There are a variety of different aluminum tooling plates, and each of them has different benefits. But over the past several years at A.R.E. Manufacturing, we’ve started to prefer ATP-5 as a material. In fact, we recommend it to customers who send us plans that initially request a different type of material. And once we explain why we’re making that recommendation, many of them permanently switch their parts to ATP-5.
Today, we want to discuss the benefits we see in using ATP-5.
The Benefits of ATP-5 in CNC Machining Services
Above all, ATP-5 has excellent flatness properties and parallelism. If a customer comes to us for a part that requires these attributes but wants it made out of a different material, we almost always suggest ATP-5.
We don’t require them to use it, of course. There are reasons people may choose other materials, and we work with a range of aluminum tooling plates and are happy to accommodate different customer preferences. But sometimes, customers simply aren’t familiar with ATP-5, so we explain the benefits to them.
ATP-5 has those flatness properties because it is a strong and stable material, and that strength offers a number of other benefits as well. For instance, ATP-5 is ideal for threading because of its strength.
In addition, when parts are machined, they might lose as much as three-quarters of the original material. With some aluminum grades, when that much material is removed, the piece may bend and move during that process. As a result, the piece may lose flatness. There are ways to regain that flatness, but they require more time and labor. With ATP-5, we don’t have to worry about bowing or flexing. We can usually hold flatness and parallelism down to .002 of an inch with ATP-5 cast plates.
Why This Is So Important for Customers
ATP-5 can produce higher-quality parts, and that alone is a major win for customers. But there are secondary effects to using ATP-5: it can improve lead times and sometimes even decrease your overall costs.
Lead times are often reduced, sometimes significantly, because the material is so reliable. If a customer chooses a material that cannot hold its flatness as well as ATP-5, there is often extra time required to ensure flatness and parallelism through additional grinding steps. And there is greater risk of parts being scrapped during the grinding process for quality reasons – sometimes a large percentage of the parts don’t meet the required tolerance specifications. And if we go beyond that half, that may require additional material.
To see how it reduces overall costs, customers need to understand everything that goes into a quote. When we first suggest ATP-5 to customers, some notice that the material is somewhat higher priced than the material they originally requested. But we explain that they need to look at the full picture: We have to price in the possible scrap (as we discussed in the last paragraph), and we may have to include extra machining and labor time in our pricing. With ATP-5, material price may be higher, but overall cost may be lower.
Why Some Customers May Choose a Different Material
Even as we’ve grown to strongly prefer ATP-5 at our Oregon precision machine shop, we know it’s not perfect for every use case. For instance, it doesn’t always anodize as well as some other materials. This is important if final appearance and color are crucial. We can still test a sample and see if ATP-5 will finish well for customer needs, and in some cases it does.
But overall, if flatness is what you’re most concerned with, we strongly recommend ATP-5.
We’re able to recommend ATP-5 because of our decades of experience with a variety of materials. That expertise is something we believe differentiates us from other shops, and we love to use our knowledge to help customers get the best result from designing and manufacturing their parts.
To find out what we can do for you, request a quote today and we’ll be in touch with you.