Re: Looking for Cast Acrylic Sheet Stock

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Tesla list wrote:
 >
 > Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
<jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>
 >
 >    Highly recommended to
 >  > get really friendly with McMaster-Carr!!
 >  >
 >  > Goodness knows I have lately ;-)))
 >  >
 >  > My "only" whine is that they don't e-mail you the UPS shipper numbers
 >  > automatically.  But stuff always arrives exactly the day I expect, so no
 >  > big deal...  In general, their prices are perfectly fair.  The nice site
 >  > and always in stock are really what counts.
 >  >
 >
 > Prices at McMaster are sometimes slightly (10-20%) higher than if you spend
 > many hours tracking down another source for the same item through another
 > specialized distributor.  If you were buying large quantities of something,
 > it might be worth tracking down another supplier, but for one and two
 > quantity things, and your time is worth anything at all, I fully agree with
 > Terry on this one, McMaster Carr is great. (At the Los Angeles warehouse,
 > they have a UPS shipping center in the warehouse, so often, if you order in
 > the morning, you get the UPS delivery the next morning...)
 >
 > The only gripe I have is that it's hard to get a paper catalog out of them.

	I agree.  They're a good outfit, but tend to be overpriced.  For most
of us that doesn't matter much because we're not buying that much.
However, it's not a bad idea to check other available sources as
occasionally McM is way higher then even the local hardware store.  As
for paper catalogs, the statement is right on.  The last one I have here
is the 1997 version, although it's still useful.

Ed