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Last year I had a job I was trying to source in the US (we try to keep what we can made domestically). It was steel tube, cut and punched, initial run was going to require the equivalent of 25 miles of tube. No fabrication, no paint, no powder coat. The reasons our other steel product went offshore was that we were told it had to be handled too many times, i.e. cut, punched, welded, sent out for powder-coat. In other words too much work.
I had four domestic suppliers look at the project and tell me they were interested, spent the time to meet with all of them give them each a drawing package and waited for their quotes. In the meantime, I sent one package to an offshore supplier I use for something that I tried to make here but could not for a competitive price.
I had a quote and sample back from the offshore supplier before I started calling the domestic vendors back to find out where their quotes were. Each one said they were interested and working on a proposal. I have yet to receive one quote - ONE YEAR LATER! Pretty sad state of affairs when you want to have something made here and there is a complete lack of support from an industry that is crying that all their jobs are going overseas....
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