samedi 11 juillet 2015

... Retail????

I have a few in house fabrication projects coming up next week and I decided to start buying supplies and parts that I know I'm going to be needing. My shopping list consisted of:

1) 24 ft of 1"x1" 10-12 gauge stainless steel tube, grade not critical
2) 10lb roll of stainless steel mig welding wire and small tank of proper gas
3) 6 x 6" c-clamps
4) 4-6 x 4" c-clamps

It's a simple order aside from the tube. Most farm/welding supply stores should carry everything but the tubing and I should be able to get that from my local steel supplier. I can't believe how wrong I was.

1) I had to settle for 19 gauge unknown grade stainless tube (yay mystery metal) since I can't wait 3-4 weeks for delivery.
2a) Had to contact a local welder and buy the wire from him.
2b) Have to change my process from mig to tig since I can't get the gas any quicker than the tube (two of these places never heard of tri-mix welding gas).
3 & 4) Had to go to 3 different stores for the clamps and still only found half of what I wanted. Not to mention that at 2 stores the employees there didn't know what a c-clamp is (tried to sell me U-bolts).

Being told that they will only bring in these "specialty" items on an as ordered basis was frustrating as I live in the dairy capital of Canada and there are countless backyard fabricators here.

I understand that companies are reducing inventories and these retailers are entry level jobs, but this was just ridiculous.


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