Five guides, and the notes underneath them
Each guide is the argument: what the material does, why it fights back, and what that means on your drawing. The notes below each one go into a single question in depth.
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Machining titanium: a working guide
Grade selection, cutting data, springback and thin walls, and the drawing callouts that quietly triple a titanium price.
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Machining nickel superalloys and corrosion alloys
Inconel, Hastelloy, Monel and duplex — the alloys that harden in front of the tool, and how to pick the cheapest one that still works.
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Machining hardened steel and specialty alloys
Hard turning against grinding, machine-then-harden against buy-hard, and the low-expansion and refractory metals nobody stocks.
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Sourcing machined parts in difficult materials
Everything that happens before the first chip: packaging an RFQ, reading a quote spread, documentation levels and material lead times.
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Choosing a machining process for titanium, nickel and hardened alloys
Milling against turning against grinding against EDM — what actually decides the process, and the drawing habit that locks in the wrong one.
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Winning export machining work from Western buyers
Written for the shop side. What a buyer checks in ninety seconds, why good shops lose quotes, and the documentation that decides who gets the repeat order.
Notes not in reading order
All 35 notes in one reverse-chronological list, if you would rather browse than follow a guide.
Replies within 24 business hours. Corrections to anything in these guides are welcome — see the editorial standards.