Comment by iancmceachern
3 years ago
Mechanical Engineer and product designer here. I've been using mcmaster daily for 20 years to do my job. It is definitely the standard by which all others are judged. I'll gladly pay 2, 3, 5, even 10x the price to get it from McMaster. The service, the CAD models, I have what I need the next day. As an example of the level of their service, you can send them a box of loose parts, no part numbers, no markings, and they'll go through it, figure out what's what, and refund you for it. They make it so easy, you just have to do the engineering. Thank you McMaster-Carr.
Alas, for some reason they only cater to the US market and have no presence in the EU, for example. So while it is possible to order from them, it's rather inconvenient as you need to deal with customs/taxes.
Digi-Key got this right: you can order DDP, which makes things quick & simple.
Incidentally, I am amazed that they don't have a meaningful competitor in the EU. It seems most companies here are stuck in the 80s and dedicate next to zero effort to their web ordering process.
> It seems most companies here are stuck in the 80s and dedicate next to zero effort to their web ordering process.
I'm so glad we can order from mcmaster here in canada, even though shipping is two days and usually min 30 USD even for tiny orders. All local industrial suppliers are truly stuck in the 80s. They have a paper catalog, without prices (if you're lucky you can get a PDF too). If you want prices, you have to call a salesperson, or send an email with an item list and wait a day or two to get a quote back. Then you get your quote, and some items are in stock, some others in stock "nearby" (next day delivery), others are backorder (1-X weeks). Then you have a lengthy phone or email back and forth to try and figure out what's in stock as a replacement.
So yeah, McMaster whenever possible and I'll gladly (have my employer) pay more for it. Shout-out to Misumi, too, however. I do mostly prototyping and I use so much of their customizable items, like rotary shafts. Much cheaper and faster than doing a drawing, sending it out to 3-8 local shops to try to find one that is quiet enough jobwise to take on a tiny one-off project and waiting 4 weeks for it, at a high price.
10/10 agree for Canadians McMaster Carr is a godsend. Can order random stock material and have it tomorrow and have a certificate telling me exactly what stuff is with a nice cad model. Their search is the best though, can write some half assed description of what I want and it'll just deisplay what I want. Their mobile website is garbage though.
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>without prices
What in god’s name what!? How much business are they losing from that I wonder haha
The B2B vacuum of Europe. So many voids to fill, for the ones daring to share product details and, gasp, prices, online.
Yeah what is going on with B2B in Europe and not showing prices? It's absolutely bonkers, I have been renovating my house the past 6 years, and to even get into the stores I had to get a business account (by cheating and using my IT business registration).
None of the websites show prices if you don't have an account, and some of them even check if your business is legit so I just get refused. The one that rejected me also seems to only allow loading goods by fully sized truck so maybe it wasn't going to happen anyway, but it's so strange.
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We hade a competitor in Europe. It was called Zoro. Maybe not THAT clean but overall they also had a good website and great prices. But they folded some years ago.
In B2B we have Fabory: https://www.fabory.com
That's unfortunate you lost Zoro. They still operate in the US - I use them a lot.
DDP is probably the only good solution here for most EU customers, but frankly the hassle and expense of doing business in the EU is what keeps most US e-commerce companies from entering the market.
I tried googling DDP but couldn't find it - do you know the URL?
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There is misumi but it is not exactly the same market
Musumi is great too, they're cool because they have a lot of semi custom parts like plates with holes in them where you can spec the hole locations, rotary shafts with custom lengths and end finishing, etc.
I often use Conrad for its huge collection of small parts (mechanical as well as semiconductors) most of which can be ordered individually, with an interface with lots of filters and easy access to manuals and data sheets. Sometimes their categorization is a bit off, and they don't have CAD files, but it's decent enough.
Conrad is a shitshow in my country.
- Almost nothing is on stock, most items have 10+ weeks backorder time.
- Ridiculously expensive, its common to find 2x prices than in other shops.
- Full with Chinesium crap (but some high quality items too), one can never be sure what they will get.
Its like a shitty Aliexpress
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and Canada, though only to business and school addresses only.
Pro tip: Use M.D. after your name and you're a business. I AM an M.D. but friends I've given this advice to over the years have had success in impersonating a business with this title.
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I used accu.co.uk (in the U.K, not EU) for a project, and they were fantastic. I’m only a hobbyist though. Can someone explain what it is missing?
Maybe because the site is hard-coded for the US imperial system?
Quoting the article: «Bolts are commonly specified by their thread size (e.g. 1/4"-20), and their length. I'm looking for a 1/4"-20 x 1" bolt, meaning that the bolt's diameter is 1/4" and its length is 1", so I select these filters.»
