Well I am looking for a project to do this winter and I think I have it ... Home bar. Let me explain. Now that I have a house with a couple of friends - hopefully for the next couple of years too - and it is close to campus, it is party time. We have had quite a few parties already and one whole set of cupboards is full of various bottles of booze and I am running out of room. Also I have found that the kitchen counter is not the ideal place to serve guests, so I am planning on building a home bar and booze cupboard to go along with it. Eventually I will be putting a computer in it for music and drink recipies. The problem is that I have not been able to find good suppliers of acrylic and brushed aluminum. I am looking for sheet stock and tubing of both. Any good US suggestions?
Where are you going to school? UWE or elsewhere? I know some places around Milwaukee, I live in Waukesha. If you ever get down to the East side of the state tell me where and if I know of somewhere near I will let you know. There is a plastics distributor about 5 miles from my house in Greenfield that has a retail store; they sell whatever you want for a bit above wholesale and they have customer returns that they sell or give away. Last time I went there (last week) I got a 6'x4' sheet of 1/16" thick anti-glare acrylic for free that some guy returned because he decided he didn't want it. No colored extruded rods but they are thinking about getting em since they have a ton of demand for em. Dremel's world headquarters is in Racine too (30min south of Milwaukee) if you didn't know. Going to stop there on the way to Chicago next time I go. I am sure they have a similar setup. I am in the works of negotiating with a few aluminum distributors for some CNC and metal Lathe projects I have. Will let you know how it goes with any of them. The problems with the aluminum is that not many manufacturors like to deal outside of wholesale and if they do shipping is a ton so its best to find something local. I know there are a couple of em outside of Mad Town but I haven't looked with them yet. If you need electronic components there is a components distributor in Milwaukee. I can't remember their name off hand and don't have a phonebook. They are Somebody Semiconductor and have a similar deal as the plastics distributor. -Nesbit
Heck yeah, sounds sweet. Hopefully I can convince some of my friends to go on a short road trip with me sometime soon I really wish we had more industrial businesses in the Eau Claire area, but mostly call centers and glass plants. The glass plant would be cool, but they produce sheets of continuous floating glass that are miles long. Then the manufacturers take the glass dirrectly from them and cut it. No chance for seconds there For the plastic I found a decent web site, http://www.usplastic.com and they seem pretty good, but I still need an aluminum supplier, specifically brushed aluminum. Anyone know of any good Web sites that I could check out if the whole road trip idea falls through? Oh yeah, I do go to UW-Eau Claire
There is a place on the net that is really cheap for retail acrylic and plastic supplies. http://www.delviesplastics.com/index.htm I have yet to order from them but plan on it sometime in the near future. I need some of those 6' 3/4"dia colored extruded rods and I haven't seen them anywhere for the $9 he is asking for that size. All of his stuff is cheap, probally because his main business looks like it is to students and schools in the plastics industry. Yeah the aluminum has been kind of a pain to find a supplier. There are a couple places on the net like McMaster that will deal with the public but shipping is just killer. I know for good tools to work with the stuff you can try Metal Works . They deal in a lot of stuff for you to do it by hand seeing as most places don't see most people working with metal rods and bricks on anything but a CNC machine or metal lathe. BTW I don't know how much you know about plastics but if you are going to be doing a lot of cutting and drilling of the rods/tubes you want get cast rods or tubes. Extruded work fine if you need to do little or no work with the plastics but it will discolor and melt very easily. Cast is of better optical clearity and quality too but it is also a tad more expensive. If you are going to be working power tools on it don't take a chance on the extruded and just get cast. You and your wallet will thank you in the end! -Nesbit
Boy, the brushed aluminum sheets are very expensive there, and I am not even sure that the finish called 'satin' is brushed. I am sure I saw someone else post about aluminium suppliers, but I can't find it. (just had to use one of the new smileys )
Whoah! best price I've seen on clear casting resin by a factor of about 3! (not three factorial, just 3.)
