How to Write an Aluminum RFQ: The 11 Fields That Avoid Requotes

A buyer sends "Please quote 20 tons aluminum sheet 5052." Four days later a price arrives. It is for the wrong temper, in a width the mill does not roll, and excludes the anodizing quality the buyer assumed was included. Three more rounds follow. Two weeks are gone and the price still is not firm.

The quotation was not slow. The inquiry was incomplete. Every field missing from the first email becomes one round trip, and each round trip is roughly two days on a mill's scheduling desk.

Below are the eleven fields that end the loop. None of them require a specification engineer to fill in.

1. Product form

Sheet, plate, coil, strip, foil, extrusion, tube, bar or forging stock. These come off different lines and are priced on different bases — sheet by the tonne, extrusion by the meter plus a die charge, foil by the tonne with a much narrower width range.

"Aluminum sheet" covers everything from 0.2 mm foil stock to 200 mm plate. If the form is not stated, the quote is a guess.

The trade convention is worth knowing: in most markets sheet runs up to 6 mm, plate starts above 6 mm. A buyer who writes "10 mm sheet" will usually be quoted plate anyway, but the mismatch is a good sign the rest of the inquiry was written quickly.

2. Alloy

Write the four-digit designation, not the family. "5000 series" is not orderable. 5052, 5083 and 5754 have different magnesium content, different strength, and different price.

If the end use matters more than the alloy — a marine walkway, a heat exchanger fin — say so, and let the supplier propose. That is a legitimate way to buy. It just needs to be explicit, because the price that comes back will be for a specific grade and you will be held to it.

3. Temper

Alloy without temper is half a specification. 5052-O and 5052-H32 differ by roughly a factor of two in yield strength, and H32 costs more because it takes an extra rolling pass.

The tempers you will actually see:

"The H temper" or "hard" is not a temper. It is an invitation to requote. If you are still choosing between families, the alloy series guide maps all seven and links to the grades with full property tables.

4. Dimensions, with the thickness basis stated

Length, width and thickness, in millimeters or inches — and for tread plate, whether the thickness is base metal or overall including the raised pattern.

This one field causes more disputes than any other in the flat-rolled trade, and there is a structural reason for it. ASTM B632/B632M, the standard for rolled tread plate, is written in dual units and states in its scope that the inch-pound and SI values are not exact equivalents and that combining values from the two systems results in nonconformance. A drawing that says "1/4 inch (6.35 mm)" is already ambiguous under that rule.

So write one system, and write the basis:

Thickness: 6.35 mm base metal, raised pattern excluded.

Not "6 mm checkered plate". The pattern adds height, the height depends on the roll tooling, and no two mills' tooling is identical.

5. Quantity per size

One total tonnage is not enough when the order splits across sizes. Give the weight against each line:

5052-H32, 2.0 × 1220 × 2440 mm — 8 t
5052-H32, 3.0 × 1500 × 3000 mm — 12 t

This is what lets the mill see whether your order fills a production run. A 20-tonne order in one size is a better price than 20 tonnes split across six sizes, because the second one carries six setup changes. You will not be told that directly; you will just see the number.

6. Standard, and whether standard tolerances are acceptable

Name the product standard: ASTM B209 for sheet and plate, ASTM B221 for extrusion, EN 485 for European supply, GB/T 3880 for domestic Chinese mill output.

Then say one of two things: standard tolerances are fine, or here is the tighter tolerance I need.

Standard tolerances under B209 are wider than most people expect, and they are not symmetric in the way buyers assume. If your process needs a tighter camber or thickness band, it has to be written, and it will be quoted as an extra. Asking for it after the price is agreed is how a "confirmed" order gets renegotiated.

7. Surface condition and finish

At minimum, state the surface the next process requires:

• Mill finish — ordinary rolled surface, fine for structural and painted parts
• Anodizing quality — controlled surface, no deep scratches, interleaved; a different and more expensive grade of handling
• PVDF / polyester coated — state color system, film thickness, and whether one side or both
• Brushed, embossed, mirror — decorative, priced by finish not by alloy

If you are anodizing or coating downstream, say so in the inquiry even if you are not buying the finish. The mill will handle and pack the material differently, and the price reflects it. Buying mill finish for an anodizing line and discovering the scratches at your own plant is a costly way to save a small amount per tonne.

8. Edge and flatness requirements

Slit, sheared, sawn or mill edge. And for plate, whether flatness matters.

Mill edge is cheapest and comes with the rolling width as-is. Slit edge gives a defined width but leaves a burr. Sheared edge is the normal choice for cut sheet.

Flatness is usually the thing that surprises fabricators. A plate within standard flatness tolerance can still be too wavy for a laser bed or a vacuum table. If flatness is critical, say what your process needs, not "good flatness".

9. Packaging

Packing is where a good price becomes an expensive claim. Specify:

• Interleaving (paper or PE film) — required for anodizing quality
• Edge protection and corner boards
• Coil orientation and saddle for coil shipments
• Desiccant, sized to the voyage, for anything crossing a climate boundary
• Whether you need seaworthy export packing or standard export packing

If you do not specify, you get the mill's default, which is designed to survive the journey at minimum cost — not to protect a cosmetic surface.

10. Delivery term and required date

Incoterm plus destination: CIF Rotterdam, FOB Shanghai, DAP Chicago. These are not interchangeable, and the difference between them is discussed separately in our Incoterms comparison.

Then give the date that matters to you — the date material must be at your door, not the date it should leave the mill. Your forwarder's transit time is not the supplier's problem until you make it one, and the only way to make it one is to state it.

11. Documentation and inspection

State which of these you need, because each one costs time and some cost money:

• Mill test certificate to EN 10204 3.1 — standard for most industrial buyers, issued per heat
• EN 10204 2.2 — a statement of compliance, not test results; cheaper, weaker
• Certificate of origin, and which form (for preferential duty)
• Third-party inspection before shipment — SGS, BV, TÜV; needs booking lead time
• Dimensional report, hardness report, or specific test beyond the standard

Asking for 3.1 on a first inquiry tells the supplier you know what you are buying. Asking for it after the container is loaded tells them something else.

The template

Copy this, fill it in, send it. It takes four minutes and saves a week.

Form:        sheet / plate / coil / extrusion
Alloy:       5052
Temper:      H32
Dimensions:  2.0 mm base metal × 1220 mm × 2440 mm
Quantity:    8 t of the above; 12 t of 3.0 mm × 1500 × 3000 mm
Standard:    ASTM B209, standard tolerances
Surface:     mill finish, PE interleaved (material will be anodized)
Edge:        sheared, deburred
Packing:     export packing, edge protectors, desiccant
Term:        CIF Rotterdam
Date:        material at our door by 15 December
Documents:   MTC to EN 10204 3.1, certificate of origin
Inspection:  none

What you can leave out

You do not need to state price expectations, payment terms in the first email, or a long paragraph about your company. Those are negotiation, and negotiation comes after a number exists.

You also do not need every field on a repeat order of material you have bought before — at that point the reference to the previous order number is the specification, and adding detail only creates the chance of a contradiction.

Why the extra detail pays

There is a common assumption that a detailed inquiry scares off suppliers or invites them to price high. The opposite tends to happen. A clear inquiry is cheap to quote, so it gets quoted first, and the mill knows it will not come back with a change order.

The requote is where the margin goes. Not in the original number.

If you have an inquiry you are about to send and want it checked against a mill's actual scheduling constraints before it goes out, send it to us and we will tell you which fields will trigger a question.