I'm in Cumberland, Maine - just outside Portland.
Needed a small length of brass rod last week. Wanted hex, but would have taken round. Something in the 3/4" range - I'm flexible. Easy, right? Wrong.
I get a lot of what I use from Steve Welch at Reed's Machine Shop in Yarmouth. Really good guy, lots of hot rolled bar and flats, but doesn't keep any brass.
So I tried Gowen, the last of the large machine shops on the Portland waterfront, but not as large as they used to be. Found a two foot piece of one inch round bronze. Took them quite a while to come up with a price in their computer - $54.00. No thanks. They had some round brass in longer bars, but after getting that price on the bronze I decided not to bother them any further. No hex stock even in steel.
Scrap dealer in downtown Portland. Perry? Used to be able to look through the yard. Now he says everything is bundled and sold as soon as it comes in, and no retail.
Another scrap dealer - Mack - in Westbrook. Would sell retail, but no brass or bronze. Mostly plastics.
Went to Brackett Machine - the largest machine shop in Westbrook. Westbrook is the home of the S.D. Warren paper mill, so there are some decent shops there. Brackett had no brass or bronze hex, but I did find a short length of brass square which I settled for. They are good folks and very reasonable.
I used to buy from American Steel in South Portland. They stock all sorts of steel and aluminum, and can order brass or bronze or whatever. They've always been a bit of a PITA to deal with, though. The last time I went there, they wouldn't sell to me - although they did suggest a job shop up the street who could place my order. And this was for a really simple order - full length bars of 12L14, no cutting, maybe $150 worth. No questions - I knew exactly what I wanted and had cash. So I had to go up the street, order from the job shop, have him phone it in to American, have them check stock, wait until they had pulled the bars so they could get the exact lengths and weights, have him call back to get the total price, pay him, and then go back to American to pick up the steel. Hey, I can understand why a business might not want to bother with consumer retail sales. But when someone comes in and knows exactly what they want and it's a stock item with no cutting or special handling and they have green money.......
Goldstein Steel in Scarborough is a pleasure. New and used steel, mostly structural but some flats and plate. They are happy to sell you what you want at a reasonable price, and that makes me happy to buy from them. Little bar and almost all hot rolled, though, and I don't recall any brass or aluminum.
So, now that I've shared my sources and my ranting, does anyone have any decent sources in southern Maine? Hell, I might even drive to New Hampshire if I have to.
And is it the same in the rest of the country?
John Martin