General Purpose Tools

McMaster-Carr Online Catalog

The ultimate hardware store

The best way to describe McMaster is to say that they carry everything you need to build anything. Items that you could normally only order through factory distributors, or materials that could only be ordered in large quantities, are easily available in any size and quantity, no matter how small. (No minimum order, either!) Their prices are excellent and they tend to only carry good merchandise. Amazingly, when I order stuff at 5:30 p.m., it arrives the next morning with their normal shipping. Their catalog has long been difficult to get because you had to be a reasonably sized business with a Dun and Bradstreet number and established credit to have them mail it to you. But now that they have added an online service, everyone can easily order from them with a credit card.

— Alexander Rose

McMaster-Carr Online Catalog

Do not order here. Contact McMaster-Carr directly via the blue link above.

07/22/04

Excerpt

Two random pages out of the 3,400 page catalog, containing 350,000 items:

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Hello friend! If this is your first visit to Cool Tools you may not realize how much great stuff is here.

• In addition to this item, there are over 3,700 other cool tools reviewed and recommended here. We cover an insane range of items from hand tools, how-to-how books, educational toys, maps, apps, and all kinds of other unexpected goodies. Every weekday (for the past 14 years!) we publish an unexpected cool tool review. Take a look at the Editor's picks as a start.

• Every week we email out 6 brief recommendations of cool stuff. Now up to 10,000 subscribers, Recomendo is one of the most popular things the Cool Tools team produces. People really enjoy the brevity and usefulness of these little notes. Signup or inspect previous issues here.

• We produce a weekly 20-minute podcast where a legendary maker shares his or her favorite 4 tools.

• We co-host a weekly 30-minute video round up of the best maker-oriented material on the web.

No matter what kinds of things you make or make happen, we bet you'll find some help here.

— editors)

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