2021 - Where are you buying your tooling ?

[goose]

Find myself using McMaster-Carr more and more for tooling, even the most basic items like endmills and drill bits. The other major vendors, (MSC, Travers, etc), their websites suck, search engine is a labyrinth, and checkout is a confusion of promo codes, sale prices and msrp. Use a promo code, lose the sale price, sign in with user id and prices change, but the promo code now drops off.

Often times I'll find the manufacture part number on their website, go to Ebay and find the item at a better price sold by the exact same company on their ebay store, without all the login nonsense and fake deals they're running.

What is your experience ?

Gary

[platypus2020]

I find McMaster-Carr is like Graingers, they sell a lot of items, are somewhat convenient, but hardly cheap. My order that arrived on Monday, is so wrong, it’s almost not worth the aggravation to try to get it straightened out. The order was about $25, the last time they made a mistake it took about 2 hours on the phone and 2 trips to the post office. I won’t go through that again.

[Rich Carlstedt]

McMaster Carr has the greatest website on the web. Their organization and classification and search is superb
Graingers is not so good IMHO. We bought four 3 inch valves and one failed a year later and we could not find the replacement on their site
So we dug out the old PO and then put in the part number, and bingo, it showed up and was in stock !
Went back the next day and still could not find the valve
Rich

[J Tiers]

McMaster and Digikey have had the best websites on the internet for over a decade. Nobody else comes close.

I'll buy tooling like drills etc from Mcmaster on occasion, but I also buy from the regular suppliers who have a 'net presence.

[challenger]

Grainger is great for their clearance items. Otherwise they are really high $ IMO. Then again McMaster Carr is super expensive as well. I guess if you need things for a paying job and the boss is footing the bill time is $.

[RB211]

Grainger has items in stock that I can drive down to Tampa to pick up that prevents me from having to wait 2 weeks for Amazon due to Covid. My last purchase was a transformer for my CNC mill to power the cooling fan.

[BCRider]

We don't have a really good tool and supplies company like that up my way.

We have good tool companies but they either make it impossible or impractical for a home hobby type to buy from them. Acklands-Grainger? I'm looking at you! The only one that does sell online to home hobby types is KBC. And for some things I would still use them when the need came up.

I'm not against buying from US suppliers but with the borders being closed to casual travel I can't slip over the line to the package receiving outfits to pick up the shipments. And shipping into Canada from the US by most of those places involves Fedex or UPS which charge a high brokerage fee that raises the prices of the order by as much as 50%.

8 or 10 years back I had a cash account at Fastenal and once or twice a year I'd expand my hardware selection by a $100 or $150 at a time. But they closed out anyone that wasn't a company.

So silly as it sounds my main source for tooling recently has been Amazon. Over the past year I've bought spotting drills, carbide burrs for my Dremel, my recent QCTP and holders, an axial dial gauge, HSS blanks, a combination metric/inch dial caliper, 5C tang to ER32 holder that I can recall off the top of my head. And I'm waiting on a shipment of ball oilers to use in a few spots on my lathe and perhaps a couple of other tools to make it easier to oil a few spots on the machines. It's become my main source for a lot of solutions and so far I have only had a couple of minor disappointments with this style of shopping.

[JRouche]

Find myself using McMaster-Carr more and more for tooling, even the most basic items like endmills and drill bits.

Stopped buying tools, have enough for my time. The raw materials like plastics, rubber and bearings are bought from McMaster. JR

[Ohio Mike]

I use McMaster a lot for hardware or materials, their web site is absolutely awesome and the service is excellent.

For tooling items it varies, pretty much only use McMaster for tools if I also need hardware items. I use all the following depending on what I want. KBC, All Industrial Tool Supply, T&S Tool & Supply, Shars (Discount Machine on eBay), and Travers. If I need to do research on what is available I do a search on MSC's site then find the catalog page for that item. Then I open the digital catalog and can browse flip thru the pages. I also use Zoro for some things since its Grainger without the BS. Oh almost forgot MariTool, great website but limited cat log (focus is production CNC shop items) but their stuff is awesome.

[oxford]

McMaster Carr has the greatest website on the web. Their organization and classification and search is superb
Graingers is not so good IMHO. We bought four 3 inch valves and one failed a year later and we could not find the replacement on their site
So we dug out the old PO and then put in the part number, and bingo, it showed up and was in stock !
Went back the next day and still could not find the valve
Rich

It is still pretty much the best website and still light years ahead of others but IMO it has changed a little for the worse in the last few years.

I have also called them looking for replacement parts from certain manufacturers for certain items and they have done the leg work to source them and make temporary part numbers in their system for them.

Most of the tooling I order for work I order from them for ease of convenience. I will also do the same at home for the same reason.

MSC can have some decent deals if you get a good coupon code.

I really wish Enco was still around with those monthly fliers and the constant 20% and 30% coupons. You could really get some good deals from there.

[Captain K]

I think KBC is the best bet in Canada

[psomero]

I find McMaster-Carr is like Graingers, they sell a lot of items, are somewhat convenient, but hardly cheap. My order that arrived on Monday, is so wrong, it’s almost not worth the aggravation to try to get it straightened out. The order was about $25, the last time they made a mistake it took about 2 hours on the phone and 2 trips to the post office. I won’t go through that again.

Use the email system. They're super responsive to mess-ups and will make it right.

you are certainly right about the pricing. you can have it here tomorrow, but you pay a premium. I live in northern california, and my cutoff for getting something stocked in LA delivered tomorrow was about 15 minutes ago, just before 6:30 PM PST.


I do a lot of stuff on mcmaster, and will usually let miscellaneous things accumulate until I can tolerate the shipping fee. For little twist drills and that kind of stuff, they're fairly competitive with the local vendors. I also buy 90% of my material from them just because their catalog is familiar and I don't have to talk to a person to get a 24in cutoff of 1.5" 6061 barstock or something dumb like that which the local metals vendors won't even answer the phone for.

If not McMaster, I've used Travers and MSC lately, mostly Travers. I hadn't used them until last year and they're pretty decent.

[Tundra Twin Track]

I think KBC is the best bet in Canada

I have dealt with KBC and have been pleased with there service,I buy very little tooling Online.Kennametal or SOWA is my main sources that I pickup direct from dealer,I have had some decent luck finding NOS tooling from different local sellers.

[754]

BCrider , what is wrong with Thomas Skinner KBC , and maybe Busy Bee.. KMS tools...

[LKeithR]

There are several good suppliers in the (BC) lower mainland: Thomas Skinner, A.C.T. Equipment and
Technicut. Don't know about Busy Bee, haven't bought from them in years. All of the above named
suppliers are definitely oriented towards larger commercial customers but I have bought from Technicut
for years with no problems. Prices are definitely not as cheap as what you can find online but the trade-
off is quick delivery. A.C.T. and Technicut are 20 minutes from my shop so, to me, anyway, it's an easy
decision to make. To be fair, I am still running a business, albeit a much smaller one than I have had. At
74 I ain't bustin' my balls for customers any more...