Level vials

Son of a gun. Cost more to ship than the item costs.

Steve

Go to Walmart or an RV place. They have cheap levels that stick on. Pull the vial out of one of those.

I usually keep a list of things I need from McMaster but don't need right this minute, it makes it a bit more economical when something I need right now comes along since it all comes in one box (most of the time).

Wes

minute, it

McMaster is very good about not deleting my shopping cart for a long time, even if there is no activity in the cart. So I just put stuff in the cart for a while, until I am ready to buy.

Man, I gotta get one of the catalogs. Sounds like a lot of stuff I can use.

Steve

minute, it

It's freaking incredible. I go to the McMaster-Carr website, start searching for "gear puller", and even before I have it typed in the catalog page is right in front of me with pictures of a bunch of different models.

But the next step is pure magic: If you had told me when I was a kid, that when I grew up and was much older that I could go to any computer, hit a couple buttons, and a package with industrial/machine supplies would arrive the next morning with what I needed, I would tell you that was pure science fiction.

Some folks tell me they can get SAME DAY delivery from a nearby McMaster-Carr on many orders. Now that's like the picture I had of how the mailman worked when I was a kid: He picked up the letter I sent and carried it straight to the address on the envelope :-).

Tim.

They do not give them out, normally, except to big customers. But you can buy one on ebay or something. I got one from a factory liquidation.

i

Good luck...

You can beg and plead all you want, and you ain't gonna get one from them just by asking. Not till you have ordered enough Stuff to trigger some mystical threshhold in their computer, then they magically start appearing and will keep coming forever.

Best bet to actually see one is to borrow an old copy from a local friend who gets them annually. I have a #108 from 2002.

Till then, their online search functions are pretty good - you might have to excercise your Google-Fu and ask for the same thing a few diffferent ways, since they tend to not use trademarked names.

IIRC one such McM name game is "Star screw", not Torx® screw. L. H. Dottie does it too.

-->--

Nowadays, we got the Internet, and don't have to use those big catalogs. Dontcha love it?

Steve

"SteveB" fired this volley in news:81kel6- snipped-for-privacy@news.infowest.com:

catalogs.

I love McMaster's online catalog -- it's as easy (and faster) than the paper copy. But take their #1 competitor, MSC: Their on-line catalog is just plain infuriating to use.

I like both businesses, and deal with both, but I simply cannot use MSC's online service, except to place an order I've worked up from the paper catalog.

So... I _kinda_ love it. Everyone ought to "get it", but they don't.

(Jake Jacobsen -- you listening?)

LLoyd

You are a master of understatement.

i

Amen. I order from both, the prices vary by as much as 3x for some of the components that I buy. ie XML timing belts are way cheaper at mcmaster, the related sprockets are way cheaper at MSC. But the MSC site is a PAIN to use.

The real pain is when I order some of the sprockets, need 10, they show

11 in stock. What they don't say is that those are in stock at 4 different warehouses, I will get 4 different shipments. And of course, one of the warehouses has a bad inventory count so something gets back ordered. We have to put all this small stuff on the corporate credit card, reconcilliation means having all the packing info to back up the credit card charge. Worst case is that 1 charge might have 6 to 10 packing slips.

I have an adm> >> But the MSC site is a PAIN to use.

But -- MSC is still good about supplying dead-tree catalogs, and

*those* are easy to use.

The online version can be used -- once you have the part number from the dead-tree version -- to find the current price. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

On Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:32:07 -0500, the infamous Ignoramus8090 scrawled the following:

What's so bad about it? I haven't bought there but I've searched.

-- If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Larry Jaques fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

One of the major problems is that it doesn't follow a hierarchical search method. When you finally "hit" on a keyword it knows, it just starts listing items, instead of allowing you to rapidly and reasonably narrow your search. In some instances, you have to wallow through dozens or hundreds of items you don't want - in no particular size or material order - just to get to the one item you do want. And worse, many of the listing entries have no pictures, or are "not catalog items".

On the other hand, McMaster's allows you to search in a "tree" fashion, rapidly zeroing in on the _exact_ part you need -- in seconds. Materials, sizes, configurations... all are presented in the search selections, much to the relief of a harried and hurried maintenance guy.

LLoyd

On 2009-08-14, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote: OB> One of the major problems is that it doesn't follow a hierarchical

What Lloyd said. Go to msc.com and type "cap screw". Then go to McMaster and do the same. Then time yourself until you can find a 2" long 3/8" NC SHCS.

i