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  1. #16
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Feb 2006
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    Perth
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    Back in 2007 I purchased a total of 23kg of good quality tool steel from a mob in the US called Enco (unfortunately no longer exist).

    One 18kg lot was part of group buy and the rest I bought for myself. The 18kg lot included pieces up to 36" long which I cut up and reposted to about 5 other members. At the time the exchange rate was >US85c in the AU$ plus the postage visa USPS was slow (8 weeks) but very reasonably priced, The 18kg lot was ~AU$100 and arrived wrapped in newspaper along with the tattered remains of a cardboard box inside a tough canvas drawstring USPS postal bag. I guess someone either caused of saw the box disintegrate and did that. I still have the bag

    I see Enco has been replace by a mob called MSCdirect and they say they will port most stuff to AUS. The seem to have most of what Enco had. Anyone bought from them?

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Jul 2016
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    Melbourne
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    35
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    MSC are pretty expensive on most things I find, but I have bought a couple of things. They also own J and L in the UK I think.

    Sent from my Nokia 8 Sirocco using Tapatalk

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Athelstone, SA 5076
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    4,255

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    Quote Originally Posted by StrayAlien View Post
    Jim,

    ABC Specialty Metals
    their website says they can arrange delivery Australia Wide...

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    South Coast of New South Wales Australia
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    296

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    Appreciate the replies everyone.

    Just had a phone call and my small order will be ready to pick up after 11.00am tomorrow !
    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

  5. #20
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
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    near Rockhampton
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    6,216

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    Quote Originally Posted by BobL View Post
    Back in 2007 I purchased a total of 23kg of good quality tool steel from a mob in the US called Enco (unfortunately no longer exist).
    Yea the days when USPS would use sea freight. It was reasonably priced if you wanted to wait. I rarely buy stuff from the US any more. Freight price is ludicrous.
    Gold, the colour of choice for the discerning person.

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Healesville
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    2,129

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    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    I rarely buy stuff from the US any more.
    ditto

    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    Freight price is ludicrous.
    Yup, and you would think that they would wake up to that as the yanks are losing bucket loads in international
    sales, poor old donald has some sort of china syndrome and thinks he will fix things with tariffs.....

    cheers, shed

  7. #22
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Feb 2006
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    Perth
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    Quote Originally Posted by shedhappens View Post
    ditto
    Yup, and you would think that they would wake up to that as the yanks are losing bucket loads in international
    sales, poor old donald has some sort of china syndrome and thinks he will fix things with tariffs.....

    cheers, shed
    I think it was bound to come whether trump was in or not. I think that they fInally have woken up as to what REAL freight cost. Prior to that USPS was subsidising so much cheap OS parcel post there was no way they could even pay their former employee pension plans let alone their current employees plans and were tasked to get their house in order and that's when their freight shot up. Private companies took the opportunity to gouge and away it all went.

    Australia post was in the same situation and are losing money hand over fist dealing distributing all the small value imports - don't know how long that can be sustained. There was talk of adding a $5 per item charge a year or so to cover these costs - it will come up again soon.\
    \
    Much of this cheap freight we see out of Asia is highly subsidised by govt postal services and pennies an hour workers. It simply won't be sustained. I have notice some aliexpress and other chinese sites where the freight has recently gone up eg CTC tools.

  8. #23
    Join Date
    May 2019
    Location
    Tucson, Arizona, USA
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    46

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Ferrous View Post
    Appreciate the replies everyone.

    Just had a phone call and my small order will be ready to pick up after 11.00am tomorrow !
    That's great news Jim. Keep us posted as to what you make with this material.
    Thanks,
    David
    Desert Hybrids Precision
    USA

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