Good place to buy blanks and parts

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LPFC
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Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by LPFC » Fri Aug 10, 2012 10:36 am

Were do you like to get your blanks and parts from.

I know of mudhole, swampland, Jann's. Are there better places?

Thanks

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by Mattman » Fri Aug 10, 2012 10:49 am

Bingham Enterprises and Anglers Workshop are outstanding suppliers.
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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by cjtoad » Fri Aug 10, 2012 9:01 pm

Watch Cabelas tacklecraft section to. I don't buy supplies from them to often but when they've got a sale going you can pick things up pretty cheaply. Some of the best cork rings I've ever seen came from a closeout sale at Cabelas.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by Mattman » Sat Aug 11, 2012 5:12 am

cjtoad wrote:Watch Cabelas tacklecraft section to. I don't buy supplies from them to often but when they've got a sale going you can pick things up pretty cheaply. Some of the best cork rings I've ever seen came from a closeout sale at Cabelas.
I have to say that before I started buying wholesale, Cabela's was a great supplier for me.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by neffrental1 » Mon Aug 13, 2012 3:36 pm

Add Anglers to the list and thier are none better than who your dealing with already.

Mudhole - simply has it all, service, selection, catalog, web site. Look for discounts on shipping, etc to save $$.
Jan's - good but limited in blanks and components, heavy in lure building and nets, catalog is good, web site is ok.
Anglers - More fly rod building stuff, catalog is good, the staff knows fly rod building. Web site stinks.
Cabelas - getting more and more limited in rod building stuff, catalog is getting thin, web site kinda "canned" forget about technical support.

The above are actual "commerical business" that have been around a long time and have catalogs. Web sites varry, Mudhole has the best. All the other dealers you see are 'mom & pop" type places with limitied inventory, poor service (when they answer thier cell phone to take on order you know what i mean), no catalogs and some web sites that look like they were made by my son in 5th grade. But yes they do have some deals sometimes - you get what you pay for.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by shfishinsticks » Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:43 am

Bingham for me also. Karen gets 99% of my business. The other 1% was Swampland at the ICRBE back in February.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by USA-RET » Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:44 am

Mudhole has a great catalog and carries pretty much everything a rod builder could want.

That being said. read Mudhole's return policy carefully. You will pay return shipping for items you receive even when it's their error or an item is misrepresented in their catalog. No exceptions. (Unless something has radically changed in their world).

Many "Mom and Pop" stores and virtually every large vendor will accommodate the customer and make exceptions to stated policy when it's their error.

As a norm, most will pay for return shipping of the incorrect item (their mistake) and then ship the correct item to you at no additional charge. This is the absolute minimum customer service one would expect.

To clarify mistake vs. misrepresentation (these are examples only to establish a common point of reference)-

1. You order red anodized rod parts and they send you blue anodized rod parts (a mistake in filling the order)

2. They advertize red anodized winding checks and you receive winding checks painted red (misrepresenting the item being sold). I'm sure someone may think that this is acceptable, reasoning that red is still red and I got what I ordered. (I could paint silver ones red myself and save a bunch of money but would I be a thief for stealing that idea?) :lol:

Clearly neither being what the customer ordered.

Additionally, many companies will allow the customer to keep the incorrect items shipped (if it's a low dollar item) rather than hassle with returns and just ship you the correct items (at no additional charge) or refund any monies spent by the customer if they cannot compete the order properly.

Just good business practice and fosters repeat business.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by Mattman » Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:06 am

Read the locked sticky topic at the top of the forum regarding Mudhole.

I have to take exception to neffrental1's comment regarding mom and pop shops.

The level of daily service, much less extraordinary circumstances, I receive from the "mom and pop" shops I frequent far exceeds anything that the big companies have ever done for me. Personalized service is a big factor for me. I could care less about a web site, or a catalog, or flyers in the mail every 6 weeks. Taking care of me ranks much higher on my list.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by shfishinsticks » Tue Aug 14, 2012 9:35 am

I agree with Matt on the Mom & Pop shops. I won't even go into detail on the shenanigans that Mudhole pulls. They 'appear' big, but in reality, they don't stock nearly what they show in the catalog.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by ipoppa33 » Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:32 pm

Another vote for Bingham Enterprises, Karen is great to deal with. Lance at Swampland is also very helpful. Mudhole does have a great website, but I only use them for things no one else has.

Good luck.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by cjtoad » Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:44 pm

Being a night person and doing all of my ordering in the middle of the night I'm kind of stuck with the "good website" suppiers. I wish all of the mom and pop shops had good websites, I'd love to try more of them.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by LPFC » Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:33 pm

I think we need both type of shops, Mom and Pop and big internet stores.

Mom and Pop has the advantage of touch and feel and quick needs.

Big internet stores will have a larger selection of the "different" parts you might want.

If a Mom and Pop shop started stocking all sorts of blanks, handles, eyes, corks, etc... They would most likely become and Internet store, :lol:

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by cueball » Wed Aug 15, 2012 11:35 am

If you are looking for Batson or Pac Bay products Utmost Enterprises is awesome. One thing I really like is that they charge actual cost to ship blanks. I send orders via email and make payment through Pay Pal. They are very responsive and I have often been surprised how quickly they have responded to my email. Several times they have contacted me to ask if I wanted to have a partial shipment sent out, or if I wanted to wait a few days for a back ordered item to come in. I like being given the choice.

At various times I have ordered from all of the vendors listed above and have received acceptable to great service from all of them. One thing I will say about larger retailers is that they have inventory of most items. In some cases smaller retailers rely on drop shipping from the manufacturer, rather than shipping out of their stock. Most times this is not an issue, but I have had a circumstance that a manufacturer was out of stock on a blank and I had to wait for a manufacturing run to get my order completed. Had I known that up front, I could have checked with other vendors and found the item in stock.

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by mcm83 » Thu Aug 16, 2012 5:52 am

Midwest Rod and Reel, Swampland, Utmost, Angler's Workshop, and Bingham get my business.
great people to deal with. I'll occasionally go to Mudhole - but their shipping prices and transit times suck...

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Re: Good place to buy blanks and parts

Post by crosswired » Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:56 pm

Always had great service from Get Bit, reasonable shipping too.

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