Aluminium bar for turned and machined parts.

Cut to length, including bar-feeder lengths

Bar is bought by the length and consumed by the metre. If your lathe runs a 1 m bar feeder, 6 m bar means somebody spends the morning on a cold saw. Tell us the length you want and the quantity per length and it arrives ready to load.

Machining grades

6061-T6 is the default for turned and milled components: predictable chip, good surface finish, strong enough for most mechanical parts and it anodises. 6082 is close in behaviour and often specified where structural properties are quoted to European standards. 2014 is the higher-strength copper-bearing alloy for heavily loaded parts, with lower corrosion resistance and poorer weldability as the trade-off. 7075-T6 is the strongest of the four, used for high-load, aerospace-type and tooling parts; it machines cleanly but is not suited to welding and costs more, so confirm the part needs it.

Tolerance and straightness

For automatic turning, straightness and diameter tolerance decide whether the part runs unattended. If the work is going onto a sliding-head machine, say so at enquiry — drawn bar to a tighter tolerance costs a little more and saves a great deal of setup.

What it ends up in

• Turned and CNC-machined components
• Shafts, spacers, bushes and standoffs
• Jigs, fixtures and tooling
• Hydraulic and pneumatic fittings
• Fasteners, studs and threaded parts
• Rollers, pulleys and machine details