CNC...Outsourcing or machine purchase???????

Hello,

Right now I'm doing all manual machining and drawing my parts freehand.

I just got Solidworks and Master CAM......and will attempt to slowly learn both.

My question, is it better to outsource parts at first or is better to save my $$ and make a future CNC machine purchase.

I know there are a ton of variables but I just want to get an idea of what is better for a small shop.

Thank you,Hiram

CNC Outsourcing

If you have the talent the work the room and the power get your self a cnc.There is no feeling in the world like watching the machine run verses turning handles and if you tool it right there is no comparison to the quality never mind the reduction in cycle time.With this market there should be a ton of good deals out there, just stay away from the dealers (there still in a dream land).Good Luck

get the CNC! you will learn nothing if you don't run the programs you created!
you spent the money to get a great 3D modeler and a good CAM package, then you stopped. there nothing like making your own parts and understanding the way the CAM cuts the parts, if your not sure in the varification, you'll know when you see it machined.

"F"ing up parts teaches you very quickly how MasterCam will do things.

lenny

Cad / Cam $$$$$

Hiram,

If you payed the full price for both seats of the systems you mentioned, you must be making lots of CASH!

Your in the machining business and that's how you grow by adding / upgrading equipment. As far as electrical power requirements I can show you how to manufacture that too!

If you need some help to get you over the hump until you can get through the learning curve fine.

Otherwise don't overload your self.

Keep growing and hire 100 employees and help out the economy!

Keep the chips flying

Jim

Henry Ford said if you need a machine, you may as well buy it rather than rent it, because you are paying for it either way. I'd get the machine ASAP, it will take a while until it's fully functioning and you can outsource some work in the meantime if you have to while you learn it.

From a purely business point of view I'd say outsouce, - there are a lot of hungry shops and you're going to be on a very steep not to mention expensive learning curve.

By all means buy a new toy if you want, but I wouldn't try and make the switch and run parts to schedule at the same time

If you have a product, And a market for it..
You need to crunch the numbers.
Do you have enough market to justify the cnc?
It is a Hungry mouth to feed. If you are planning to sell tens of thousand of widgets a year, maybe the CNC.

Otherwise outsource the production. Do the design and marketing.
Once you can market tens of thousands of something, then go into production.
Paying for a cnc will require you to market tons of widgets, regardless of who designed them.
If you want another toy, then get the CNC.

What good is MasterCam without a machine...

It's one of those things you really can't learn without a machine to proof the program and parts. Are you gonna give the program to a shop to run, with the hopes of saving on the programming cost, then crash their machine because you made a rapid in the wrong direction...you lose big time. Do you tell the shop to run the program, but be real carefull because you don't know what your doing...that won't fly very well.

Aside from that, until you have the speeds and feeds of CNC's down pat your guesing alot, or leaving alot up to your software...which can be expensive.

My .02 cents.

Getting a machine is one thing, the tooling for it will take years to gather and will cost nearly as much as the machine itself. And for the first 3 years, you'll never have the right tool, and it ends up a constant $50-75 MSC order every other day. Been there!

From a business perspective, outsource it. "Real" CNC is too expensive for a hobby approach.

Another reason to outsource I have meddled in the online bidding game and it appears there are a lot of shops hurting for work. I have seen CNC time get sold for as low as $13 an hour.
On top of that many people are no longer charging for program time. There is a place to put
RFQ's up on this forum, give it a shot. The CNC learning curve is a long one and expensive,
everybody crashes tooling during the learning curve and they will be coming out of your pocket.

Outsourcing depend on how do you want to do things. How dont know what you are making but IMO it always good to have the equiment to try thing and develop. It's hard when outsourcing to have the flexibility of redesigning some feature on your part. ei: If you are an inventor who what to develop a product.

Depend of parts you what to make (precision) looking in used equiment can be an good option, used equiment with conversational will help to smooth the transition from purely manual to fully cnc. Used is often selled with tooling, you just have to buy some special tooling for your job.

If you want to purely produce part that is always in finale stage and need no tweaking go for outsourcing because some compagny have invested alot $$$$ in solution to produce the maximum part vs the lowest cost. Your marging in profit will be less but your responsability will be less to.

Good luck

Guys,

I certainly appreciate everyone's opinions and seriously great information.

I live in suburban Detroit so I have the every type of manufacturing facilities local to me.

My business is in the firearms industry so precision is certainly of most importance.

Most of the material that I machine is 304 stainless, 6061 & 7075 aluminum in nothing larger than 5"Ø or 30" oal.

One year ago yesterday I had a disk replaced in my lower back and now the manual machines are really tough to use, with all the leaning and standing for hours on end.

Believe it or not I actually have 3 phase electrical power at my house. My next door neighbor owned a tool and die shop and when he built his house he had 3 phase brought to the pole in between us. His house has all the major appliances set up in 3 phase.

And I figure learn the CAD, then the Cam and then purchase machines and tooling.
That's why I got the CAD/CAM.

