Materials Library
The full catalog of engineering metals and plastics, grouped by family — aluminum, stainless, steel, titanium, copper alloys, plastics and more.
Open library →Home · Guides
Guides
Manufacturing Guides & Resources
One place for everything mfgiq publishes to help you decide: the Materials Library, hundreds of X-vs-Y comparisons, free decision tools, and notes from the shop floor.
mfgiq is built around the questions you face at the start of a project — what material, what process, what finish, and what it will cost. The guides below pull that knowledge together: reference data, head-to-head comparisons, and interactive tools that turn the data into a decision. Everything is free, with no login or email wall.
Materials Library
Browse all materials →Manufacturing-focused profiles of engineering metals and plastics — properties, how each one machines, what processes suit it, and what it is best used for. Start broad, then drill into a specific alloy or polymer.
6061-T6 Aluminum
The default workhorse aluminum: heat-treatable, excellent machinability and corrosion resistance for general-purpose parts.
Read profile →304 Stainless
The most common austenitic stainless — an 18-8 Cr-Ni alloy used everywhere corrosion resistance and formability matter.
Read profile →Ti-6Al-4V (Grade 5)
The benchmark titanium alloy for strength-to-weight, used across aerospace, medical and high-performance parts.
Read profile →Comparisons (X vs Y)
All comparisons →Side-by-side, data-backed comparisons that settle the trade-offs — strength, machinability, corrosion resistance and relative cost — so you can make the final call with confidence.
6061 vs 7075 Aluminum
General-purpose versus high-strength aluminum — the most common aluminum decision in machining.
Compare →304 vs 316 Stainless
When the extra molybdenum (and cost) of 316 is worth it over the everyday 304.
Compare →Aluminum vs Steel
The fundamental weight, strength and cost trade-off behind most structural parts.
Compare →Delrin vs Nylon
Two go-to engineering plastics for wear parts, gears and bushings — and where each wins.
Compare →Free Decision Tools
All tools →Interactive, data-backed tools that answer the questions you have before you ever send a drawing — what material, what process, what finish, what it will cost, and whether the design is manufacturable.
Material Selector
Filter engineering metals and plastics by strength, weight, cost, machinability, temperature and corrosion resistance.
Open tool →Process Selector
Answer a few questions about volume, geometry and tolerance to rank the right process for your part.
Open tool →Finish Selector
Compare anodizing, powder coating, plating, bead blasting and more by look, durability, cost and lead time.
Open tool →CNC Cost Estimator
Get a ballpark machining cost from material, size and quantity — so you can budget early.
Open tool →DFM Checker
Sanity-check a design against common manufacturability rules for your chosen process.
Open tool →Tolerance & Fit Lookup
Standard ISO tolerances and fits, plus what is realistically achievable by each process.
Open tool →Shop Notes
Read shop notes →Practical observations from the shop floor — the manufacturability details, gotchas and rules of thumb that don't fit neatly into a spec sheet but change how a part should be designed.
From the Shop Floor
Field-tested notes on machining, finishing and design-for-manufacture — the context behind the numbers in our tools and comparisons.
Read shop notes →From decision to part
Use the guides to make the call, then bring it to a factory. Request a quote or talk to an engineer when you're ready.