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Originally Posted by mtaman02
Steel is just too hard to lighten up
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Actually, I view the situation as quite on the contrary. It is much more effective to take more wieght out of steel parts because they have more mass per unit volume. Say you want to take a pound out of 1/4" aluminum plate. You'd have to drill 50 1" holes!
But if that was steel you'd take out a lot more than one pound with that many holes.
But all the weight you can take out of steel did come from somewhere. It comes from the fact that a steel part is heavier to begin with. So, you can start light with aluminum and if you are still over than there's not a whole lot you can do. Or you can start heavy with steel and if you are over (which you probably will be) you can probably remove a lot. So, it is a tradeoff.
Now, for "ease" of lightening, I suppose you are correct afterall in saying steel is harder to "lighten up" because it is much harder to cut, drill, mill, turn, etc. But, you do get more lbs off for your increased work time.
It is all about tradeoffs.