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Ask a machine shop to name the two plastics they quote most often, and you will almost always hear ABS and nylon. Both are affordable, both machine well, and both show up everywhere from prototype housings to production wear parts. But when a buyer or engineer asks which one is "stronger," the honest answer is: it depends on what kind of strength the part actually needs, and where that part will spend its working life. This comparison of ABS CNC machining versus nylon CNC machining breaks the strength question into the pieces that matter for real design decisions.
On paper, nylon wins the headline number. A typical ABS grade delivers 45 to 60 MPa of tensile strength, while dry nylon 6/6 reaches roughly 85 MPa. Nylon also beats ABS on fatigue resistance, abrasion resistance, and strength at elevated temperatures. ABS answers with better dimensional stability, easier machining, lower cost, and impact performance that stays consistent regardless of humidity. Neither material is stronger in every sense, so the sections below look at each type of strength in turn.
Tensile strength is the figure most people mean when they ask about strength, and here nylon has a clear edge. ABS sits in the 45 to 60 MPa range depending on grade, with a compressive yield strength around 65 to 75 MPa. Dry nylon 6/6 tops out near 85 MPa in tension, and its compressive strength is also higher than ABS. For a bracket, spacer, or structural part that carries a steady static load, machined nylon simply holds more.
That said, 45 MPa is not weak. For housings, covers, enclosures, and fixtures that see handling loads rather than continuous structural stress, ABS provides more than enough tensile capacity, and it does so at a lower material price.
Strength and toughness are not the same thing. ABS is built around a butadiene rubber phase dispersed in a rigid styrene-acrylonitrile matrix, and that rubber phase is what lets it absorb drops, knocks, and snap-fit assembly without cracking. Its impact resistance is available straight off the machine, in a dry warehouse or a humid one.
Nylon is tough too, but its toughness is conditional. A bone-dry nylon part fresh from machining is noticeably more notch-sensitive than the same part a few weeks later, once it has picked up atmospheric moisture. As nylon absorbs water, the polymer chains plasticize: impact resistance goes up, but stiffness and tensile strength come down. If your design assumes a rigid part, that trade-off matters.
Where nylon genuinely separates itself from ABS is under repeated loading and sliding contact. Nylon has excellent fatigue resistance, a low coefficient of friction, and outstanding abrasion resistance, which is why machined nylon is the default choice for gears, bearings, bushings, wear pads, rollers, and guide rails. ABS wears comparatively quickly under continuous friction and is a poor choice for any part that slides or rotates against another surface day after day. If your part lives in motion, nylon is usually the right call.
This is the point most datasheets gloss over. Nylon's impressive 85 MPa figure is a dry-as-molded value. In humid service, nylon absorbs water, and its stiffness and strength can fall by as much as half as the material approaches moisture equilibrium. Its dimensions shift too, which is a serious problem for tight-tolerance components.
ABS absorbs very little moisture, so the part you measure at inspection is the part that ships, installs, and stays in spec a year later. For outdoor enclosures, fluid-adjacent equipment, or any application where humidity swings are normal, ABS's dimensional stability can outweigh nylon's paper advantage.
The machining process treats the two materials differently, and a shop that understands this will deliver stronger parts from both:
One quiet advantage of machining either material from extruded stock is the absence of weld lines and flow-induced weak spots that plague injection-molded parts. A machined gear or bracket has uniform, predictable strength in every direction.
If unfilled nylon is close but not quite enough, glass-filled grades close most of the gap to metal. Adding roughly 30 percent glass fiber can push tensile strength well past 150 MPa, sharply improves stiffness, and raises the heat deflection temperature to around 250°C, compared with roughly 95 to 100°C for ABS. The trade-offs are a more brittle failure mode, greater tool wear during machining, and a higher material price. For structural brackets, high-temperature gears, and load-bearing components, though, it is often the most economical upgrade path.
| Property | ABS | Nylon (PA6 / PA66) |
|---|---|---|
| Tensile strength | 45 to 60 MPa | Up to about 85 MPa dry; lower when moisture-conditioned |
| Impact toughness | Good and humidity-independent | Very good once conditioned; notch-sensitive when very dry |
| Fatigue and wear resistance | Moderate | Excellent; ideal for gears, bearings, bushings |
| Moisture absorption | Very low | High; strength and stiffness drop as it absorbs water |
| Heat resistance | Low; heat deflection around 95 to 100°C | Higher; glass-filled grades reach about 250°C HDT |
| Machinability | Excellent; clean chips, fine finishes | Good, but stringy; needs sharp tools and drying |
| Dimensional stability | Excellent, even in humid environments | Fair to poor in humid environments |
| Relative cost | Low | Higher |
Choose nylon when the part carries sustained or repeated loads, slides against other surfaces, or works at elevated temperatures: gears, bearings, bushings, wear pads, rollers, and structural brackets. Step up to glass-filled nylon when unfilled grades run out of stiffness.
Choose ABS when the part needs to hold its dimensions across humidity swings, look good, assemble with snap fits, or simply cost less: housings, covers, enclosures, fixtures, jigs, and cosmetic prototypes are its home ground.
And if neither fits, materials like POM (Delrin), polycarbonate, or PEEK cover the gaps between these two workhorses and genuine structural performance.
Material selection only pays off when the machining respects the material. ANOK Precision Manufacturing runs an ISO 9001:2015 certified shop in Shenzhen with more than a decade of CNC plastic machining experience across ABS, PA6, PA66, glass-filled nylon, POM, PEEK, PC, PTFE, and more, holding tolerances down to ±0.002 mm from one-off prototypes to production volumes. Send your drawings for a free DFM review, and our engineers will flag any material or tolerance risks before a single chip is cut.