online order with us, the site will load all
information for any part without the need of entering in a quantity.

With regards point 2, our site actually does not estimate shipping
charges. Orders usually cost between $7 and $15 to ship. The receipt
we send you will show the package weight and shipping charges.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us and
we appreciate your input.

[man's name]
McMaster-Carr


Wow. WRT my point 1) I'm a programmer myself, and I can't help
thinking I could solve their problem in two days, and certainly no
more than a week. Option 2 is a big clue that might make it much
less than two days.

As to my point 2, very interesting and I'm a little confused. It
isn't really a receipt until you've paid them. Maybe they mean an
invoice, or maybe they mean you charge it your open account or give
them a credit card number and agree to pay whatever shipping turns out
to cost. That's the way corporations usually work. I wish I weren't
so cheap, but otoh, I'm giving it away after I fix it.

I'm guessing it would be their normal minimum, 7 dollars, for
something very light and thin, but 6 feet long. (I gave him my
zipcode and the specific part, hoping he'd tell me, but he didn't.)

mm wrote:


McMaster's woudln't tell me what the shipping charge would be until I
gave them a name, phone number, email address, and what's worse, a
credit card number!! I really don't like that.

I wrote them complaining abou this, and also telling them about the
flaw in their webpage.

McMaster Carr is an industrial supplier. We (us individual non-business
entities) are actually lucky that they go through the hassle of doing
business with us.

Other industrial suppliers (Grainger, Johnson) have learned that
non-business entities are a big hassle, and they now only deal with
businesses.

It is a good idea to just accept the policies of the company, and be
grateful that they are willing to do business with us at all.

In other words, don't rock the boat.

Jon

On Mon, 4 Jan 2010 12:46:01 -0800, "Jon Danniken"
wrote:

mm wrote:


McMaster's woudln't tell me what the shipping charge would be until I
gave them a name, phone number, email address, and what's worse, a
credit card number!! I really don't like that.

I wrote them complaining abou this, and also telling them about the
flaw in their webpage.

McMaster Carr is an industrial supplier. We (us individual non-business
entities) are actually lucky that they go through the hassle of doing
business with us.

You're right.

Other industrial suppliers (Grainger, Johnson) have learned that
non-business entities are a big hassle, and they now only deal with
businesses.

It is a good idea to just accept the policies of the company, and be
grateful that they are willing to do business with us at all.

In other words, don't rock the boat.

I wouldn't have written about the shipping if I weren't also writing
about the web problem. I think the guy who answered me allowed for
that.

I put my helpful part first, and made my complaint about shipping
second and politely.

Jon

On Jan 3, 12:15*pm, mm wrote:
I searched the mcmaster website every way I could think of, and didnt'
find this, except the url you gave me. *!!!

First off, your computer is totally screwed up. The link, and
Mcmaster's website works fine for me and tens/hundreds of thousands of
other happy customers.

Second off, that item is an aluminum BAR, not tubing. That's why you
couldn't find it through the normal interface. The smallest aluminum
tubing they carry is 3/4 by 3/4.

On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 10:44:38 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

On Jan 3, 12:15*pm, mm wrote:
I searched the mcmaster website every way I could think of, and didnt'
find this, except the url you gave me. *!!!

First off, your computer is totally screwed up.

Totally? My email works.

The link, and
Mcmaster's website works fine for me and tens/hundreds of thousands of
other happy customers.

If you read almost to the end of the thread, you'll see a post by me
where I reprint the email they sent me. The one at x:07 o'clock. They
themselves say there's a problem and that they're working on fixing
it.

Second off, that item is an aluminum BAR, not tubing. That's why you
couldn't find it through the normal interface. The smallest aluminum
tubing they carry is 3/4 by 3/4.

Yes, you're right. Thank you.

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:07:14 -0500, mm
wrote:


I'm guessing it would be their normal minimum, 7 dollars, for
something very light and thin, but 6 feet long. (I gave him my

At the other company, anything over 58 inches incurs a 5 dollar added
charge by UPS, so that might be true here too.

zipcode and the specific part, hoping he'd tell me, but he didn't.)

Jules wrote:

Oh, I'm all for keeping it simple - I completely hate 'busy' sites. But it
would seem they've got some form of scripted stuff going on that wasn't
sufficiently tested (unless "can't see details about the product until
you've typed a quantity in" is an intended feature, but that seems a bit
strange)

McMaster has got one of the flakiest sites on the web. Love the company
though. At least they finally allow you to have a link to a specific
McMaster product SKU.

I also order from Online Metals. Sometimes it's cheaper to go through
Amazon to order from Online Metals.

In article ,
mm wrote:

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:07:14 -0500, mm
wrote:


I'm guessing it would be their normal minimum, 7 dollars, for
something very light and thin, but 6 feet long. (I gave him my

At the other company, anything over 58 inches incurs a 5 dollar added
charge by UPS, so that might be true here too.

zipcode and the specific part, hoping he'd tell me, but he didn't.)

I'm pretty darn sure you could find that stuff locally, if you'd rather
invest time than shipping money. Maybe even OSH, Lowes, or HD, but if
not, then many *industrial* tool and hardware stores carry a small
selection of metals. Or drop by a machine shop (not an automotive
machine shop) and ask them to sell you a piece from their stockroom.

On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:43:44 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
mm wrote:

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:07:14 -0500, mm
wrote:


I'm guessing it would be their normal minimum, 7 dollars, for
something very light and thin, but 6 feet long. (I gave him my

At the other company, anything over 58 inches incurs a 5 dollar added
charge by UPS, so that might be true here too.

zipcode and the specific part, hoping he'd tell me, but he didn't.)

I'm pretty darn sure you could find that stuff locally, if you'd rather
invest time than shipping money. Maybe even OSH, Lowes, or HD, but if
not, then many *industrial* tool and hardware stores carry a small
selection of metals. Or drop by a machine shop (not an automotive
machine shop) and ask them to sell you a piece from their stockroom.

That's a good idea. I did look at 2 HDs which from the sign never had
square alumimnum, and a friend looked at an independent, which had
1-foot pieces. I looked for metal stores (they have 2 plastic stores
in town) but I didn't think to look for machine shops.

But it's cold out, and the days are short, so I don't feel like
looking farther. If this comes up in the other 8 months of the year,
I'll try that.