I have always only used my lr2 for learning and laser burning. Determined to build an lr3, i started cutting - then got some speeds down for aluminum 1/8 i had around.
After some tweaking, i am ready to cut out of 1/4 … a quote from two companies 24x24x1/4 is 86 dollars Canadian. Doesn’t that seem extreme?
Cool that you can cut your own.
Eowpower 6061 T6 Aluminium Sheet Metal, 12" x 12" x 1/4 Inch(6mm) Thickness, Heat Treatable Rectangle Flat Plain Metal Plate Panel Finely Polished and Deburred, Covered with Protective Film Amazon.ca
That’s a sheet 12×12×0.25 for $45 CAD. Better than $86.
Metal prices vary a lot depending on other factors as well. Extruded aluminum plate is less suitable for things like printer heated beds, but is cheaper and perfectly fine for LR3 XZ plates. Cast aluminum plates will cost more. Also it changes from supplier to supplier.
Lots of aluminum coming from the USA has some funny pricing hitches. There was that little tarriff thing with the previous president down there that resulted in some weird issues with the cost of lumber and metals. Everything got stupid expensive for a while and is only now sort of normalizing. Some prices seem to have stayed high at places though. I still shudder at the prices of 2x4 at Home Despot.
Considering the price Ryan charges, I would say it’s high.
Of course I don’t know what shipping adds to you, but just compared to what I pay for them from Ryan……
Yeah, you really have to hunt around for materials. I can get it shipped from Amazon for a better price than driving 45 minutes both ways to my “local” metal supplier, I can also get it cut and delivered in bulk for less than I can get the material from Amazon. Crazy world we live in right now.
I have another metal place an hour the other way that is super cheap, whenever I head that way during the week I can stop in and get good metal prices.
I bought them from Ryan as well. Shipping cross-border isn’t cheap, but if there’s more stuff in the order it gets spread out a bit. Even with exchange and shipping though, the price difference won’t be much.
Feeling better that its a mutual known discovery. Its been years since ive bought any metal and looking at it more, the prices are high across the board. Our dollar is low, exchange hurts and duties/shipping hurts more… but 86 bucks!! Ive been browsing the forums and seen someone cutting braces with aluminum and I had … aluminum envy… i didnt know it was a thing, until now!
A friend got a quote through his work and they said 56 bucks… might see if i can order through them, since we cut ninja stars out of my 1/8 lol
Part of the endeavour was pushing through and learning to cut aluminum. It, along with my first cuts out of MDF were milstones. Its just gotta happen.
It can be rough when you’re just cold-calling somewhere and asking for a quote. Chances are you’re paying for the entire chunk they have to cut off a sheet, even if the rest is going in the off-cuts bin.
I’ve typically found that the best thing is if you can call and discuss it with them or go in and explain what you’re after. Sometimes it’s a case of finding a ‘close enough’ match in their offcuts bin that you can get for cheap, or they can explain why it ends up being so expensive so you can account for it. $90 might be too expensive for the 2 pieces, but if it’s being cut out of a 1200 wide strip then maybe it’s a similar price to take the entire piece home which makes it more like $30 for the pieces you want and $60 for a bunch of spare material for the next project.
