Materials

Introduction

Material is what your custom part will be made out of. You can select select a material from a list of common materials or specify a special material. For example you might select aluminum for an electronic chassis in a space craft to minimize weight.

To select a material from a list:

Choose Job | Material. The material types and range of thickness shown depend on your design. For example if you include the Punch and Bend machines only materials that can be punched and bent are shown.
Check Show only recommended materials if you want to see the recommended materials. (Point your mouse to this option for more detail.)
In the grid select the desired material by clicking on your selection. Use the columns of information* to help you decide on the best material for your job. Ignore columns not of concern to your requirements. If you don't have any specific requirements, consider selecting the lowest cost (VRCost column) steel, aluminum or plastic. The Availability column shows approximate time in days to get the material. The VRCost column shows approximate relative material cost by weight, but selecting a lower cost material may not always give the lowest cost job**. See more information on materials here.
If applicable select the desired sheet thickness from the Thickness grid. If the desired thickness is not available you might need to select a different machine for your design or, for the Milling machine, change the size of your part. The thickness list is not shown for some machines.
Select the acceptable thickness tolerance from the Tolerance list box if shown. Larger tolerances result in slightly lower cost. The Tolerance list is not shown for some types of jobs.
Choose the lower checkbox settings as needed.
Click OK.

* The data presented in the material dialog was collected from several sources. Although the sources are believed to be reliable, the accuracy of the data is not guaranteed. The data is intended as a general guide. If one or more parameters are critical to your design you should verify the data independently. Please contact us with any corrections.

** Because many factors effect the total job cost. For example, a lower cost material might be harder to machine or be more expensive to ship due to increased weight. And a material of the same cost as another might be much less expensive because it's weight is much lower. The Cost value is most relevant to job cost within a similar class of materials such as steels.

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