Machining materials in Tijuana: what is on the floor and what we source

How the material for a part gets chosen

Most prints arrive with the material already specified, and when they do we follow it without argument. But a good share of the parts we quote arrive with the material box empty, or with a material inherited from a fifteen-year-old print that now costs three times what it used to.

In those cases we ask four questions: what load the part will carry, what environment it will live in, whether it rubs against another part, and what tolerance it has to hold. Those four answers almost always leave two or three valid materials, and among them we pick the one that is quick to source and pleasant to machine — because both of those lower the final price without taking anything away from function.

A typical example: a clamping plate specified in 316 stainless because «it goes in a food plant», when the plate never touches product and lives in a dry area. In anodized 6061 it weighs half as much, machines in a third of the time and costs considerably less. That kind of observation always travels with the quote, never after delivery.