You shop dear there,Irving

You have only to enter a scrap metal yard and you will pick up a couple of bars of metal for a fiver,Aluminium well its debatable whether this is an expensive matrial considering it can be gained for nothing in terms of collecting it in bits here bits there and then casting it.

Any aluminium fabication/machine shop will let you have unusable(off cuts)for a few quid,enough to melt down for a component.

Bearings,well yeah it pays to aquire new...just sent off on ebay for 2x 67x30x17mm roller bearings at £8 inc P&P

Its just me,I like to construct more than buy stock items as I get more pleasure out of it.

It is true that its sometimes cheaper to buy already built and assembled products but if we do the pricing up of components and put alongside the shop bought component then that is the decider before shelling out.