What to order, in the words we use at the counter.

6061 is the structural one. It is stronger, it machines and drills cleanly, and it is what you want for a bracket, a trailer part, a jig, or a rail that carries weight.

6063 is the architectural one. Softer, extruded into thinner and more decorative shapes, and it anodizes to an even finish. Railing, trim, storefront and post-and-panel work are made of it.

If the part carries load, ask for 6061. If the part is seen, ask for 6063. If it does both, tell us and we will say which one we would use.

T6 is solution heat treated and artificially aged: the hardest common temper. Stiff, strong, and it will crack before it takes a tight bend.

T5 is cooled from the extrusion press and aged. A little softer and more forgiving, common on 6063 shapes.

T4 is naturally aged and softer again — the one to ask for if you plan to bend or form the piece before it goes in.

Bending T6 around a tight radius usually ends in a crack. That is the temper doing what it is meant to do, not a bad piece of metal.

A 1/16 in wall is light: guards, covers, sleeves — anything that is held rather than holding.

A 1/8 in wall is the everyday choice: frames, rails, gates, shop fixtures. Most of what leaves this counter.

A 3/16 in or 1/4 in wall is for load, welding heat, and threaded holes. If you are tapping into the wall itself, go heavier than feels necessary.

Doubling the wall roughly doubles the weight and the price per foot. Every tag lists the wall we measured, and where we could not measure it, the tag says so.

A sheet tag is one actual sheet, and it is priced by the square foot. Type the rectangles you want — width by length — and you pay for the area you asked for, plus the shear.

Thickness on sheet is written in decimals, not fractions. .080 is the skirt and panel thickness most post-and-panel work uses; .125 is an eighth of an inch and stiffens up a lot; .190 and up is plate you can machine and tap.

We turn each piece whichever way fits the sheet, so a 24 x 36 and a 36 x 24 are the same order. Nothing under 2 in on a side: the shear cannot hold it.

One sheet, one tag. When your pieces come off it, the rest of that sheet comes off the rack with it, and we re-tag the drop at its measured size. So the sheet you are looking at is whole until somebody buys from it.

That is a shop saw, cut by hand, deburred and stacked. Right for weldments, frames, railing, and anything you will fit up in place.

It is not a machine shop tolerance. If your part has to land inside a few thousandths, order it long and finish it yourself — or ask us, and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right shop for it.

Order in inches or feet. Anything between eighths is snapped to the nearest eighth before you pay, and the number on the tag page is the number the saw gets.

Pay online and the pieces are cut, tagged with your tag number, and set on the will-call shelf. Come in during shop hours and ask for it by tag number at the counter.

Short pieces ship. Long sticks do not go in a box, so anything past the second shipping band goes to freight — quoted by email before anything is charged.

We hold a cut order at the counter for 30 days.