Prices vary massively depending where you buy from. A two foot length from a specialist ME supplier costs the same as a 18 ft length from my local steel supplier. Local steel supplier doesnt carefully measure it, wipe it and wrap it in paper though. Oh, and it will probably be bent too!

Pretty ironic ( no pun intended….) when you hear in the news that the steel works in my home town is to close and job losses into thousands at Scunthorpe…..

try making friends with your local metal supermarket lads.

ones at my local are great, i go in tell them what i want and they let look at their offcuts.

needed some 38mm rd other day they only had 42mm in offcuts bit but they only ever charge me scrap wt + 10%.

worst i had was needed some 2" and they only had 60mm but bit extra time turning down was worth saving i made in money.

also try local scrap metal dealers my local one saves anything that might be useful again scrap value + a bit.

got some nice 1/2" ali discs from him i used to make a set bearing installers with.

another good source is local metal collector guy, he often stops by with bits for me, as empties out couple of factory units.

I was surprised when I was pricing up some metal. 2 inch square brass was cheaper than 2 inch square MS.

If you buy material when you need it can be expensive, The trick is to acquire it when you don't. I always have my eye out for material. Of course you risk the usual "you are such a magpie" comments from other members of the family! in my family I am usually asked first how big is it? when announce a good find.

Anyway after a bit of digging around my shop more often than not it is "in stock"…….

I Keep an eye out for closing down auctions steel offcuts usually sell for less than the current scrap Iron value, dealers wont pay more because there is nothing in it for them.

Regards
John