Hi turbotadd:
It depends a bit on how accurate you need them to be.
The very best way is to cut them on the wire EDM.
The process involves building a jig to hold them but you can cut hundreds at a time, burr free, dead nuts square, to within a couple of microns with zero pain and almost zero effort if you're willing to build the jig.
If you have very few to do, you can make the jig pretty simple...a glorified Vee block is all it really takes.
If you have hundreds a vee block rapidly gets to be a royal PITA so the jig gets more elaborate but way less pain to run.
If you just need them OK but not great you can make a little grinding jig and just load the jig, snip the wire with side cutters then grind to length on the surface grinder.
You might be able to hit +/- 0.001" without too much pain doing it that way, and if you don't have a surface grinder you can harden the jig and then just hit the ends with a fine file until the file skates on the jig.
It'll eventually beat the snot out of the file, but they're cheap enough that it may not matter to you.
If you have to get rid of the burrs though, you're royally screwed...you'll spend way more time on the burrs than you will on the cutting.
The recommendation was made to cut them on the lathe.
This is certainly possible but it is the hardest way to get them accurate.
The problem is if you stick them out far enough to face the end and then cut the wire off at -0.125" the facing operation will fight you at every step and you risk chipping the corners of the insert.
You will also have a cutoff tit to deal with.
If you try to rough cut them and then face each end, you have to make some kind of stop to hold the second side of each one at the proper length so you can just rifle through them.
That's not easy to do but it IS possible with a little chuck like a Sherline 3 jaw.
I know of no other 3 jaw that will grip something this small, and a collet is a non starter because you cannot control the length well.
Bottom line: if you've ever tried handling pieces of wire 0.026" diameter and 0.125" long, you'll quickly find out how hard it is to work with if you have normal sized fingers.
Half of them might well end up in the chip pan, never to be seen again, so budget that reality into your price.
Or farm them out to a wire shop if there are enough to justify what it takes to wire cut them.
Cheers
Marcus
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Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
