Originally Posted by sbrpollock One other thing:
Buy everything in twenty foot lengths.
Not every supplier does this, but I've seen a couple. When you call and only buy ten feet of something, they charge you for the cut AND for the whole twenty foot stick. There is a supplier about twenty miles from me where the price for a ten foot piece of angle iron is the same as the price for a twenty foot piece cut in half!
Keep looking, there has got to be a small supply house not too far away. Find an ornamental iron shop and ask them where they buy their stuff. |
I believe that is industry practice. Once a piece is cut from a dimensioned piece it's a cut-off. Plastics industry does the same thing. I always ask what the normal size is and ask for the cut-offs.