Where to buy steel and nuts 'n bolts

[8 inches longer, again]

Where's the best place to buy steel, in particular 2x4 tube, and round tubing. And I guess plate as well.

I work in Burnside so preferably places close to there.

Oh, and a good place to buy miscellaneous bolts. I have 3 five gallon buckets full of assorted bolts, and some beautiful bolt bins, but in the last 3 years I have not been bored enough to sort those 3 buckets into the bins. So I'll probably just go buy some.

Also, total newb question, but give me a good assortment of bolt sizes and lengths to have on hand, let's say a Top 10 List of bolts to build a buggy.

Thanks

[mostheman]

Fastenal if you want purchase by the "bag" standard units between 50 and 100 for the smaller sizes,

Transworld Distributing off windmill as well.

[jmurphy]

Metals R Us for steel. Over by the prison off of Akerly.

[rue]

We need to know what ur building for a buggy, before we can guess at what u'll need for hardware. It's hard to tell u what to get before hand. There's so many different combos.

I use 1/4x3/4 bolts to fasten panels. On this buggy I use 1/2 bolts on the links, but 1/2 is not strong enough for larger buggies.

The easiest way is to just pick up ur hardware as u need it. If u start guessing at what u need, u'll just end up buyin twice as many bolts.

[Creepy]

Transworld and MetalsRUs.

Bolts - like Rue said for bigger expensive ones - Buy as you need. You may need to select NF threads, grade8, locking nuts, perfect length so you don't have big dumb rock grabbers hanging off your suspension everywhere, etc, etc. Its a couple of dollars per bolt, gets pretty $$ to have a bunch laying around.

I mostly stick with NC threads for the home bolt bin.

clean and organized:
1/4" - short as possible to 2". used a lot. Have taps for 1/4-20 too.
3/8" - possibly most used. need fistfulls in different lengths to 3". Have lots of nuts as washers for these.
5/16" - have some
1/2" - have some matching pairs of lengths. Having 4 of a few different lengths is nice. have lots of washers and nuts.

Have a spot for metric stuff - its unavoidable to need them sometimes.

Other than that....organize what you have. Collect as you go along, and toss out stuff that is crappy/rusty. 3 5gallon buckets is a lot! would be worth going thru, even if just to throw out junky ones.

[8 inches longer, again]

Thanks for the replies. I already have all of my big expensive 4 link bolts and related hardware, which is good.

Mostly the rough guidance I was looking for was like Jan said...like what's a good selection of smaller stuff to have. I understand having a big selection of the bigger stuff would be stupid expensive, especially where it's not used all that often.

I really do have to get my bolt buckets sorted. They are a pain in the ass to work with, no rhyme or reason to anything, all just tossed together. I end up dumping out a 5 gallon bucket of bolts twice a week to find one I need. There is lots of good, new (non rusty) stuff there, it's just a mess.

[DamnJeep]

A lot of times I just head over to Parts for Trucks for grade 8 bolts.

They have bins full of Bowman fasteners at a cheap price and no min purchase amount.

[The Garagemahal]

I always forget about parts for trucks when you need something at an odd hour
They too keep odd hours

[Creepy]

Ya, me too. I always say to myself 'I have to remember they have XXX, open till 2:30am', then forget when i need it. like bolts.