Your Tool Vendor of Choice?

P

Phil3

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What vendors or suppliers do others find offer the best value overall, on a reasonably consistent basis? Everyone has a different idea I am sure, but what is your preferred source and why? MSC, Enco, CDCO, Shars, Travers, Little Machine Shop, etc...?

- Phil
 
I could just quote Edk and he would cover my thoughts also - Enco is just hard to beat. Even if they should - perish the thought! gasp! - discontinue the "codes" for the % off and free ship, they would still be competitive. My second choice is probably a tie between CDCO and Shars. Like Ed, I watch the email specials sent out, and have caught a couple really good deals off one of those. As with all the Chinese/import stuff there is the occasional 'crap' piece/s - but that seems to be happening less and less.
 
Enco is the best I found so far, no returns as of yet and I just placed a small order yesterday with free shipping. I am waiting for some stuff to go on sale, but I did need some items now so I could not wait anymore. I did try CDCO and had no trouble so far with the things I bought back in April. I do buy some HF stuff sometimes, but I am choosy what I buy, it seams that the pro stuff is good for light home use better than the cheaper things from what I heard. I do like there free mini flashlight, been using it for 6 months now next to my lathe.
Paul
 
I'm fortunate enough to have a local seller. They don't stock everything, but they offer a complete product line competitive with just about anyone, once you are a regular customer. They drop ship to me what they don't have from usually Dallas or Houston, so I get it next day at ground rates. The keep a pretty good stock of carbide and end mills, taps and drills....all the standard stuff. I usually don't have the luxury of time to wait on sales, but then, my tooling cost is amortized over a job, or at least absorbed in the shop rate. I do browse the sales fliers from Enco, MSC (my second source), Travers, Wholesale Tool...and a few other specialty houses I that somehow ended up on their mailing list. Once in a while, I'll replace something worn out while it's on sale.
 
I have bought the most from Enco, the price, selection, discounts and free shipping the reasons. I have had good results from all these guys and would not hesitate to use them again though:

tools-n-gizmos, lost creek machine, and tools4cheap


be
 
I order most from Enco. Like most have said watch for the sales. Overall best prices for the quality. I ordered a lot form wholesale tools when I first started putting my shop together. Good prices mostly low end stuff. Having said that my mill and lathe came from Wholesale tools and I have been very happy with them. I have ordered from MSC since I was 14 and still order stuff from them. They have always been good to deal with. McMastercarr is my go to when I can't find something. They are a little higher but carry hard to find stuff. Northern tools has been good since they have a fairly local store so for heavy items I often look there first since shipping is free to the store. You just have to be very careful to know what your ordering as with Wholesale tools some of their stuff can be crap. Bolt depot is my go to for nuts, bolts, and washers. Better quality and better prices even with shipping than the local Lowes and they carry about every size and grade I have needed. I do like Shares for some things. All the stuff I have gotten from there has been very good quality and some of there stuff has great prices. My mill vice and all of my drill chucks have come from Shares and I love them.

I will not order from CDCO. I order my DRO from them and was very pleased. Over several orders probably spent $1000.00+ with them. Then I got 2 tap handles from them that were absolute crap. Called to complain was told no problem they would ship new ones. 6 months and probably 20 phone call latter I finally gave up never did see the new parts. Ended up chucking them in the trash and putting CDCO on my never order from them list.

Jeff
 
Like most others, Enco is one of my first choices along with Tools4Cheap. I really like the hss insert tooling from Arthur R. Warner Co. Of course Brownell's, Dave Manson, and Dave Kiff (PT&G) along with Kokopelli Products are good sources for gun tools and tooling.
Bobby
 
I'm pretty new at this, so my experience with these vendors is quite limited. I have had good service from CDCO the few times I've ordered from them. If you pay with a credit card, they will ship the item by close of business that day. I have, so far, gotten exactly what I ordered and in a timely fashion.
I have ordered a few times from Enco and been very pleased with their selection and prices. I really like their catalog with all the explanations of their tools and choices. :D
I just ordered an AO grinding wheel from Wholesale Tools. As a new customer, for some reason I was unable to successfully complete my order online. It kept asking for an email address and even after inputting it, I kept getting an error message asking for the email address again.:nuts: I ordered over the phone and it seems to be on it's way.:)

Just a newbie's 2 cents worth.
Tim,,,
 
As I understand it, MSC bought Enco several years back, and where their flyers and Enco's show the same item, MSC is always higher....I've been happy with Enco and Grizzly, have used KBC Tools a little, with satisfaction. Wholesale Tools sometimes delivers something slightly different that what I ordered --- straight instead of spiral reamers, for example, and I (foolishly) bought a 6-12 inch mike set from them for a project, based on their catalog image, and got something similar but not what they showed. CDCO has always delivered what I ordered, but I haven't bought enough from them to really know. Shars has been satisfactory, likewise not done a lot of business with them...
 
I'm also pretty new here. So far it's been Enco and Shars. Both are great: decent products, good pricing (on specials), pleasant customer support folks. I'm also trying some high-rated Ebay folks (allesgute in Vancouver) and CTC Tools in HK. We'll see how well that works. I've looked at LMS a couple of times, but didn't catch any specials that I was interested. I'll keep looking. I'll start tracking Travers and CDCO, also, thanks.

Also, I live close by McMaster-Carr, so for some REALLY uncommon components I'm willing to pay their price, since shipping is $0 - I just go to the warehouse and pick it up in 2 hours after placing the order. This works especially well for heavy things, like metal stock items.

Speaking of which, where do you guys get metal and plastic stock?
 
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