Howard Precision sale: $1/lb aluminum plate drops

What a tease, we have no such vendor of aluminium in downunder land, at least none that i have heard of. The best I have been able to find is a few scraps from behind the guillotine, that I plan to use for welding practice.
 
I just picked up an order from them. They said the buck a pound sales are a thing of the past with the way the cost of metal has been sky rocketing. My order from the "Random Rack" was at $2.50 / lb for MIC6 plate. A long way from the buck a pound but compared to current pricing still a bargain. I placed my order the Friday before Christmas durring one of the worst blizzards in decades where most of the city was shut down and still picked it up the same day.
 
They are a class act. I bought 6061 plate at the $1.00/lb price pre-pandemic. The pieces were labeled with my order number and date , the alloy and heat treatment, and the size of the piece. The 2019 price of gasoline beat the cost of shipping for me so it was a great deal.
 
I was looking for available drops and prices but could find none. I buy drops to have in stock. I don't shop drops for a specific job but rather engineer the job to fit what I have on the shelf.
 
mcdanlj said:
The second "i" makes it cost more. It's cheaper here because we spell it with fewer letters! :p
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I looked into this. The original and most correct spelling is aluminium. Americans changed it to aluminum at some point.
The second "i" also makes it metric.
 
It's cuts fine with HSS tools. Keep in mind it's cast plate, not nearly as ducile as 6061. It will pretty much break before it bends. Great machining material!
 
rwm said:
I looked into this. The original and most correct spelling is aluminium. Americans changed it to aluminum at some point.
The second "i" also makes it metric.
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There is a "missing Sherlock Holmes" story "singular affair of the aluminium crutch" that is referenced but was never written; an early reference using the internationally-accepted form of the name.

The top of the Washington Monument in DC is an alumin(i)um pyramid, and Napolean provided alumin(i)um tableware to the most honored guests, because it was so expensive to extract at the time; it was more costly than gold.

That's why an alumin(i)um crutch would have been so singular at the time — it wasn't until 1886 that industrial production was made feasible, and it was of course not instantly ubiquitous.
 
mcdanlj said:
There is a "missing Sherlock Holmes" story "singular affair of the aluminium crutch" that is referenced but was never written; an early reference using the internationally-accepted form of the name.

The top of the Washington Monument in DC is an alumin(i)um pyramid, and Napolean provided alumin(i)um tableware to the most honored guests, because it was so expensive to extract at the time; it was more costly than gold.

That's why an alumin(i)um crutch would have been so singular at the time — it wasn't until 1886 that industrial production was made feasible, and it was of course not instantly ubiquitous.
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Way OT, but I have a small Aluminium (my Mother always pronounced it so) tray and set of coasters that my parents received as a wedding present in 1939: still rare at that time for decorative items.

Lost in one of their moves was a small offcut of Duralium from the manufacture of one of the Martin China Clippers that my father was involved with in a minor role:

IMG_5851.jpeg
 
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