My wife works for a commercial wholesaler / engineering firm ( mechanical,electrical,pneumatics etc) and has access to those items Sky, If you ever have a problem finding something, PM me ill get her to find it for ya. Engineering and quoting $ is what she does for a living.
welcome to my buddy list. I work with a lot of different parts, Mostly for projects for myself, however I'm the mechanical engineer on a highschool robotics team (I'm 17). Were sponsored by JCP, NASA, ABOTT, and more and money is not an issue (16,000$ last build season and only used about 6,000$ of it on the bot. rest was spent on bull that still makes me angry today). It still sounds like your wife could be very helpful to our team and when it comes to building my little projects, halloween props and home made wind turbines and what not. I would mind keeping in touch.
usually when we receive help from another business we show our appreciation by slapping a sticker of there Co. on our bot as if we were sponsored. Being a regional to international event its good for advertisement. Specially for small or private business owners.