Lowes by me carries this brand Hillman >>

http://wedo.hillmangroup.com/viewitems/metal-shapes/plated-steel-flat?

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I can't imagine it is not cheap as can be, plain old mild steel. Do you have a sheet metal shop/duct work/machinist/welding shop by you? They will have huge sheets of this steel around. Just ask for a few scrap pieces from behind their metal shear (called "drops") They will normally just give you a few pieces. You don't need to get them to cut up a new sheet.

Cold rolled steel will have a prettier finish, hot rolled steel will be dark in finish. Won't matter if it is hidden. Hot rolled is cheaper, but for the amount you are getting it won't matter. And if you are getting drops you will take whatever you find.

Do you own a micrometer or caliper to measure the thickness? Otherwise bring along your bracket so they can measure it.

If they ask you for money it should not be much, they are getting scrap weight for the drops. You will probably be asked to pay about twice scrap weight, so ~$0.20 per pound. Get to know these guys, they are a great resource.

But every time you walk in the door they are going to lose money dealing with you, so be really nice and make sure to find out what brand of beer they like and drop off a case around Christmas and bring in a 6 pack whenever you go by to get something. Make sure they are happy to see you come by, trust me you are a distraction and they normally don't like to deal with random people off of the street who just want to buy metal from them.

When fabricating new parts for games I would ignore the the original material if possible, and just use 304 stainless of the same thickness (I'm a former metal fabricator now in a quality department in automotive) Cold rolled and hot rolled steal will rust from your fingerprints or just plain exposer to the air over time.

No prob. I might also add that welding stainless can can be a bit more difficult then mild steel, but it will last forever.

My question is, how you going to bend this stuff? Original parts are bent in a hydraulic press. If all you have is a vise to clamp it in and a hammer to beat on it with, you're probably not going to have a part that's an improvement over the welded one.

PEN,

I have a hard time understanding why you would want a person inexperienced with sheet metal fabrication to use stainless steel. It is so much harder to cut, bend, bend without cracking, drill, etc. Why subject them to such pain? Do we even want to get into the issues of work hardening and annealing?

Think about most home hobbyists and the tools they have. I have friends come over to use my shop when all they have to do is drill holes, most home shops have a hard time drilling holes in stainless steel. They just don't have a drill press large enough to put sufficient downward force to prevent work hardening and you still will destroy drill bits rapidly and require constant resharpening.

Who cares about corrosion. The whole game is built using mild steel except for the outside parts that the public will be fingering. Are you worried about the screws, all of the other brackets, the rods in the coils?

I just hate to see someone frustrated by starting with some of the hardest to work material. If the environment your game is in is so severe that a mild steel bracket will rust away I would guess that your wood cabinet and playfield would be rotten away to nothing as well. Paint it or put on paste wax on it if you are worried about it getting surface rust.

You can get decent work with a vice as a sheet metal break. But you need a big vice, at least 80 lbs or larger. Otherwise you run a good risk of breaking the vice when you hit the metal it in.

Often if I have to bend something thick I will use a file or hacksaw and cut 3/4 (or more) of the way through the steel to give a fold line then weld at the fold line once I make the fold. Much easier than having two separate pieces that need held in precise alignment to weld.

I believe the original material was white steel.

Some of your points are valid, but I will have to disagree with "bend without cracking" I have had mild steel crack on me 10 to 1 stainless. As far as harder to work with... meh. Tools required- Hammer, vice, ruler, drill-and bits, cutoff wheel. The biggest pain in the neck with stainless will be drilling it, Drill speed should be on the slow side, and use cutting fluid.

I have done all of this work at home with nothing more then homeowner crap tools, and the end product was decent. Another option is, if you find a local fab shop for some scrap steel ask them how much it would cost to have them make the part(s) for you. You would be surprised how cheep it can be (stainless or not). Most small parts will cost less then some of the tools on my list.

As a side note- the coating on pinball machine brackets seams to be galvanized. If you use a corrosive steel, you can buy galvanize in a spray can.

I do agree with Mr. mg81 though, stainless is harder to work with. I should have thought more about the frustration factor and less about my obsessive love of the metal.

Heat your metal if it is cracking.

PEN,

Good point on just getting a local shop to do the job for you or at least getting them to do the primary cutting and bending. Then you can finish the small cutting/drilling/filing at home to make it fit. That is what takes all of the time and does not need fancy/large tools.

If you don't need the job done quickly and don't mind them using whatever random metal they have around as scrap you could probably get the job done for a reasonable rate. It normally would not make sense to buy tools to make just one item.

If you are trying to bend something in a vice and it is cracking try increasing the radius that you are bending it over instead of the sharp edge of the vice. Often I will pinch a steel rod ~1/4" dia. in the vice with the piece I am going to bend. The rod goes in parallel to the vice jaws. I hope that makes sense.

But alternatively as I mentioned you can cut most of the way through and bend on the that "score" line. Yes, the metal may crack a little, but you are going to weld along the fold line after the bend, so it won't matter. A good way to get things to bend on the exact line and give a very sharp radius bend.