Outsourcing Plasma Parts & Mack Steel Warehouse, Watertown SD

[Kent_323is]

Has anyone used Mack Steel Warehouse in Watertown South Dakota for plasma or laser cut steel sheet parts?
http://www.macksteel.com/
I have purchased full lengths of tube, angle and channel from them.

I have an upcoming project where I'm going to be having a decent amount parts that need to be plasma or laser cut.

Is there a rough rule of thumb for estimating the cost for plasma cutting vs laser cutting using the overall sheet size? I'd prefer to have a rough idea of the overall cost before submitting a bunch of items for quote, and then it seems to high so I redesign to bring the price down.

I plan to use plasma cut for lower tolerance parts, and laser cut for the high tolerance parts.
I will be supplying DXF files for the parts.

[weldor2005]

Originally Posted by Kent_323is

Has anyone used Mack Steel Warehouse in Watertown South Dakota for plasma or laser cut steel sheet parts?
http://www.macksteel.com/
I have purchased full lengths of tube, angle and channel from them.

I have an upcoming project where I'm going to be having a decent amount parts that need to be plasma or laser cut.

Is there a rough rule of thumb for estimating the cost for plasma cutting vs laser cutting using the overall sheet size? I'd prefer to have a rough idea of the overall cost before submitting a bunch of items for quote, and then it seems to high so I redesign to bring the price down.

I plan to use plasma cut for lower tolerance parts, and laser cut for the high tolerance parts.
I will be supplying DXF files for the parts.

Obviously I wouldn't be able to do it for shipping would kill it I'm sure. and I don't know what thickness, but it somewhat matters. For me, a somewhat low overhead place, I either do a few different ways.

My simplest way is that if there isn't a lot of cutting, then I take the cost/sqin and times by the area of material (LxW) and then double it. If I paint anything it is automatically tripled+

If there there is a lot of cutting going on, a quick estimate lots of people seem to enjoy is 0.25 / pierce and 0.10 / linear inch of cut.

If I am doing more than just cutting, say like welding and bending, I just go with $50/hr.

Again, these are all my spare time prices, any shop doing this during the day would be more than that on all options I'm sure.

Having usable cut ready files is a great start. As for limiting cost on the design, one pierce designs are nice.