Maybe because the site is hard-coded for the US imperial system?
Why not go to the site and take a look. They, obviously, sell both metric and imperial bolts (and everything else).
It's not like Americans don't occasionally need metric bolts.
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A friend of mine worked there right after college. I happened to buy some girl scout cookies through her, and joked with her that you can get everything from McMaster. When she brought me the cookies, she brought me a fake McMaster invoice for them too.
I've heard some mixed reviews about what it's like to work there, but I completely agree: as a customer, despite the (sometimes very high) prices, I was always incredibly happy with McMaster.
mcmcaster carr is also extremely popular in the hobby drone building market for buying bolts/nuts/fasteners/standoffs to attach circuit boards (ESCs, flight controllers, etc) to carbon fiber plate, and for attaching cnc cut carbon fiber plate piece together to build the whole frame of a small UAV.
people in the film/tv/production industry also use them to buy various fasteners and hardware for rigging lights, microphones, building complex camera systems onto gimbal platforms, etc.
We had piles of their yellow books laying around the house when I was a grad student. Definitely good toilet-book material.
Lucky. When I was in Engineering school, the Mechanical Engineering department had one catalog. We couldn't get any more - something about limited numbers printed (though, I'll confess I never tried to get my own). It was passed around among the students in Machine Design as if it were some sacred scroll.
Totally, it used to be a right of passage. You'd get your first job and (usually share) a copy of the machinerys handbook, and a yellow mcmaster book. I used to keep at least one at home long into the days where you don't need it anymore "just in case the internet goes down". It was those 2 books, the pemn 3 ring binder, and the ryerson catalog to know what mill sizes there were in what metals.
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Electrical Engineers traditionally use the Mouser catalog for that.
Really? I always found that the ink came off, then you need a bidet anyway...
> you can send them a box of loose parts, no part numbers, no markings, and they'll go through it, figure out what's what, and refund you for it
That is insane. Mad props to them
I'm sure they have internal horror stories of the practice, but they do it.
When we sold an old company to a PE group, all the McMaster loose stuff in the warehouse went back to them stacked in boxes on a pallet for them to work through. I wouldn't be surprised to learn our CM did the same thing after the sale.
That kind of service must require tons of human intervention and employees who worked there for decades, no? I mean the catalog is humongous.
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Oh how I wish Mcmaster would open an EU branch... I don't even mind if they charge us more, but PLEASE for the love of all engineers in Europe, just open a branch here.
Maybe your customers or employer would like you to save 2, 3, 5, 10x the price…
My memories of McMaster from doing my hobbies is that it is outrageously expensive.
Not at all. My rate is very high, so saving a day of my time saves them way more. The burn rate on some of these projects is hundreds of thousands, millions a day. Saving time when your on the critical path (as mechanical design typically is) is worth that much. Once the design is finished there is a whole army of manufacturing engineers and sourcing folks that can drive the cost down. That's not the niche that mcmaster fills.
If it's a commonly used item, it would be much more efficient to pay an entry level CAD guy to draw up a parametric screw part. Add in toolsolids of all the subtracts that the component will do (taps, CBore, clearance), and supplier call outs. It starts to become efficient.
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Honestly, not really. They want the project done sooner, and McMaster is a means to that end. The supply chain team can find a better longer term vendor later.
For production quantities, sure, nobody in their right mind would source from McMaster Carr (or Grainger, or any similar company,) but for their niche, they have a solid value proposition: they’ll get you small quantities of anything they carry incredibly quickly. For maintenance and repair (their primary market) or prototyping, that can be incredibly valuable.
Exactly!
Time is money and buying from McMaster has always been faster and easier than any other site. I also have yet to get an incorrect item.
I have had an incorrect CAD model from them. (Which they fixed when I brought it to their notice). Once burned, twice shy.
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It depends on what you need. For basic metric nuts and bolts it seems to be the same price as a local hardware store but I don’t have to leave my office to buy the stuff.
They also have the weird stuff the local hardware stores don't, and usually it's higher quality.
You are, people ignore how much their time costs when they start "saving" money all the time.
Nahh, postage is $12.99; I can save that by driving 5 hours each way tomorrow to collect it - unlike you wasteful people who stupidly pay the postage and have it arrive the next morning /s
Looks like an opportunity to make something as delightful and lower the prices.
I am thinking instead of low price free would be great. They can stick on some extra ads on stuff they would be selling.
I even buy home supplies (air filters, cleaning, etc) from them. They're wonderful.
High school shop/engineering teacher held a copy high: "Everything you will ever need, is in this book.".