My last trip to my Fastenall store had the counter guy wanting to tell me his life story.

 

I guess we are lucky here in Morgan Hill. My neighbor owns the local Ace...it is tied in with his builder's supply and lumber yard & he hires a lot of retirees who know hardware. His bolt selection is outstanding, including grade 8 and stainless fasteners. He even has stuff I use for my other hobby...model airplanes, so it is easy to get 2-56 and 4-40 screws and nuts.

I've never been to a fastenall. My son and I did call one in Dayton OH to see about shipping a big box out here to California. They had to do research to find out that their corporate trucking does shipping...we ended up shipping my parts by Greyhound.

Dan

 

Last time I was in a Fastenall, I was told I'd have to buy a package of 100. Local Lowes and NAPA had what I needed in stock. Lately I've been buying online.

 

I have a Fastenal store about two blocks from my shop. I find it fairly useless. Every time I need a somewhat special hardware part they don't have it in stock, can get it within 24 hours but I usually need the part today so I drive down to my local ACE which is locally owned and is huge, not your typical neighborhood type of store. They deal with contractors so they have almost everything I need. I also have professional vendors I deal with through my business so I can pretty much find anything I need. I feel I'm really lucky living near Milwaukee. I've been to a lot of other bigger cities that just don't have the access to the parts I have.

I just can't figure out how Fastenal survives. Their prices aren't all that great and like stated, never seem to have anything in stock. How they can support a store what seems like every 15-20 in every city including ever little spot on the map town or village.

 

I agree, Bob. I've never had any good luck at Fastenal. I tried getting saw blades for my reciprocating air saw. They never heard of any such thing. I've had a couple other incidents with their help too, but I'll save those to myself. And they do seem to be popping up on every corner, like a 7-11.

 

When the store near me first opened they seemed to have employees who knew what they were selling. I could go in there and actually have the counter guy answer questions and also ask questions to narrow down what I needed. Over time the employees have changed from middle aged people to the same type of pimple faced post high schoolers you find in the local MacParts auto parts stores.

I noticed the same thing when Home Depot first opened in the area maybe ten years ago. Even in their ads at the time emphasized having older professionals working in their departments. Now when I go into one of their stores I'm lucky to see the same person in the same department from one week to another.

Another thing, since we're ranting here, that gets me boiling is those damn self serve check outs. I work all week long and many times when I stop into the Home Depot is late at night looking for a part(s) I need for the next day of work, every real store was closed. I've worked all day long, why in the heck would I want to work further by checking myself out. The one or two times I tried to use a self check out lane I had a problem and had to have a cashier come over and reset the machine. One time I tried to buy a 10' piece of conduit, I scanned the label and it told me to place it in the 2'X2' bin. It wouldn't allow me to scan another item until I placed the 10' piece of conduit in the 2'X2' bin, see a problem with this? I gave up and just left the cart there and walked out. I went to my local ACE the next morning and was out the door in less than 5 minutes at about the same price.

 

Yeah Bob , Home Depot started out and ended up the same way after about one year clear out here in Idaho, so it must be the way they operate . I have walked out of there stores more than once for the same reason. I was a building contractor and their prices never could match what i got at the local small lumber yard.
If there are any fastenal stores here i don't know about them and it sounds like i'm better off not to have one close by . I can get most any kind of fasteners i need at the local lumber yard, they are an ACE store. True Value hardware two miles from me , a little high on prices but it's there if needed.There are a lot of farm related stores here and most are well stocked. NAPA has a pretty good selection in some of their stores so i guess i don't need a Fastenal store.__

_
P.S. Home depot has a lot of fasteners here too if you are not in a hurry and know what you need, they won't know.
_

 

My local Home Depot is a larger one, I was in NC a while back installing a system and went to the local Home Depot looking for some electrical parts. I have more inventory in my shop than that store had. The one local to me is pretty well stock for electrical but their hardware department is very lacking. Everything is packaged in quantities of 8-10 pieces and only the most common nuts and bolts and brackets. I've found any time a store has parts in packaging you tend to pay more just for the packaging. I can go down to the ACE store and pull out the individual parts for about 2/3 the cost, or less.

 

Fastenal SUCKS!! I buy my bolts from Tractor Supply they have Gr5&8 in stock. They sell them by the pound. If I need something special there is a John Deere dealer that have a good selection of std and metric and a good selection of o rings and hardware.

Have A Great Day ------ Hotwrench

 

Yeah that's what Home depot does here too is package up stuff, same with some other box stores , sneaky way to sell more . Ace and True Value here don't do that as much .

I like these threads where we can rant on some of the suppliers of stuff we use, gives us a chance to , well ,rant , L.O.L. As long as it's not on a member of this forum.__

 

It never fails, I need six 1/4"X1", it's Sunday night and I need to get a project done. I go to a big box store and they have boxes of 1/4"X1" bolts in packages of five!! I have to buy two packages.


Dick, have you ever been kicked out of big box store?!!

 

I'm like Dan as far as having a good ACE hardware that has each department overseen by people that have experience in there dept. They have an excellent hardware department. I don't like rusted bolts, so unless I need a higher grade bolt, I buy stainless. Otherwise they do have up to grade 8. Napa quit carrying grade 5 & 8 because people get them mixed up, so they said.

 

Napa quit carrying grade 5 & 8 because people get them mixed up, so they said.[/quote]


Must be in your area , i buy both grades all the time in the NAPA stores here . I use grade 8 a lot in place of the lower grades . But then the help in our local store have some knowledge about what they are doing Some of the women do a better job than the men and are not afraid to get their hands dirty handling old core trade in parts.__

 

I left one before they could figure out where that rotten egg smell was coming from - It was bad - I turned around to go back down the isle and I almost passed out

 

Atta boy Dick. It's always an adventure when they let you out amongst the general public. Just think...them guys will be talking about this for weeks to come.

We have a small local True Value store clost to me. Its great! they have a bit of everything and are always friendly. I've got them trained to not ask me if I need help, they know that most of the time I'm wandering the shelves looking for ideas or inspiration.

Bobby