Supply Sources and Services

We have a little supplies store near the Main Entrance, but you will of course need more! Here is 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.
Makerstock sells all kinds of materials.

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.

Note: be sure to clarify if plastics are laserable if you intend to laser cut them at Maker Nexus!

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

Houston Acrylic

Specializes in laserable 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

Bruce Bauer Lumber & Supply

134 San Antonio Circle, Mountain View, CA 94040
They will cut boards down for you (so long as the remainder of the board is sufficiently long)
Mon-Fri 7AM-5PM
Sat 8AM-4:30PM

Exotic Wood Zone

Interesting woods such as guitar wood

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 are cool with you breaking down lumber in their parking lot and their carts make an OK workbench
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 some cutting of lumber for you, but you can also cut it yourself in the parking lot
They will do delivery to MN
Coordinate with staff in advance to use this option or delivery will be refused.

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

Wood CNC and Tools

Freud

End mills and other bits
Lots of joinery bits

Whiteside Machine Company

End mills and other bits for CNC and routers

Wood Services

Sharpening and Honing

Sharpening and honing for chisels, saw blades, and more.

Acme Saw Shop

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

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.