MechE here as well. An alternative to McMaster is Misumi. Misumi is nice because you can order parts that are made to order (imagine a rod with the specific thread and length). No next day shipping like McMaster but being able to buy a custom “off the shelf” part without making a special internal part number is huge (so you don’t need drawings or anything). They’ll ship you a couple books like the signature yellow book from McMaster. They’ll even host a seminar explaining why “good engineers design, great engineers integrate” (really only true for the industry and not consumer tech).
Misumi is awesome. It's basically Japan's answer to McMaster-carr.
10 years ago I would have said Misumi's website was better than MMC. Unfortunately Misumi has gotten a bit less usable over the past decade, while McMaster has improved. Misumi's paper catalogue is incredible though and I surprise myself to say I would rather browse it than either their or McMaster's website.
Top quality configurable / customizable parts is certainly the way of the future, and it's amazing that Misumi has the whole process figured out. You can get a custom precision leadscrew of the length you want with the ends turned down to the diameter you want and the retaining ring grooves you want, and buy just one piece for a reasonable price. Any ordinary machine shop would reject the order unless you bought fifty or more.
I think the most annoying thing about both sites is its weird ass names. Like it’s obvious that McMaster call certain things a certain way so that it’s less searchable elsewhere. Misumi takes this to a whole new level.
I've used Misumi on projects before. I've ordered all kinds of custom stuff including drive shafts and tons of different brackets. Everything comes neatly labeled and bagged. The best part IMO is the custom aluminum extrustion (8020 clone). You can order everything cut to length, with holes drilled, holes tapped, etc. The lead time sucks though. I'm green with envy over all my friends back home that get to use McmasterCarr.
Mil spec part numbers for things like screws are great! We needed a very long screw in a specific style and material that no one stocked. We pulled up the mil spec datasheet for that style of screw, made up the part number based on our needs, and sent it to our fastener vendor. We get back exactly what we designed for without having to spend time designing our own special purpose screw. The vendor already has the spec so we can just point to exactly what we want and none of us have to spend time going back and forth to find a compromise.
And Misumi works well in Europe, which helps a lot. They also have quite often great prices.
Now the catalog is not as far reaching as Mcmaster. We don't have a Mcmaster in Europe :(
> being able to buy a custom “off the shelf” part without making a special internal part number
How does that work? I have been searching the internet for stainless steel M8 x 20 set screws with a torx socket, maybe uncommon but straightforward. I have yet to find these anywhere outside of having them manufactured in china by truckload - I need maybe 100.
"Set screw" means the same as "grub screw", i.e. a bolt where the entire thing is threaded, and the head is set within the bounds of the thread, not proud of it.
Torx grub screws are super uncommon, I don't think I've ever seen one. Usually they have a hex socket (for an allen key), or occasionally they're slotted (for a flat-blade screwdriver).
I think they are uncommon because torx drivers are always bigger than the head of the tool. They always taper down to the size as part of the design, so that doesn't work well for most applications.
I can get a straight torx screwdriver with shaft diameter smaller than the screw at my local hardware store. No need for worldwide shipping, I can get that on bike. There exist also torx bits with long shaft.
These are just standard parts though. Misumi's real configuration flexibility comes from parts that are parametrically defined. For example you can basically design a shaft by specing the material, coating, diameter, length, tolerances, and additional parametric features (external threading, tapped holes, flats, grooves, etc).
AND you can order that same part number again the next time! Configuration options are all built into the part number directly, so you can reference THAT exact number in your own internal documents if you choose to source from Misumi.
