Wanted, great reliable UK laser Profile Cutter

Ok So yet again im having crap - the run around getting profiles cut. Has anyone got any leads? This is what i need from my profile supplier,

Cutting 1-12mm mild steel and 1-3mm Zintec + 1-8mm aluminium. Polished thin stainless would occasionally be good too. a swould deep drawing grades of steel. I need good cut quality, what keeps me hooked on the laser cut parts is the quality, plasma is not a option for a lot of what im doing. I need sub +-0.2mm intolerance and if you can do better i can find more stuff, currently have parts with features like a 12 point socket some 11mm AF in 6mm plate, current place just can't cut em. But sales potential for a supplier than can furnish me with these quality of parts. Im more than happy to pay more and have my thinner steel parts cut on nitrogen to get the edge - cut quality, it helps my parts sell faster and for more money.

Ideally online quoting so i can get prices to give to my customer and tweak things to get parts inside target costings. Equally so i can compile a nice order over the coarse of a week or 2 and order at a time to suit me!

Typical order will be circa 20 line items with quantities ranging from 1-500 and from my current supplier a typical orders normally north of £500 Whilst i don't always order every month i am not far off and some months its 2 orders. this numbers been increasing by about £200 a year for the last 2 years and there’s potential for it to go higher yet. currently am just bellow - will clear 200 unique parts - profiles some point in the next month a good 50% of which repeat at least once a year.

I need reliability in delivery time, yeah same weeks great, but its more a case of being able to order knowing when i will actually get the order. Lots of my products are sold at trade shows and hence i know when things have to be done by and have no flexibility on those dates. If i need to allow 2 weeks or 4 weeks its not a issue so long as its stuck too.

Oh yeah and i need delivery too, so yeah i need things wrapped well enough there not coming gouged up to hell like they currently arrive. Because yets face it great finished parts don't do well when there beaten to shit!

If anyone has any leads on a supplier that can do that and do so reliably for the long term i want to get in touch with them. I have no issues paying up front, any currency, card, bank transfer, papay or bit coin, your call, just need good parts delivered on a agreed upon time scale in good condition!

I use laser tech in Raleigh, they have large sheet capacity waterjet laser and 5 axis laser

Firstly 3000x1500 sheet is not large its kinda the norm these days, if you have one of only 2 machines of the type in the world how do you have highly experienced operators too??? Secondly there websites terrible, that said its interesting they mention nitrogen cutting for steel, half the laser places i have looked at have no idea about stuff like that. So may laser places spend north of a 1/4 million on a laser then have minimum skilled morons run it leaving so much potential untapped. I so want to find some one to cut my bits that actually gives a crap and am happy to pay a little more to have em pay staff to also give a crap about my products there cutting for me!

Will add them to my possibles list, but i hate dealing with places that don't offer online quoting, let you do the uploading of a profile and setting the material and thickness to there system. its just a near certainty with in 3 orders they will fuck up at least 1-2 items by cutting them in the wrong material or wrong thickness. In the last year i have scrapped over 5 batches of different parts due to this. Often times i won't notice till its too late. often times if im ordering parts for stock they will sit on my shelves for a month or 2 before i really even look at em. The less people involved the less mistakes i have to waste time fixing.

Calm down grumpy! Cant remember but their new water jet is a 6m bed so large travel in my book unless your thinking about large scale plasma in boat yards.
Rob and Dave the owners are seriously skilled machinists as well and dave is also a clever design engineer .
The above is why I use them. There is another laser cutter near me who is cheaper and much friendlier but he and his cad man are not the sharpest tools and most definitely not engineers so stupid errors can occur with dimensions grain etc.

^ Maybe they should add some weee details like that to there website rather than doing as much copy and paste from one page to the next, but pretty much every laser place out there has a 3000x1500 bed machine. To be fair i have never really contemplated water jet for some of these parts, my previous experience with water jet was all around really big parts (think beds more like 6 meters wide and 20+ meters long oh and next door to swedish steel mills! Think i need to get some of the more challenging parts quoted that way and see what they come back as might be a far better process for some of these things

Yeah i am grumpy because im so fed up with dealing with such crap as i have been. I don't need or want a supplier thats any good with CAD, got that bit in house so its my own easily solved little problem, what i don't want is all the agro i have been having. Im not and can't stress this enough worried to much about part costs, most of the bits im doing i have flexibility there and paying even 30% more than i am would not concern me. But i do need reliability, both on delivery time scales (again say what you want - need upfront and i can accommodate but it has to be stuck too!) Deliver even a week late and sometimes its as good as not delivering.

