Unlike the retail store, this place didn't sell by the "piece"; they sold by the foot or the full 20-foot stick. The prices were a fraction of what he’d seen earlier. The staff, though busy with large commercial orders, pointed him toward the . This was a goldmine of off-cuts from larger industrial jobs, sold at a heavy discount. He found his square tubing there, already cut to manageable four-foot lengths. The Treasure Hunt

For the heavy base plates, Elias decided to get creative. He visited a . With twenty dollars in his hand, he asked the shop foreman if they had any scrap plates they were planning to toss.

Following a tip from an online welding community , Elias drove to the industrial district. He found a local , a massive warehouse that smelled of ozone and heavy oil.