Where are you, I know some sources local to me I use for ferrous metals, You might be better off getting a machine shop to do the whole job, chances are they have small billets surplus to jobs........
Personaly for those spacers I would buy oversize and machine true... Unless you buy toolgrade, the flatness will not be that true.......
I live in Edinburgh, to be honest I don't have the necessary tools to do the job and prefer if I could just get straight cut to that size, there is a company on ebay (Ringwood Precision Engineering) selling small cuts of 5083 Alloy http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ALUMINIUM-SOL...ryZ12584QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I have tried contacting them if they could cut to size, but have had no reply over last few days. If anyone can help me it would be great.
Don't know if you found what you were looking for, but a usefull source for small bits of odd material is www.plhillsales.com. They fixed me up with some brass i needed to restore an old church door key - cost and postage was reasonable and turn around was quite quick.
Just had a nose at them Steve, lets just say extortionate 4 times the price of a national supplier ASC who arent the cheapest. Paid £67 with an invoice as against £243 for 4" X 2" x 2M long also in the dearer HE30TF T6 hardness. They will cut to a nominal size i usually have 50 off each size 4, 4 1/2, 5, 5 1/2 and 6" diameter aluminium round, tubing, flat for machining and anodising plus the odd bit of stainless steel 303 or 316S11.
Have bought off above ebayer, takes two days.
My answer would be look through your yellow pages for an aluminium supplier. May be cheaper or as cheap to buy the whole length (over 3M) and may have offcuts if they do cutting on site.
The trouble i have is getting MS at the right price. The place i used to work at went through 34 tonne of flat an hour forge welding on the one section, those were the days scrap value 4p/Lb
Yes I imagine they are expensive if quantity is involved. I paid £11.00 inc VAT and dely for a piece of 1/2"x2" brass bar 10" long. I know this is expensive as a per metre price, but if like me you only need a small amount and are unlikely to use the remainder, it works out quite reasonable.
In this case the customer paid for the entire piece even though I only needed to use a 2" length - and he didn't want the offcut so I now have to think of something to do with it.
Anybody need an 8" key for their front door?
Dont think thats a bad price for brass, last time i bought any was about 15 years ago about a £10 for 25mm round and 10" long. Hate the stuff and have a fair bit of manganese bronze hex, round and flat lying about plus some brass, never use it unless i have to.
Good for valves though.
No matter what is bought, sellers are going to sting you for small quantity usually the full length is the norm.
If its small quantity subject to weight i use ebay, though my local ASC does cut stuff and i have a binge through the bins.
Lost my links to raw materials after the last drive reformat, but above will be useful.
I'm lucky for MS. I work for a company that manufactures heavy goods trailers so theres always plenty of "scrap" around if you know what I mean
Up until recently we have been able to buy steel from Corus using the firms account and discounts, but they are clamping down on staff purchases so don't know how much longer I can get stuff