[trialanderror]

I am trying to determine if it is cheaper for me to buy a $30,000 milling machine, 6061 aluminum material, and higher a full time machine operator compared to placing $30,000 stocking orders every few months for the final product in China.

Lets say the final product is 5" x 5" x 5" and costs me $30 landed from China (machined and all).

I looked at some prices for 6061 plates online and they are really far fetched and it appears a lot cheaper to go the China route, just on material alone.

Where do shops doing CNC production get their metal? I am assuming is not online. What would be the approximate cost of a 5" x 10" x 20" 6061 aluminum plate if I was to buy a 20 or 40 foot container worth?

I am guessing the material costs should be well below $10 for 5 x 5 x 5" if having these made in the USA is going to make sense.

[azmachining]

Highly doubt you could get 25lbs of 6061 for under $10.00 even at that quantity, I think you'd be lucky to get it at $30.00.
Us and no other shop with any viable material source is going to just give away their source, your going to have to start diggin.
Good luck!

[dertsap]

in the end it'll probably cost you more to get the parts from china .
I've reworked many parts that were missing holes , threads , etc . It cost the customer three times as much for us to rework the parts(purely out of spite) , than it originally was before they pulled the work from us to out sourced it to china .
I know of another company that figured that the 10% of good parts they'd get out of a batch were cheaper than having them machined locally , they thought that until they calculated how much time QC put into measuring and sifting thru the scrap pile
bottom line is you'll get less than what you've paid for , i don't recall ever seeing anything from china that was high quality , nothing !
even the so called 6061 bar stock from china that some suppliers are selling is bad , theres something to that aluminum that just doesn't seem right

[trialanderror]

It's not 25 lbs its 5 x 5 x 5". Not sure the weight of that in 6061. Also I have already bought the finished parts from China and have zero complaints so quality should not be taken into consideration. Just price.

[mactec54]

trialanderror

6061 aluminum 5x5x5"= 12.19lbs

[trialanderror]

Thanks for that. I guess I have to make as much use out of the material as possible. How much does scrap 6061 usually go for by the lb? I assume there's more to just melting it to get it back to useful 6061 aluminum.

[Joe S.]

Thanks for that. I guess I have to make as much use out of the material as possible. How much does scrap 6061 usually go for by the lb? I assume there's more to just melting it to get it back to useful 6061 aluminum.

6061 Extrusions Scrap Price | Aluminum Scrap Prices in North America | Scrap Metal Price