Friday, February 29, 2008

I love the smell of a good steelyard...


I am running low on A36 mild steel, and so I left work a few minutes early and stopped at Wiedenbeck, a place I love as well as I love my own garage/smithy.

"What," you may ask, "is a steelyard?" It's a lumberyard except they sell steel, not lumber, and they sell a lot more cool stuff than a lumberyard does. Want some 1/4" hot-rolled round stock? No problem. Need some angle iron? Sure, what size? Want some W-1 tool steel in 5/16"? Great. Need a piece of steel plating 4x8 by an inch thick? Sure, if you have a truck that can carry it.

Wiedenbeck is wonderful...a big building that has that faint acidic tang of steeliness in the air, with a little whiff of penetrating oil and grease from the 20 ton hoists.

Anyway, I stocked up on 5/16 and 1/4 round, 1/4 x 3/4 and 1/4 x 1/2 flat, and a little square tube for a project I'm working on. Since it's the last weekend before Canoecopia, I want to get out there and beat on some metal while I still can.

No comments: