Supplier for steel bars for tablesaw jig runners

[Jim Smith]

Does anyone know of a steel bar supplier in the Toronto, Canada area.

For jigs and cut off sleds etc.

Thanks

[Charlie Self]

Jim Smith asks:

Check your phone book for metal shops. They'll have just about anything you need, usually at a lower cost than one that takes the same bars and calls them table saw sled bars.

Charlie Self "I think we agree, the past is over." George W. Bush

[Will]

If you are looking for the 3/8" X 3/4 stuff used for jigs and sleds plus the track you can get it at

Lee Valley

and Busybee tools

Try Nicks.ca

don't necessarily need to use steel unless you have a specific need. ?c=1&cat=1,43455&p=45161Hope this helps UHMW is the plastic - Just got some pieces for Jigs

If nothing else it's fun to look at the sites :-)

Jim Smith wrote:

[WoofWoof]

Metal Supermarkets (

) are all over town and will sell in small quantities. Not particularly cheap and they don't publish prices so you are at the mercy of the local manager. Some, I'm fairly sure load up the price a bit - others will find a spare, short length and almost give it away. Having said that, for odds and ends it won't cost a fortune anyway.

They do have short lengths ( up to a coupla feet?)of ground, accurately dimensioned bar stock at a considerably higher price if you want it.

Also, don't get turned off Home Depot just because some of the "experts" around here question the quality. All of this kind of material comes from one of the (relatively) few major metal suppliers and are to standard, common commercial specs. Handling-damage aside , there's no logical reason why steel bars from HD should be worse (or better) than other places. And something like 3/8 x 3/4 steel bar is unlikely to get significantly damaged due to poor handling.

[Will]

Lat time I checked Home Depot did not have this stuff -- Also checked Home Hardware and Canadian Tire -- no luck there either.

Nice to know about metal supermarkets though.

WoofWoof wrote:

[Mark & Juanita]

... snip

Not so much the quantity as the price at Home Depot. They tend to treat metal stock as a specialty item and price it accordingly. Not sure I've seen anything at HD that one could use for sliding bar stock anyway.

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[WoofWoof]

(First off ... I hadn't meant suggest that I'd seen it in HD. It's just that there was a recent discussion of mitre gauge slider material here where it was suggested to stay away from the HD material for quality reasons. I assumed that someone has seen it there).

I sort of agree but the reason they get to treat it as a specialty item is because there aren't too many places that that you can just walk into and buy small quantities of bar stock/extrusions at the retail level (as the OP has found). Which makes it ... well .... what would you call it ..... a specialty item (:-).

There's Metal Supermarkets, but they are basically a supplier to small commercial shops that are also willing to deal with individuals. However, I doubt they are any cheaper than HD, probably more.

But it's not like we're using a ton of this stuff and if you judge the price from the benefit you get I don't think the price is that bad. If someone wants to spend a week in the yellow pages/internet or chasing all around town to find the $20 bar from HD being sold elsewhere for $14 he can be my guest. I'll spend the $20, get on with the job and think I have the better deal.

(Talking about value, I've just ordered a 7 foot length of a special (80/20 Inc) aluminum extrusion (3 x 3/4) for use as mitre fences. This stuff has double t-slots in it as part of the extrusion so it'll be dead-easy to attach facings or stop-block systems. All it needs is to be cut to length and a couple of holes drilled to attach to the mitre gauge.

This is costing me $60CDN which sounds horrendous for a 7 ft bar of metal ... but I can get 3 fences out of this for various setups and a rock-solid versatile fence at $20CDN sounds pretty good to me. I'd expect to pay $70 - $80 for it commercially.)

[John]

Around here (NJ) Sears hardware carries a variety of both steel and aluminum bar and angle stock.