where to get different materials
 

ok, well where do you buy all these different materials, acrylic, plastic, copper, aluminum, and so on.....

Phone book for local materials or www.mcmastercarr.com and www.onlinemetals.com for metal.

or, for the local approach, at least for the lexan & plastics check out your area windshield & glass repair company. they'll usually do more for you than an online place will and they should have all sorts of material, clear, frosted, tinted, etc.

k, i checked some of those out, am i missing something? 199 dollars for 1 foot of copper that is 2 inches by 4 inches? or is that really the price?

What? You want copper that is 2" thick and 4" wide and a foot long???? I assume thats not for water blocks then.

I was just wanting to check prices, i mean but is it supposed to be that expensive? I mean i know you would really just need a very small piece, but still... is that about accurate?

Yeah, copper is pretty expensive. I buy mine from onlinemetals, .25x2.0x12 about 16 bucks, and that's for 4-5 blocks.

I can usually get it down a bit more per block, if I buy more. It's the shipping that kills me. 8.90 for the metal and 7.44 for shipping.

There are two sources of Lexan and acrylic I don't see mentioned.

1) I get some Lexan from a guy I know who uses it in constrction of secruity windows and such. His scrap is my treasure.

2) e-bay, I've picked up both the Lexan and acrylic there dirt cheap for odd shaped portions. Again, one guys scrap..........

What is Lexan by the way?
Is it superior than acrylic, I think I'm using an Acrylic & still dont know abt it's tech data on response to thermal load.

Lexan is a brand name for a plexi called polycarbonate.

It's about 30X stronger than Acrylic, but also a good deal more expensive. And while it's break strength and resistence to flexing is far greater than acrylic's, the acrylic is more scratch resistent than is the polycarb.

But you can also buy the polycarb with a hardened coating called MR-10 (gerneral electric's surface hardener). This solves the polycarb scratch problem, but also raises the price higher than standard polycarb.

Lexan is superior to acrylic for block tops for equal thicknesses of the two materials. The polycarb allows for a thinner top to be used, if desired, than can be used with acrylic.

Cathar the designer of the White Water and Cascade waterblocks uses only polycarbonate for the tops of the Cascade blocks he makes.

I've watched in Discovery I think, they are using PolyCarb in Armored vehicles.

what do you search for on e-bay? lexan scraps or what?

polycarbonate all one word. You will have to sift through a bunch of other BS made from it but you will come across some scrap sheets such as this http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=31485 It isn't always on there though.

Or even just use lexan. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...7&category=519

Best way I've found to find the type of Lexan we use is to search ebay:

Home=>building & repair=>search for Lexan

This way it only lists the type of remanents or scraped portions we can make good use of, without all the toys, hobby stuff ect. ;)

You might also check your phone books for local metal suppliers - it might or might not be cheaper for the metal, but you'll save the shipping. If you are in the metro Boston, MA, USA area, I would reccomend the surplus center of Admiral metals in Woburn - They sell remnants of Cu for 1/2 list price - $4.00/lb last I checked. Downside is that there is a $15/cut charge for cutting, so you generally want to take whatever size they have. (Other large production metal dealers might also have surplus or remnant material for cheap...)

Another possible good source is junkyards, again what's there will be erratic, but if you find what you can use the price will be a bargain.

Gooserider