any Canadians????

[sgmezei]

Southern Alberta myself. I do everything online. The local store quoted me approximately $20 for 3pdt footswitch and charges $2 for a 100pf ceramic cap. No joke.

Tayda is getting better everyday and adding new stock. I love Small Bear and have never had an issue with Steve Daniels the operator. I also use Pedal parts Plus, but watch out for duty to be paid at the border.

Another tip is that mouser air mails orders over $200 to Canada for free. They also pay the duty if there is any. Orders placed have been here the next day and for sure withing two days. I usually keep a list of stuff to get and wait until I hit the $200 mark.

[Canucker]

I'm just outside of toronto and get all of my stuff on College street in toronto. The electronics store combined itself with HomeHardware. They are super organized which I really appreciate because any surplus place I've walked into had mixed parts in bins and piles of what looks like trash. I hunted down a place on Sherway in Missisagua once after being told they had NOS 12AX7s for $7....the guy who told me that must have been remembering something from ten or more years back because I drove right over there and they had some chinnese 12AX7s for $17 and the guy sounded pissed off at me when I even asked for tubes. The rest of the place looked like a dump with ripped open busted stuff...I guess your suppose to bring your soldering iron and a solder sucker to harvest your parts??? The problem with the place I go to is that you can only park in the side streets for an hour so I have to keep moving my car. They have all of your standard stuff and pretty cheap (though they just bosted prices on a lot of things...almost double in some cases! pots use to be a buck now they're a buck and a half)....resistors are a penny, most small caps are between $0.10 and $.25, a lot of silicone transistors for $0.45 to 0.90 and diodes are about $0.20 for common ones...but as I said before lots of stuff I require they don't have. Hammond enclosures cost a fortune so I'd like to find a suitable substitue if I start making stuff for other people (which I'm strongly considering). So enclosures and switches are my main concern as far as anything substantial. I etch my own boards and get my acid from Canadian tire for cheap.
Why are the web sites for electronics stores always so awful? Everything I look up on the Sayal site comes up as not available...and I'm clicking options on they're search engine. None of the hammond boxes appear.

[Yeahno]

London Amplifiers has a useful links page with a number of Canadian suppliers:

http://www.londonpower.com/links.htm

Also, the venerable Electro-Sonic: http://www.e-sonic.com/acc/home.aspx

[Mark Hammer]

I'm just outside of toronto and get all of my stuff on College street in toronto. The electronics store combined itself with HomeHardware. They are super organized which I really appreciate because any surplus place I've walked into had mixed parts in bins and piles of what looks like trash. I hunted down a place on Sherway in Missisagua once after being told they had NOS 12AX7s for $7....the guy who told me that must have been remembering something from ten or more years back because I drove right over there and they had some chinnese 12AX7s for $17 and the guy sounded pissed off at me when I even asked for tubes. The rest of the place looked like a dump with ripped open busted stuff...I guess your suppose to bring your soldering iron and a solder sucker to harvest your parts??? The problem with the place I go to is that you can only park in the side streets for an hour so I have to keep moving my car. They have all of your standard stuff and pretty cheap (though they just bosted prices on a lot of things...almost double in some cases! pots use to be a buck now they're a buck and a half)....resistors are a penny, most small caps are between $0.10 and $.25, a lot of silicone transistors for $0.45 to 0.90 and diodes are about $0.20 for common ones...but as I said before lots of stuff I require they don't have. Hammond enclosures cost a fortune so I'd like to find a suitable substitue if I start making stuff for other people (which I'm strongly considering). So enclosures and switches are my main concern as far as anything substantial. I etch my own boards and get my acid from Canadian tire for cheap.
Why are the web sites for electronics stores always so awful? Everything I look up on the Sayal site comes up as not available...and I'm clicking options on they're search engine. None of the hammond boxes appear.

In the GTA, the tried and true places are Honson (as you described), Creatron (just the other side of Spadina, and the home of Arduino in the region), Active Surplus on Queen, and the little "E-mall" in Mississauga on Matheson near Dixie Rd that has Active Electronics, Sayal, and a couple other places.

