Hey all, I know that back in 2015 there was a thread about the same thing here https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...-issues/poor-quality-aluminum-sources-301732/ but I feel like it’s time for a little update, 2022/COVID/supply chain edition.
Our shop was waiting on getting aluminum for months and when it finally came in, it was time to make some parts. Cut a whole bar of 6061 T6 and tried to run some parts. We have a 9/16-20 tap and 10-32 tap in our program and for the first time in 4-5 years we’ve been having issues with tapping. The tap gets stuck or breaks off. The 9/16 tap took hefty tap wrenches to get out and the part was scrapped every time. Some parts made it out with no issues on tapping, but 95% of the time it was destroyed.
That night I started looking on these forums to try and diagnose these tapping issues and I came across that thread I linked earlier and everything started to come together. The next morning I come into work and sure enough, The 6061 came from Service Center, everyone’s worst enemy when it came to crappy aluminum. I’ve had to modify the program to give time to oil up the hole and the tap manually (something I should have done much sooner I admit) and now it runs like a dream. But regardless, this should have never been a problem in the first place. Out of an entire bar, more than half turned into scrap.
We have other bars here too, 7075 T6 from Taiwan Ye Fong, and a smaller 6061 T6 bar from SA ASTM. Does anybody have any experience with these places?
Our distributor, coast aluminum normally sends us Kaiser stuff and we’ve never had a problem with them. Honestly considering all of the manufacturing/supply chain issues in the world, I have a hard time being upset at coast; I can only imagine that they got us what was available. 5 years and no issue with metal, and this one time it changes it’s all garbage material
Our shop was waiting on getting aluminum for months and when it finally came in, it was time to make some parts. Cut a whole bar of 6061 T6 and tried to run some parts. We have a 9/16-20 tap and 10-32 tap in our program and for the first time in 4-5 years we’ve been having issues with tapping. The tap gets stuck or breaks off. The 9/16 tap took hefty tap wrenches to get out and the part was scrapped every time. Some parts made it out with no issues on tapping, but 95% of the time it was destroyed.
That night I started looking on these forums to try and diagnose these tapping issues and I came across that thread I linked earlier and everything started to come together. The next morning I come into work and sure enough, The 6061 came from Service Center, everyone’s worst enemy when it came to crappy aluminum. I’ve had to modify the program to give time to oil up the hole and the tap manually (something I should have done much sooner I admit) and now it runs like a dream. But regardless, this should have never been a problem in the first place. Out of an entire bar, more than half turned into scrap.
We have other bars here too, 7075 T6 from Taiwan Ye Fong, and a smaller 6061 T6 bar from SA ASTM. Does anybody have any experience with these places?
Our distributor, coast aluminum normally sends us Kaiser stuff and we’ve never had a problem with them. Honestly considering all of the manufacturing/supply chain issues in the world, I have a hard time being upset at coast; I can only imagine that they got us what was available. 5 years and no issue with metal, and this one time it changes it’s all garbage material