My ultimate goal is to wake up in the morning drink my coffee, design a part and have a prototype by dinner.

Is this unrealistic?

But right now $ flow is low.

SIM, I totally understand what your saying about not having a machine and trying to learn CAM. And that's a good point that I don't want to potentially crash someones machine.

I have bought used manual machines in the past and I'm not hot on the idea of used equipment manual or CNC.

Do I spend $2500 and get a 5 axis Taig milling machine to learn on?

Help guys Help! LOL

Not enough information:

Are you running a manual shop full time? Is your shop a business or a hobby providing income on the side in addition to your day job? Or are you retired and supplimenting your income with manual shop work?

If you're retired, a hobbiest and have disposable income, a CNC machine might make a good addition to your shop. Some folks buy Harleys, others motor coaches, others yachts. Some folks buy CNC machines.

If you are in business even as a side business, then you need to consult a CPA. A CPA can tell you if there are advantages to investing in your own equipment. There can be significant tax savings with a capital purchase even if you're employeed elsewhere.

As to answer the farming out question leaving financial reasons out of the equation, it's a no brainer, any time you can can do something in house, you have complete control over the quality, materials and delivery time. If you can't meet your customer obligations, it's no one's fault but your own. If you have to work 24 hours straight to meet a deadline, you can.

Hiram Maxims Old Lathe said:

Guys,

Do I spend $2500 and get a 5 axis Taig milling machine to learn on?

Help guys Help! LOL

Click to expand...

No!

You can nearly buy a CNC conversion kit for your Bridgeport with that kind of money. Here's one source of BP COnversion parts http://www.microkinetics.com/conv_kits/index.htm

Do you do more lathe or more mill work? If you are looking at CNC Mills, the Haas VF-1, Hurco VM10, Sharpe 2412 size machines should be considered.

Lathes, the Haas TL-1, the Romi or the Harrison CNC/Manual lathes are best suited to the gun product industry.


Now one thing to keep in mind, a conversion will serve as a good training platform but it will be a far cry from production. Without an auto tool changer, it will still be pretty slow. But if you take the approach and use it for a learning tool, generate income, get yourself up to speed with CNC it will make the transition to a VMC easier. Just don't go hog wild and spend tons of money accessorizing the BP because other than the actual tools, there won't be much that can be used on the VMC.

If you are doing prototypes (which you mentioned) that need CNC, then it seems like having your own could greatly speed up your time to having a product ready to go.

For that kind of use I'd think you don't need a VMC with tool changer because every job will be different, and your design time is the biggest part of the job. It sounds like you want CNC so that you can do the things that CNC makes easier, like fancy curves and surfaces.

I've talked to a guy here in town (who I think is on PM) who designs and prototypes his products for old Porsches. It sounded like he was going to get some sort of 3 axis kneemill because the products he was starting to come up with were too difficult/time consuming for him to prototype on a manual machine. But he apparently has no intentions of doing production himself, preferring to farm that out to a CNC shop with production machinery.

Even if you debug your Mastercam for a project on YOUR machine, I'd suspect that most shops will insist on either the solid model and/or a copy of your Mastercam file before it has gone to the post-processor because they'll want to make sure they feel comfortable that it isn't going to crash their machine (which may be a machine that requires a tweaked post-processor).

I don't know if it would speed things up for a shop to start with a 95% Mastercam or to do things their way from the solid model. It may be that until you get to be an ace with the CAM software the shop you give the production work can do a better job if they start from the model.

cheers,
Michael

Old Lathe, your second letter formed my opinion. Being in the firearms business, and theprecision you will need to demand becomes your hurdle in owning or sub contracting the job. I have done a lot of firearms work on machines and in design and programming, but in the end it does not come to the machine as much as it is the quality assurance factor you need.

The cavities of a pistol or rifle body, hole locations, clearances for mating parts. How these are located to each other, the true positions, the form factors. How will you check them as quite a few intricate features demand not only a good machine, but perhaps a CMM, special tooling, things like this if you go into production. The tooling and quality assurance willprobably equal once again and beyond what a machine costs, and the tracking of such will also be a cost - and a liability for the machine company.

This said, if you are looking for a "close to" prototype to work with as a design model, the question is are you going to fire it off in actual use, fit it with other parts, just use it to check form and design then sub contract the actual production. If this is the case, you have a couple of fairly inexpensive options for the "Prototype" aspect. One is something relatively inexpensive like a HAAS toolroom mill where you change the tools by hand. Speed is not as important as the design model. The other option, if all you want is design form and seeing how it comes together is a rapid prototyping machine - unless you are also making barrels (which is a whole seperate ball of worms).

I am in the market for a Rapid prototype machine right now just for this, it will supplement my CNC machines as a design/form proving item. However, the RP machine does not set toolpaths, just the drawing into the plastic or whatever.

If you are thinking production though, you need to look beyond the machine for the QA aspects that are paramount in gun making in volume.