I have been looking around for good sources for aluminum in north California for quite a while now. I have not found even an outdated list of local suppliers for California. Ultimately I hope to find a scrapyard or similar that received leftovers from machine shops. There are a couple of metal suppliers I have tried that sells drops and cutoffs, and I will list my experience with each of them here as I visit them. Please contribute if you have suggestions for places to get metal stock for the hobby machinist in California. Note that I am specifically looking for local suppliers, so online stores do not count. Thanks!
To start this off:
Gorilla Metals, 705 Comstock, Santa Clara, Gorilla Metals
They had a fairly decent sized cutoff rack, price as of this month was $4 per lb for both stainless steel and aluminum. I got the feeling that anything not aluminum would count as stainless steel. They quoted me a lower price for non-stainless which I do not remember atm. I walked out with about $40 in aluminum. They have no minimum as far as I can tell.
Places I might go to in the future: Alco Iron and Metal, South Bay Metals and Bay Shore Metals.