The first article was perfect. Part 180 was not. That is the short version of a 250-piece run we finished this month: 6061-T6 aluminum housings, 96 mm long, one Ø12 H7 bore, an 8 mm slot, and a…
The email arrived eight months after delivery and had four photographs attached. An aluminum enclosure we had machined the previous spring, installed outdoors on a loading dock in Rotterdam, had white crust around six of…
A medical device customer sent us a 6061-T6 enclosure last spring with a 0.8 mm wall on three sides. The first article came off the machine at 0.78 mm, comfortably inside the callout, and two…
Twice this month a purchasing manager forwarded me two quotes for the same part and asked which shop was lying. Neither was. One quote came in at 18.40 USD and the other at 27.90, same…
About once a month a drawing shows up with a note attached: we were quoted five-axis somewhere else, can you beat it? Nine times out of ten the part is a plate with a few…
Every week an RFQ lands in my inbox with 7075-T6 written in the title block. We quote it, and about half the time the customer comes back to 6061 after seeing the number. The switch…
Last month a quote package crossed my desk for a 6061-T6 mounting bracket — simple geometry, four bolt holes, one O-ring groove. Nothing exotic. But the drawing carried one note that nearly doubled the price:…
Half the RFQs I see have the same problem: every dimension carries ±0.01mm, including the ones nobody will ever measure again. Last month it was a 120 × 80mm aluminum enclosure, four M4 holes, a…