If only i could get a small affordable laser, regrettably they don't exist yet and even if they did im out of room + out of time to run it :-(

These are the dudes I use Page not found - SSC Laser can't say I haven't had any problems but I guess they are OK ,they are the UK's No1 laser cutting service.

Sable, that looks a bit more promising, my only concern is if my £500 of work a month is too insignificant for a place like that. Theres no online qouteing, thats a real pain in the ass as its so useful being able to log in and get a price and get a potential yay or nay of a customer in under a hour.

As to the whole UK's number one thing, yeah im sure ;-) That said, think its probably on the list of people to get a quote from next time and see how it goes.

Getting the feeling the job im currently waiting on is not going to get cut by the current supplier so am going to have to place it else were too.

I like water jet as theres no haz
I dont suppose theyre bothered by their website, I took mine down as I was sick of idiots contacting me about nonsense I suppose im a bit miffed by your dismissal of them when Ive always trusted them and appreciate the ownders ocd regarding such things as finish etc

adama said:

Sable, that looks a bit more promising, my only concern is if my £500 of work a month is too insignificant for a place like that. Theres no online qouteing, thats a real pain in the ass as its so useful being able to log in and get a price and get a potential yay or nay of a customer in under a hour.

As to the whole UK's number one thing, yeah im sure ;-) That said, think its probably on the list of people to get a quote from next time and see how it goes.

Getting the feeling the job im currently waiting on is not going to get cut by the current supplier so am going to have to place it else were too.

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Their minimum order for fat cutting is £125 and I only need their services occasionally so I don't see why you should have a problem ,as for the on line thing ,they are very up to speed on the latest technology so you could talk to them about that.

pressbrake1 said:

I like water jet as theres no haz
I dont suppose theyre bothered by their website, I took mine down as I was sick of idiots contacting me about nonsense I suppose im a bit miffed by your dismissal of them when Ive always trusted them and appreciate the ownders ocd regarding such things as finish etc

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People who are doing a really good job for regular repeat customers often don't bother with their website as they are happy with the business they have ,the company I recommended are always expanding ,doesn't mean they do any better job than your guys and probably not as good.

pressbrake1 said:

I like water jet as theres no haz
I dont suppose theyre bothered by their website, I took mine down as I was sick of idiots contacting me about nonsense I suppose im a bit miffed by your dismissal of them when Ive always trusted them and appreciate the ownders ocd regarding such things as finish etc

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Yeah they just like you are free to do what they like with there website. Gotta understand though, as a potential new customer i have no idea about them (have never met - encountered you either off here, your a reasonably infrequent poster etc), there websites one of the few things i can use to form a opinion about them. Im not dismissing them, im seriously contemplating drawing up the ass hole double hex cut out job and sending it there way to see if they think they could cut it either by laser or water jet. Just if there as good as you say, that websites not doing them all that many favours. In the last 3 years i have used something like 5 different profile cutters, problems have always been getting quotes, decent cut quality (why pay so much for a machine then employ a operator that can't even center the nozzzel!!!) and solid lead times. Haz is not really a issue for most of my parts.

Yes websites will generate some enquires that go no were, but a good website will bring in a lot of potential work too. This is the 21st century, if you don't have a website im not even going to contact you because im not going to find you. I have not opened something like the yellow pages in years, its as simple as that. Given the choice i would much prefer to never talk to anyone at a supplier, i don't want to waste there time or mine or have any confusion. I just want to fill in my details, place my order, pay for it there and then and have my bits turn up when they say they will and above all have those bits wrapped so they arrive undamaged and cut correctly, thats weather im shopping for a new pair of shoes online or a bunch of laser cut parts. I don't even like 30 day terms because its just more paper work and another balls ache to keep track of.

FYI over 1/3rd of what i make goes globally through web based sales, hence i do kinda value websites based on quality! Mine makes me a overly large percentage of my income these days. yeah i do get plenty of stupid questions, but thats life.

Thanks for the number sable, think a lot of places are similar to help avoid all the one off crowd. Can easily clear that, unless there parts prices are under 25% of what im currently paying and if so guess i will just have to order more at a time :-)