On Aug 21, 2:00 pm, "newshound" wrote:

No, it isn't, the sunk cost doesn't come into it. If you are retired and
don't have much cash, but your time is free then it is worth spending any
amount of time trying to recover it. If you put a small value on your time
then, as you say, you also have to estimate the chance that you can't fix
it. You have to compare the cost of *new* material (not the time/material
already spent) with the time which you might waste on an unsuccessful
recovery.

Well I agree with you. You should not consider the costs so far.
However in this case if you can not get annealed material, you are
going to have the same expense to anneal the new material as you will
have to anneal the old material. I would try annealing the parts
already made. The original message did not mention how true the parts
have to be. So we are all guessing without enough information. If
they have to be super straight, then starting over with annealed
material is likely the right choice. But there is a lot to be said
for knowing the tolerances and proceeding accordingly.

Dan