I haven't bought in awhile, but look for the wholesaler in your area. When I did some searching and handshaking and buying, my local price went from about 14.00 a foot to like about 5.00 a foot. I simply followed the trail and figured out where everybody else in town bought theirs...
My steel prices seem to be inflated. My go to place (non stocking) was 5.31 a foot. My buddy called his place and was about 3.75 a foot. 304 stainless 7/8x 0.188 non polished was 9.20 a foot Haven't priced chromemolly
I'm going with the stainless and skip the chrome shop. I don't think I can get a front and rear set of bars , tie rod and drag link chromed for the 150.00 difference in material.
Let me know how drilling and tapping goes with the stainless. I have thought of doing the same on several occasions but balked at my hatred of working the stuff, and I have to buy for two or three projects in the very near future. I believe the last time I bought, it was probably when steel was at some of the highest prices it was ever at. Hopefully when I call my wholesaler I'll find prices more in line with what you were quoted.
I will let you know. I'll stop at the tooling shop and get some good bits and taps for it. Now if I can get them built without dinging the hell out of the tubes !!!
You are going to need a collet type holder for your lathe, too much risk useing a 3 jaw on stainless and can wind up scarfing the OD when the tap load increases. Chuck speed is very important---too slow is just as bad as too fast. I prefer LPS brand Tapmatic dual action +#1 cutting fluid for stainless, I had to do around 100 8-32 blind taps in stainless-did it all with one tap and this fluid
Another favorite drilling and tapping fluid I've used often over the years is the grease that comes from frying bacon!!!!!!!!
I appreciate the insight. I'm not a machinist, so forgive the question - what's a collet holder. I have a lathe that came with literally 2000 lbs of tooling and 3 chucks
A collet holder is what you'll find on your die grinders; it clamps on the entire surface. As a cheap alternative, line your lathe chuck jaws with some thin sheet aluminum.
7/8"x5/32 wall is $81.46/stick or $4.07/ft plus cuts. Depending on the stainless, I have seen Crisco used to stop thread galling. This was after using MANY different products without success.
The collets are specfic to the dia of the stock and grip 98% of the material whereas a 3-jaw only touches 3 points. Since this is just tapping and does not have to be aerospace tollerance you could try and make some(or buy $45) aluminum soft jaws and bore them in the chuck to just under the material dia so that they will spring when you tighten the chuck to grip the material better
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