hello, new to the forum and needing advice on a good cnc hobbyist or even small shop preferably in LA, but am also happy with expanding my search to anywhere US, that i can work with for small parts (aluminum and mild steel) that require tight tolerances. alot of my stuff may be one offs or small batches (dozen to 50). i have designs ready for manufacturing so am looking for someone who can help me produce these.
thank you in advance for any advice or guidance!
If you post pics of the types of parts you want , you might get response. Also via skype + FEDEX and stuff these days maybe there's someone with a bit of "Downtime" that would work with you in a different state like East Coast (even).
Without prints/CAD models and $ expectations nothing is defined here ?
What is expensive to one … Can be very reasonable to another.
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What tolerances,
What materials,
some indication of likely processes... Like Mill-turn... Grinding? Five axis ? 4th axis, 3 axis...
contoured prismatic ??? Blah blah blah … Prints :-)
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I'm curious as to what
minhollywood thinks is expensive/cheap, easy not easy... High tolerance not so high tolerance.
Seems there is key element that may be making this a LOT more expensive than what it might need to be? [
Like what BobW in NM is say'n].
One of the cool things about PM forum you know it can be a team effort... I always say two heads are better than one even if one of those heads is full of saw dust... Not saying I don't have saw dust between my ears.
At least @minhollywood you get to find out whether you are smoking crack or not?
^^^ PM forum is very good for that and sometimes on stuff I'm not very sure about I'll post something in the hope that someone will kick the crap out of it YKWIM ? Better to get it right than "Be" right (I think).
Someone out there might already (coincidently) have a set up in place to run your parts... [The inter-webs one would think would be good for that ? ?? (shrugging shoulders mwehhmeerouhhh <---- Scooby Doo noises ).
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Point of reference: Around the 2008 crash I was able to get a lot of stuff done as some fairly sophisticated shops were hit hard in some cases. I was always super flexible on time frames and scheduling and allowed then to fit any of my jobs around down-time. The logic being better to have a skilled machinist actually machine stuff and make some $ rather than having a very skilled guy just push a broom around for weeks at a time.
Sadly things have changed for the worst (after that period), and a LOT of shops closed I think... So the shops that are good and still in business are really really busy. In part I think that has pushed many a CAD jockey to roll their sleeves up and put in the time (YEARS) to get a half decent handle on "In-house" manufacturing (for smaller and newer businesses) ... That's what
Gkeonig is getting at I think (Tormach being the gateway drug to extreme machine purchases in the future).