Supply Sources for Materials and Services

A list of local and online sources for materials and what we've bought there, at what price. Use this forum when the material is not specific to a particular device.

General Suppliers

• Ponoko sells a range of laserable materials.
• Inventables lots of maker suitable materials, many are not laser safe.
• Ikea sells lots of small wooden items (spoons, coat hangers, wood cutting boards, etc) that can be laser etched as great gifts.

Plastics

Acrylic: Cast and Extruded.

• Cast has a more uniform size and will produce a better raster effect.
• Extruded works well for cutting; thickness can vary a bit across the sheet.
• Cast has a paper protection on both sides that can be removed after lasering.
• Extruded comes with a PVC plastic protection layer on both sides that needs to be removed before lasering. Commonly comes in 3mm, 6mm, and thicker.

Calsak Plastics

• Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, etc.

Delvie's Plastics

• Online store
• Source for Cast Acrylic sheets, 1/16" thick to 2" thick. They also carry badge pins and clips.
• Delvie's Plastics is a full line distributor of Rowmark Engraving Materials.

Piedmont Plastics

• San Francisco, etc.
• 33340 Central Avenue, Union City CA 94587
• 510-746-2200
• Mon-Fri 8AM-5PM

Professional Plastics

• 2175 Kruse Dr., San Jose, CA 95131-1214
• 408-434-9410, 800-523-2807
• Mon-Fri: 8AM-5PM

Port Plastics

• 550 E. Trimble Road #A, San Jose, CA 95131
• 408-571-2231
• Mon-Fri: 7AM-4PM

Tap Plastics

• Fremont, San Jose, San Leandro, San Mateo, San Francisco, etc.
• A large selection of acrylic plastic, both cast and extruded.
• Usually have a bin of remainder odd size pieces for a few bucks each. They also sell a lot of other plastic products that are not laser safe.
• Ask them before buying something besides acrylic.
• San Jose store:
  • 1212 The Alameda, San Jose, CA 95126
  • 408-292-8685
  • Mon-Fri 8:30AM-5:30PM
  • Sat: 9AM-5PM

U.S. Plastic

• Good source of sheet plastic. They ship it rolled up in a tube. I cut the roll on the power shear at TechShop.
• Sytrene0.030 40x72 $10 + $10 shipping
• PET-G (Vivak)0.040 24x48 $18 + $10 shipping
• 800-537-9724

Wood & Veneers

Global Wood Source

180 East Sunnyoaks Ave Building #3 Campbell, CA 95008 Mon-Fri 9AM-4PM Sat 9AM-3PM

Hardwoods San Jose (aka Aura Hardwoods)

San Jose and online 620 Quinn Ave, San Jose, CA, 95112

• Carries a full line of wood sheet goods, including Baltic Birch plywood, as well as an extensive selection of domestic and exotic hardwoods.
• If you take your Maker Nexus badge, and let them know that you are a member of MN, you will be able to use our pricing level.
• They also deliver orders over $350, so larger orders can potentially be delivered directly to MN.
• Coordinate with staff in advance to use this option or delivery will be refused.

Mon-Fri 8AM-4PM

The Home Depot

Sunnyvale and many locations

• Precut 24x18 panels of several plywoods. Many have a nice finish on at least one side. If you want cheap stuff, look for "door skins" - thin plywood sanded on one side.
• The Sunnyvale location has great Endesa sanded plywood (Sandeply) and has been reliably flat

Mon-Sat 6AM-10PM Sun 7AM-8PM

Macbeath Hardwood

930 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94710 Mon-Fri 7:30AM-4:30PM Sat 9AM-3PM

Mayan Hardwood

Oxnard, Paso Robles.

Moore Newton

2115 Williams St, San Leandro, CA 94577 Mon-Fri 8AM-4:30PM

• They will do delivery to MN
• Coordinate with staff in advance to use this option or delivery will be refused.

Mon-Fri 8AM-4PM

Woodcraft

40 El Camino Real, San Carlos, CA 94070

• Has a large selection of great woods. Some plywood panels, pre-cut
• Carries their Wood River brand of tools

Mon-Fri 9AM-6PM Sat 9AM-5PM Sun 11AM-4PM

Metal Structure

Aluminum Extrusion

Misumi These folks specialize in parts that can be configured at the time of order. I found them referred to from some web sites as a low cost source of accurately cut aluminum frame parts - 2020, 2040, 4080, 2525, etc - just about any size member that is made. You can order cut to length, but also with holes at locations you define and stuff like that. You can also buy stuff like a plate with four holes. You specify all the specs of size of plate, location of holes, size of holes, etc. It's like they've made a bunch of parametric designs and provided a web-interface that lets your specify the parameters and them to set a cost. Cool, cool, cool. These guys are also the referenced "best quality" linear guide rails. But pricing is about 5X a part you can buy from China.

Bearings

A specification for "all possible bearings" is the NTN Bearing Corporation catalog available on our member share drive.

This Amazon seller has a lot of smaller bearings. There are also Amazon sellers with multiple regular bearing sizes.

Aluminum Posts

Amazon seller with a drop down for lots of sizes.

All Metals

Industrial Metal Supply (IMS)

569 Charcot Ave. San Jose, CA 95131

• Formerly Campbell Metal
• Full-range metal supplier. Large selection of aluminum plate/bar remnants in their “rem center” (~$3.50/lb, $35 minimum).

Sims Metal San Jose

1800 Monterey Highway, San Jose, CA 95112

• Scrap metal buyer and reseller.

Mon-Fri 7AM-4PM Sat 8AM-12PM

Alan Steel Redwood City

505 E Bayshore Rd Redwood City, CA 94063

• Primarily a scrap/salvage yard, with a large selection of steel of all kinds and smaller selection of other materials.
• Prices can be arbitrary, but the selection is unbeatable.

Mon-Thu 8AM-4PM

Metal Supermarkets

2413 Zanker Rd, San Jose, CA 95131

• A franchise.

Mon-Fri 8AM-5PM Sat 8AM-1PM

Coast Aluminum, Inc.

Hayward, Fresno, etc. 30551 Huntwood Avenue, Hayward, CA 94544

Metal Parts Cut to Order

Send Cut Send

• You upload a DXF file, pick the material and get an instant quote.

They cut it and send it with free shipping. Laser cut metal, plastics, and composites.

Fabworks

• On-demand sheet metal services.
• Laser Cutting, Bending, Hardware, Countersinking, Tapping, and Powder Coating for Aluminum, Steel, and Stainless sheet metal.
• Upload a .STEP file (e.g. output from OnShape or Fusion 360), and get instant quotes (with excellent prices). Turnaround time is quick, and there's free shipping too.

Paper and Cardboard

Kelly Spicers (was Kelly Paper)

San Jose, Palo Alto

• Wide selection of paper stock, corrugated cardboard, paperboard
• Also foam, cardboard sheets and boxes, packing materials
• Words well on our laser cutters, hot wire cutter
• Thick linen paper is really nice to cut

Mon-Fri 7:30AM-5PM

Fittings

Hinges, locks, pen parts, etc

Interesting Bits

Things that you might not know you need.

LED sign standoffs can be used to illuminate etched acrylic. On Amazon

Tamper Resistant nuts and bolts. What a wild assortment of clever ideas. Some are similar to security by obscurity - special tools needed. on McMaster Carr