The expensive part is not always the part that looks expensive

One thing I’ve learned is that sheet metal cost doesn’t always come from the biggest feature or the biggest part.

A lot of the time it’s some detail that looked minor at the beginning — tighter tolerance than necessary, a requirement added late, extra hardware steps, surface expectations, or something that sounds simple but adds more process complexity than expected.

That’s why I think cost awareness in design is less about trying to make everything “cheap” and more about understanding which details actually change the manufacturing burden.

Sometimes the part that looks simplest is not the cheapest one at all.

#sheetmetal# #cost#