I am no expert but I would never think to provide or expect the stock dimensions on a drawing. The design should be the finished dimensions. That’s something that gets added when the shop identifies the stock they will use, which might come from a supplier or from their own inventory. The size of the stock only matters to the person designing and coding the CNC program.

And if I was working in the shop I would not trust the customer providing the program on the stock dimensions, they have no idea what we will be using.

E 2: I’m pretty sure this is just a bot farming engagement. Vague descriptions that know the terminology but don’t make any sense if you understand the processes. No replies in the comments. Brand new account. “Domestic CNC machining” is sus af.

Running CAD for our fabrication, half my job feels like emailing our customers about ambiguous callouts. If we make an assumption, the fault is on us, never them.

(Though sometimes getting answers feels like trying to squeeze blood from a stone–never understand these guys who’ll spend $100K on a custom mold, then only give us half the information and take 3 days to reply with one word answers that are equally ambiguous)

And I’ve never seen a stock callout unless they literally want that stock material as the finished product.

E: Though, I’m wondering what dimension they machined it to? Did they just make one up after assuming the given dimension was referring to stock? I’d really like to see the print.

You sent a drawing of the part you wanted, why would you include raw stock dimensions? Is that information necessary to order the finished part?

I’m not convinced this is an error you made. You did say it was ambiguous, and I’m not a machinist, but that doesn’t sound right to me. If it truly wasn’t clear, I would expect them to reach out for clarification, not just manufacture the part based on ‘It might be what they want’.

As a machinist, I believe clear drawings and precise dimensions are essential to avoid costly mistakes. Finished dimensions and raw material sizes should always be clearly specified. Good communication between the machinist and the customer makes a big difference! ⚙️🇨🇱

What dimension did the parts come in at? Dimensions that extend two places past the decimal are usually assumed to be +/-.010”. If the dimension was called out as a radius, then a finished OD of .480” is allowable.

Prints should never be overly restrictive, but they should be explicit on their intent. The machine shop claiming they thought the dimension was intended to be the raw stock size is clearly wrong, and based on what you’ve told us, they’re at fault 100% for this. Occasionally you may specify that mill finish is okay for an OD on a spacer if you’re really just not picky about it, but you would never specify raw stock dimensions and leave finished dimension up to the machinist, and if a machinist ever believed that to be your intent, they should be contacting you for a redline that specifies the finished dimension.

The reason you don’t want to specify stock size is that it may require a clean up pass to get the surface finish correct. If you demand 1/2” stock for a .500” finished OD and RA63 finish, you’re just created a part thats likely impossible to make. If i have 5/8” material in the rack i can make your part out of that faster and cheaper then if you force me to buy 1/2” stock and now I’m left with 8’ of excess material. If you want a round spacer out of 4130, I may have heavy wall tubing I can use and make them faster and cheaper. If my lathe is busy i may make them on my mill, so now i may be using square stock. If it’s an aluminum part and you specify 6061-T651 now I have to get some plate cut, if you had just said T6 I could choose plate or bar. Unless it actually matters, leave it off the print.

the stock size vs finished size mixup has bitten every shop and every engineer at least once, youre in good company. we once had 200 brackets made to the thickness of the plate they were cut from

A simple note says a lot: All dimensions apply to the completed part. And list any coating thickness, finish, electro polish or HT process.

It’s up to the shop to determine what material to use to get the part to the finished size. That’s been my experience anyway.

90% of “my” fuckups at work are down to dogshit drawings. The standard has really dropped in the past 10 years or so. Any CAD drawers out there please for the love of God separate your laser cutting and fabrication drawings instead of been lazy and slapping everything on one …. !!!!