MS Plates

Sourced and supplied across Saudi Arabia

Plate is bought to be cut, and for general fabrication the decision that saves the most money is made before any steel arrives: whether to buy stock plate and cut it in the shop, or to have it profiled to the drawing. Profiling nests the parts across the plate, so the offcut that would have gone in the skip is somebody else's part, and it arrives ready to fit — against which the shop keeps its own capacity, its own tolerances and no lead time. Work out which for the job rather than out of habit. Two dimensional points then matter more than they do on thin sheet. Flatness as rolled is not flatness for machining, so a plate that must bed on a foundation or run on a bed needs the requirement stated. And thickness tolerance is real money at plate gauges, since a plate on the minus side of its tolerance across a large order is tonnage you paid for and did not receive. For plate going into ship or offshore structures, see the marine steel pages — those carry testing requirements this one does not.