Cheapest material

[Vincent]

I am trying to prototype some parts, so at this stage I am not bothered about some aspects of the fianl product, just the price. I have been tryig different materials, but always get a bunch of machines reporting "Select another material using Job | Material". how do I find the cheapest way of manufacturing a part?[/quote]

[Tech2]

Please see Reducing Cost and Time. There will always be some processes that don't support the chosen material - that is normal.

[Vincent]

Thanks for quick respose, I thought there were some cheaper materials I hadn't found. What would be useful is a web page guide to sizes of stock materials: pipes, bars etc, so if I could change my deign to use standard sizes rather than machine them out of a bigger piece of material, I would know what to specify. I notice the Z axis offers a list of measurments with some in bold. Your web site says the bold figures are cheapest for 2D deigns. Can I take it that the other figures are the cheapest for 3D designs?

[Tech3]

There are no preferable thicknesses for 3D designs.

[Vincent]

Cheers