[GGBB]

I'm in Toronto.  I get the vast majority of my stuff in-store from either Sayal (I work 5 minutes from their main store) or A1 Parts.  I occasionally resort to Active Tech across the street from Sayal, but they have poor selection for pedal builders and they are expensive.  I mainly frequent these places because they are far easier to get to for me than Honson or Creatron, which I have been to in the past but didn't find a whole lot there that I couldn't find elsewhere.  AA Electronics in Mississauga is also good for some things and they are 2 doors down from Sayal's Mississauga branch in the same strip plaza.  None of the places have everything I want - it's always a little from here, a little from there.  A lot of my hardware - footswitches, jacks - I just get at the guitar store (usually Cosmo).  I like A1 best but I don't know why - the owner is an odd sort that for some reason I don't trust completely - but he answers all my questions, the place is a dump (although they are slowly improving), and their prices are really high for some things (but cheap for others).  I've never ordered pedal parts from anywhere online except Banzai Music, which was quite reasonable and surprisingly fast even though from Germany - their shipping was cheaper than some US outlets.  They have a really great selection of knobs and pots, and have some hard to find stuff like LM308s and BC108s.

[rousejeremy]

A request for the Toronto population. Let me know if you guys see any shops in town with J201 in stock.

[Madkatb]

I'm closer to Kingston but I've bought parts at Active Surplus, Sayal and a store on College (don't remember the name), all in Toronto. A1surplus,dot,com is the online store for the place just north of Sherway Gardens. He has jfets listed online. I know what you mean about the inside of the store but he has a wide selection and all kinds of gems if you don't mind taking the time to look.

[Canucker]

I'm just outside of toronto and get all of my stuff on College street in toronto. The electronics store combined itself with HomeHardware. They are super organized which I really appreciate because any surplus place I've walked into had mixed parts in bins and piles of what looks like trash. I hunted down a place on Sherway in Missisagua once after being told they had NOS 12AX7s for $7....the guy who told me that must have been remembering something from ten or more years back because I drove right over there and they had some chinnese 12AX7s for $17 and the guy sounded pissed off at me when I even asked for tubes. The rest of the place looked like a dump with ripped open busted stuff...I guess your suppose to bring your soldering iron and a solder sucker to harvest your parts??? The problem with the place I go to is that you can only park in the side streets for an hour so I have to keep moving my car. They have all of your standard stuff and pretty cheap (though they just bosted prices on a lot of things...almost double in some cases! pots use to be a buck now they're a buck and a half)....resistors are a penny, most small caps are between $0.10 and $.25, a lot of silicone transistors for $0.45 to 0.90 and diodes are about $0.20 for common ones...but as I said before lots of stuff I require they don't have. Hammond enclosures cost a fortune so I'd like to find a suitable substitue if I start making stuff for other people (which I'm strongly considering). So enclosures and switches are my main concern as far as anything substantial. I etch my own boards and get my acid from Canadian tire for cheap.
Why are the web sites for electronics stores always so awful? Everything I look up on the Sayal site comes up as not available...and I'm clicking options on they're search engine. None of the hammond boxes appear.

In the GTA, the tried and true places are Honson (as you described), Creatron (just the other side of Spadina, and the home of Arduino in the region), Active Surplus on Queen, and the little "E-mall" in Mississauga on Matheson near Dixie Rd that has Active Electronics, Sayal, and a couple other places.

What are you finding at Creatron that Honson is lacking? ( I didn't even know they were called Honson to be honest). None of the metal enclosures there are good for pedals and they don't have true bypass switches....I'm not really sure where they have them at a reasonable price. I only have one that I got at a guitar shop in London and it was $14.75...not a price I'd pay again.

[Canucker]

I'm in Toronto.  I get the vast majority of my stuff in-store from either Sayal (I work 5 minutes from their main store) or A1 Parts.  I occasionally resort to Active Tech across the street from Sayal, but they have poor selection for pedal builders and they are expensive.  I mainly frequent these places because they are far easier to get to for me than Honson or Creatron, which I have been to in the past but didn't find a whole lot there that I couldn't find elsewhere.  AA Electronics in Mississauga is also good for some things and they are 2 doors down from Sayal's Mississauga branch in the same strip plaza.  None of the places have everything I want - it's always a little from here, a little from there.  A lot of my hardware - footswitches, jacks - I just get at the guitar store (usually Cosmo).  I like A1 best but I don't know why - the owner is an odd sort that for some reason I don't trust completely - but he answers all my questions, the place is a dump (although they are slowly improving), and their prices are really high for some things (but cheap for others).  I've never ordered pedal parts from anywhere online except Banzai Music, which was quite reasonable and surprisingly fast even though from Germany - their shipping was cheaper than some US outlets.  They have a really great selection of knobs and pots, and have some hard to find stuff like LM308s and BC108s.

Wouldn't Cosmos be the most expensive place to buy jacks and switches? Cus they really just stock the stuff for repairs so they wouldn't buy in quantity. I buy my jacks on college st. for $1...can't see that price being beat. I believe they have BC108s there...or its the 109's for $2.50 a piece....I just remember they have a bin for each but only one of them in stock.

