Good morning mneuro:
From what I have been exposed to in the medical device world, this is going to be a hard task to try to outsource, and the sticking point for any vendor is going to be the certification that they have actually successfully done what they believed they have done when they put it through their etch or whatever.
That's probably why your titanium guys backed off...there is no contract juicy enough for them to accept the risk of liability for a failure until everyone in the game has agreed on a protocol to distribute that risk.
From what little I have seen, these negotiations can be very long winded and consume a ton of resources for all the companies involved, so unless there are big bucks being tossed around, a prudent subcontractor will NO BID unless he has either experience with the exact same process or a contract that gives him wiggle room or he's so damn hungry he will take it on with eyes wide shut.
Is your project that kind of project?
If it is, there are probably only a very few subs who are even in the game, and your titanium guy probably knows who they are and could maybe be persuaded to spill the beans and get you contact information.
If not, you have four choices as I see it:
1) Develop the process in house...expensive distracting and risky.
2) Do as Milland suggests and find an alternative process that eliminates the need; accepting the development costs of that alternative process.
Maybe wire EDM combined with diamond honing could be made to work?
3) Petition the engineers who designed the part to re-design it so the slot(s) can be made another way, preferably as a two piece assembly, or a laminated stack that's been acid etched or milled from thin plates or whatever.
4) NO BID the job as your sub has done.
It's kind of self defeating for an ambitious company, eager for contracts to accept this reality, but sometimes other work is much easier to make a buck on...you have to make the choice (assuming it's even your decision to make).
Cheers
Marcus
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