Rant - one person screws up a good thing at my structural steel supplier

Or it could be the lie that management told them to tell so they can charge full price plus a cutting charge for drops. One local metal shop I know of will let you pick through drops, and still charge you the full price like they custom cut it from a full length piece of stock.

did they charge a cutting fee on the scraps too?

That's too bad. Damn lawyers and the greedy bastards that employ them.

Years ago the yards in Mnpls allowed customers to use the O/A rigs that were on carts out in the yard. Burn off what you want, take it to the scale, get a chit, thence to the office.

They'll still do one cut per stock piece gratis, as in cut 20' pieces in two to make transport with a pickup more feasible.

Most guys I deal with will sell drops at full price, you do save the cutting charge though.

Some of them are $10.00 for a cut.

Thank You, Randy

Remove 333 from email address to reply.

Well, in 5 years, you will have to order your materials from China! There's not going to be much stock of anything left in the US. At least you can still find material where you don't have to freight it in from overseas.

Jon

unlikely - every major city I've been in has multiple suppliers of metal, and we still use metal - it won't be "order from china" in any of our lifetimes.

I don't recall. It was just really expensive. I have found for more than one or two small pieces it can be cheaper to order them on-line, and for bigger orders my best price including freight was by truck line from the whole other side of the country, and I don't mean by a couple dollars. For a couple dollars I would have bought it locally every time. I own a local business myself.

======== Problem is that just because a business is locally situated and has been in the community forever is no indication they are still a *LOCAL* business. The "stealth chains" and "roll-ups" continue to expand.

The problem you describe [no sorting through the drops] may well be due to a "stealth" corporate takeover and the imposition of new policies by a "suit" clear across the country (who will be the first and loudest to complain when business starts to fall off).

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

That's my guess. My local metal store doesn't have any such thing as drops. Everything goes back on the shelf and you get charged full-pop for it.

My steel supplier used to charge for drops by the lb. I would pick out my treasures, carry them all to the scale and get them weighed and then take the slip in to the steel office. Early last year as steel was beginning the price spike, they documented every piece and length and charged by the item - not nearly as good of a deal for me but still better than the new policy of paying for a cut fee every time.

So they are charging twice for the same cut. Is that a job for the Better Business Bureau?

Mark Rand RTFM

On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:45:41 +0000, the infamous Mark Rand scrawled the following:

The BBB in the USA is nothing but a marketing agency. It has no teeth whatsoever other than posting, on its own website, that some business jerk is actually being a jerk. For that, they want about $500/year.

Pass.

-- When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. -- Thomas Paine