[Mark Hammer]

Each store hs what they have, ad if one has no stock at the moment, its nice to know you can just pop across the street.  Creatron also has (or had) some sweet pad per hole boards.  Not as nice as the ones from Smallbear, but nice.

[GGBB]

Wouldn't Cosmos be the most expensive place to buy jacks and switches? Cus they really just stock the stuff for repairs so they wouldn't buy in quantity. I buy my jacks on college st. for $1...can't see that price being beat. I believe they have BC108s there...or its the 109's for $2.50 a piece....I just remember they have a bin for each but only one of them in stock.

Cosmo is probably priced high yes - but I'm only building maybe a pedal a year (well - only just finishing the first one started last year, have plans for a few more but will probably only finish one or two this year).  I think a paid about $8-9 for a 3PDT stomp and about $4 for Switchcraft jacks.  I've bought cheaper jacks from A1 Parts but I don't like them.

I bought some BC108s from Honson on College a year and a half ago or so - they were the only two they had left and they were plastic TO-92 which makes me wonder if they were authentic (gains are right though).  I think they were a buck or two each.  Banzai has them cheaper and has As, Bs, and Cs all TO-18 metal can.  I was buying a bunch of other stuff anyway.

[GGBB]

Creatron also has (or had) some sweet pad per hole boards.  Not as nice as the ones from Smallbear, but nice.

So they aren't all the same?  I've been using ones from Sayal and they aren't great - the pads lift fairly easily.

[Mark Hammer]

Youwant the double-sided ones where the pad goes through the board to the other side.  Those don't lift off quite so easily.

[GGBB]

Youwant the double-sided ones where the pad goes through the board to the other side.  Those don't lift off quite so easily.

Thanks - I'll have to keep my eyes open for those.

[Mark Hammer]

Unfortunately, they don't carry them anymore, or at least not when I was there in March.  The ones Steve has made specially for Small Bear (apologies for the plug, but these deserve it) are particularly good.  Pricier than the ones Creatron carried, but well designed, well made, and worth the money.

[Greenmachine]

Lee's Electronics has everything. And Raymond is an amazing resource. Even if you don't see it on the website, they probably have it. It's just that they're typically too busy to list it.

Oh, and it's cheap. Can't say what shipping costs are.

http://www.leeselectronic.com/

Hell yes.  Raymond is incredible - I bring all my business there.

[Canucker]

I started the Ebay? thread but seeing as the Canadians are reading this thread.... are there any good ebay sellers for parts located in Canada? or how about stories about shipping from other places? I'm totally paranoid about cross boarder mail order after a bad experience at my old job... machine replacement parts that cost $30 and weighed about a pound ended up costing $95 by the time they arrived...included in that was a $25 charge for "brokering" the transaction which was defined as signing paperwork at the boarder to bring it into the country...I was told I could avoid that by driving to buffalo (from 3 hours away) and sign the papers myself. This order was coming from New York to an hour outside of Toronto (north). We felt more then a little screwed over.

[GGBB]

I haven't ordered a lot of pedal stuff online, but have ordered quite a bit of guitar and other stuff from various places and rarely have any issues.  I think once I was hit with a bit of duty and taxes, and once UPS screwed me so I will never buy anything that ships UPS again.  I've bought stuff from India, China, Germany and USA.  I don't order anything too heavy, too big or too expensive (never much over $100 and usually well under $50).  My rule is only use regular post - and especially not UPS.  It may take a bit longer but it's cheaper and if you do get caught in customs the brokerage is never more than $5 (that's where UPS really screws you).  The vast majority of my orders arrive within 2 weeks at my door (China and India took longer) - no duty or taxes required.  I have no experience with FedEx or other global shippers like UPS, so I can't say what they are like - I stick with post.

[davent]

Just don't buy anything coming out of the states that isn't being shipped USPS, avoid the courier companies like the plague. It's extremely rare for USPS packages to be nailed for extra charges and if they are it would be HST (ON) and a $5 handling fee. Never ever had a package from overseas held up for ransom upon arrival.

dave

The USPS advice does not apply to Digikey orders, they come UPS but all you pay is Digikey $8 for shipping and the next business day your toybox is at the door, end of story. Oh and free shipping on orders over $200.

[Canucker]

I think UPS was indeed the company we had the issue with. Maybe the suppier thought they were doing us a favour by trying to send it fast? I believe it still took a week. Really made me paranoid about not buying stuff in person.