Review - Metal Prices

Metals Pricing for Hobby Machinists

[Nov. 30, 2013]

On this page, I present a spreadsheet providing some cost comparisons for a selection of metals of interest to the hobby machinist.

There are many vendors of raw metals, but only a small percentage of them are "hobbyist friendly" in the sense that they are willing to sell retail in small quantities. In addition, not every hobbyist is fortunate enough to live near an appropriate metals supplier. Fortunately, there are many online suppliers of metals - so many, in fact, that it is often difficult to know which is the best choice. To help address this issue, both for myself and others, I put together a spreadsheet comparing the cost of a selection of metals from a short list of vendors (see below).

For links to the metals suppliers in the spreadsheet, as well as numerous others, go here.

About the Spreadsheet

1. Not all vendors provided exactly the same item in all cases. To address this, I calculated the weight, and cost per pound, of each item (for drill rod, I calculated the cost per foot).
2. Note that the cost of a particular metal is often dependent upon the amount ordered. For example, a 12" length of metal will typically cost more per pound that the same item in a 72" length.
3. The cost per pound of each item is generally the same for each metal for each vendor, regardless of the shape (rectangular bar, round rod, etc.) or size (but see Note 2 above). However, this is not guaranteed, so do not assume that the lowest cost of, for example, stainless steel as shown in the spreadsheet means that all stainless steel items from that vendor will be the lowest cost.
4. Shipping cost is a big variable. Shipping costs can often be reduced by buying in larger quantities - for example, it is generally lower cost overall to buy several items at one time, as opposed to buying each of the same item one at a time.

Included in the spreadsheet are "local" vendors. Of course, these particular vendors are local to me, which is not much use to anyone else. However, I included these vendors to illustrate the benefit of finding a local metals supplier, if at all possible, because as can be seen from the spreadsheet, the cost savings are very significant. If you do not have a metals supplier nearby, you may be able to find a local machine shop which will sell you drops or other random pieces of metal.

Using the spreadsheet:

Note that the spreadsheet has multiple pages. Click on the page titles at the bottom of the spreadsheet to select a given page:

• The summary page summarizes all of the detail pages - this summary does NOT include shipping costs.
• The Aluminum, Brass, etc. pages are the cost details for that metal for each vendor.
• The Properties page shows the metal density figures used in calculations for the spreadsheet.
• To save a copy of the spreadsheet click on the this link; you will then be able to view and download the spreadsheet.