Can cNC machining and metal parts be manufactured in China?
Confidence 4/5 Established practice
CNC machining has no tooling cost, which makes it the right answer for prototypes, low volumes and geometry that will still change. The trade-off is a high unit cost that falls slowly with volume, so for anything above a few hundred units it is worth comparing against casting or moulding — and it is worth saying plainly that at 200 units, machining a part can easily cost more per unit than a mould would cost in total. In practice the answer is almost always yes for a lawful physical product, and the useful question is which process and at what volume. For this category: One piece. This is the genuinely no-minimum process: there is no set-up tool, only programming and fixturing time. No mould. Programming and fixturing are charged per order, typically USD 0–150 depending on complexity.
Sources
- CNC machining cost drivers and volume crossover — Industry practice; consistent with published machining service pricing
- Iron and steel article classification — World Customs Organization HS nomenclature
- Section 232 steel and aluminium derivative tariffs — US Department of Commerce
What goes wrong with cNC machining and metal parts
- Specifying a tolerance the part does not need. Tightening from ±0.1 mm to ±0.02 mm can multiply cost.
- Asking for "stainless steel" without a grade. 304 and 316 differ in corrosion performance and price.
- Surface finish defined only by adjective. Ra values or a physical sample are needed.
- Ignoring deburring and passivation, which are separate operations and often quoted separately.
- Assuming a machining quote scales linearly to volume; it does not, and the crossover to casting arrives sooner than expected.
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