Best places to buy metal for large or small welding projects
When buying metal for welding projects you are most likely to want to look at places that specialize in supplying metal to not only factories or manufacturers but to the general public too.
Metal suppliers tend to sell standard metal profiles, sizes, and lengths that you then will need to manipulate, cut, and weld to fit your purpose. This is a lot cheaper than buying pre-cut profiles. Some of these metal suppliers will also cut the sizes you want but at a high cost, paying up to $50 for just cutting a small amount of metal that you can easily do yourself.
If you are getting into the hobby or are a skilled professional, getting the standard profiles and then building something out of it gives you a great sense of achievement.
Most welding projects will include mainly sheet metal, some sort of tubing, or angle iron. That you might find at a lot of hardware shops but their prices might be a bit higher and their stock may be limited to shorter lengths and thinner profiles.
I recommend visiting a store yourself to see the material in person, you will be able to make a lot more informed decisions. Whereas if you buy it online you don’t have that sense of perception and might buy the wrong material or too much or too little of it.
If you live in a town where it might seem to not have any sort of metal industry and no large metal wholesalers then I recommend checking out your local hardware store or to buy it online. Just make 100% sure you are getting the correct materials for what you want to do.
If you are new to welding I recommend checking out my post on projects ideas for new welders. Before you buy any materials.
Where to buy metal in the USA
MetalsDepot and Metalsnet are the best places to buy metal for any sort of welding project because they are metal wholesalers. Their prices will most likely be cheaper than most other places you can find.
The other stores mentioned here are chain hardware stores that can have what you are looking for or just order it for you at competitive prices.
Places you can check out in the USA for buying metal for welding projects.
- MetalsDepot
- Metalsnet
- Tracktor supply shop
- Ace Hardware
- Home depo
- Lowe’s
- Local hardware stores
Where to buy metal in the UK
As mentioned above HM steel shop and The metal store are your metal wholesalers while the others are hardware stores you can check out.
- HM steel shop
- The metal store
- Toolstation
- Castles home hardware
- Local hardware stores
Where to buy metal in the Australia
- Steelbuilders
- The Haggarty Group
- Bunnings
- Hardware stores
Rest of the world
It is difficult to include every single country on this list so for the rest of the world you can check online for your local metal wholesaler or hardware stores.
If you aren’t sure about metal wholesalers in your country you can very easily find them on google.
The method I use is by googling “Steel beams” and then moving over to the shopping tab. Most general places won’t sell large steel beams and only wholesalers do. Then once you find a place you can easily visit their website, check them out, and find what you are looking for.
I recommend you visit their physical location and ask for what you need there and you can also see that you made the correct decision on the size and thickness that you want to get. You can easily buy material only to, later on, notice it is way too thick and might not look as good after you bought it.
Other places to also check
Other places that you can check anywhere in the world are second-hand websites where you can find a great deal on metal people may have leftover from a project or just don’t need anymore.
- eBay
- Alibaba
- Second-hand websites
- Online marketplaces
Where to buy metals for practice welding
You can visit those metal wholesalers or you can go to hardware stores to find flat bars that you can cut into pieces and practice on for welding in different positions and creating T-joints. The main problem when you are just starting out welding you most likely don’t want to waste brand new materials.
I recommend going to some scrap yard and asking for a variety of different thicknesses of metals that you can get practice for different situations. The lengths of steel don’t need to be that long, but if you get long lengths you can easily cut them shorter. You can also ask factories in industrial areas for off-cut pieces that are going to scrap yards anyway. You might get it for a lot cheaper price than at scrap yards or even if you are lucky they might give it to you for free.
- Scrap yards
- Industrial workshops
Prefabricated metal items
Pre-fabricated metal items like some tool shelves or tables you can easily buy online that you just have to assemble. They most likely won’t require any sort of welding or technical aspect to them at all.
If you are looking to build a shelve or something similar you might be better off looking online or at department stores for pre-fab shelves or furniture that might suit your need.
It isn’t as satisfying as building your own but can be a lot faster and easier to do especially if you aren’t looking to get into welding or building your own things out of metal.
Some places you can check for prefabricated metal shelves or furniture are.
- Ikea
- Amazon
- Walmart
- Target
- Cosco
- Any department or furniture stores locally or online
Hot-rolled steel vs cold-rolled steel
There’s no difference between hot-rolled and cold-rolled steel for welding. The main differences between the two are that hot rolled steel is a lot cheaper, has a less square finish, and can be found in tubing profiles.
Cold rolled steel has a cleaner, more accurate finish, and is a bit stronger than hot rolled steel. This is essentially due to the fact that cold-rolled steel is just hot-rolled steel that’s been processed a bit more.
You can opt for cold-rolled steel when you want to create something that has to be very accurate, but else hot rolled steel is what you should get for most welding projects or for building projects.
- Hot rolled is cheaper
- Cold rolled is stronger
- Cold rolled steel is more accurately
- Cold rolled steel has a clean and
- No tubings done in cold-rolled
Conclusion
In conclusion when buying metal it can be expensive and if you are doing it as a hobby or as a profession you don’t want to waste any of it.
When buying the material you must make sure you get what you need and try to have as little as possible left over afterwards. That is why I recommend you make a draft of what you want to build, then visit the stores yourself and check out what you will need you can even ask an employee for help.
