What's the best technique to make this plastic thread gauge?

[maintenanceguy]

I need to have a custom thread gauge made. I picture something made out of a sheet of plastic that's semi-rigid and approximately .020 - .030 inches thick - although I'm very flexible in the design at this point.

I've talked to a couple of companies that do die-cutting and they can't do the fine detail that I need for the thread pitch portion. I'm not sure what manufacturing method I'm loooking for. I'm probably looking for a first run of a few hundred to a number in the low thousands. My customers need to know the thread type of the grease fittings in use on their equipment to properly order the product we sell. I would like to have the cost low enough that I could send these out as a one-time use item at a very low cost to the potential customer.

I'm hoping someone can point me toward the manufacturing method that's best suited to produce something like this and from there, I should be able to track down a company that can do this for me.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thank you in advance. Dimensions below are in inches.

 

[Erich]

Talk to water jet or laser cutting houses. Laser guys can probably etch the lettering in at the same time.

Talk to injection molding companies about molding. You will have thousands of bucks in capital expenses but the unit costs will drop to nickels with enough volume.

 

[bcstractor]

Try talking to Epilog to see if their machines will do it.

Epilog Laser Engraving Photo Gallery

 

[EPAIII]

I do not know the best way to have them made, but if you want accurate gauging of the diameters, I would suggest that they be thicker than a single pitch distance of your coarsest thread. Your 1mm threads will be 39 thousandths so I would step up to around 50 thousandths or so. A thickness of only 0.020" or 0.030" would allow the gauge to slip into the space between the threads making it harder to get an accurate diameter.

Also on some of the thread spacings you may want to use more than three decimal places or dimension them over ten or more threads so you do not get a cumulative error. For instance, at 28 TPI, three decimal places gives you 0.0357" which rounds to 0.036". For ten threads that becomes 0.360" instead of the correct 0.357". That's a 0.003" difference which would be noticeable.

 

[ShakiraRoy]

Converse with water stream or laser cutting houses. Laser folks can most likely engraving the lettering in the meantime. ...Converse with infusion shaping organizations about embellishment. You will have a great many bucks in capital costs yet the unit expenses will drop to nickels with enough volume.

 

[adama]

Lasers and water jets won't cut a M6 thread template, too fine a detail. Both have beams - jets bigger than the details your after.

IMHO best and probably cheapest option is to go photo etched in something thin and cheap, short from punching its about the only way your going to achieve your aims.

 

[Red James]

A rather simple punch/die can be wire-cut to punch these out of plastic strip. If you want really cheap cost per part, die need to accommodate sheets of plastic.

 

[JRIowa]

Like Adama says, no way with waterjet or laser.
If you had enough volume, you could injection mold, but the mold would be expensive. Thicker might help, say about 0.090" to 1/8". You could probably make 4 parts on an 88A mold base. You're also going to be in the $20K range for the mold.
JR

 

[bcstractor]

Excuse me but Epilogs can cut down to .001"

 

[adama]

Yeah most commercial laser can happily cut bellow 10 thou material, problem is beam diameter and the radi - roots of the thread your trying to cut, a water jet typically has a 20-40 thou jet, laser kurf is in the 15-20 thou range, compare that to threads with a 1mm pitch which is 40 thou how much of a thread do you think your going to be left with? All the more so on a gauge were your trying to have a typical person ID the diffrence bettwen a 25.4 tpi thread and a 27tpi thread on but a few turns of a typical grease nipple?????

 

[moldparts]

Injection molding is best. Use a set of 08/09 Master Unit Die Inserts. and have 2 cavities cut into the moving side insert. Find a molder that has the frame for holding these inserts (Very Common). This configuration will produce 2 at a time. If you sub-insert the Logo Area, you can also sell them to distributors that might like to have their name an logo on them. This will help offset the cost. I suggest HIPS for the material. Cheap and tough.

 

[lanb]

Photo chemical machining may be the way to go for the fine detail. I am not experienced with the process but have seen samples and checked out the Wikipedia page. You can get the fine detail and the cost would probably be reasonable I think the biggest issue would be material thickness especially for the hole gauges. Perhaps two cheep tools one for threads and one for hole size? Good luck looks like a fun challenge.

 

[HuFlungDung]

For the length of thread on a grease zerk, it's going to be really difficult to get a novice to notice the difference between all 3 of those thread pitches with a flat gauge. I think a tapped hole in the gauge is necessary. All those finely threaded fins are basically eye candy.

Make 'em pay for the gauge, no use giving it away. Or make it 'free' with a $50 order or something. Add a bottle opener slot to it, or an LED light.

 

[Pete Deal]

I can't stand stamped thread gauges. How about stamping the blank out of steel then stack them up as many as you can and clamp the stack at an angle and cut the thread pitches with a thread mill? Maybe could do it with three grabs.

 

[EPAIII]

The big cost here is probably getting the tooling made.

I have had custom dies made for printed labels and their cost was around $500 for a full size page (8.5 x 11 inches). I don't know the limits of this technology, but you could talk to a commercial printing shop or two or three about it. Ask about using plastic stock that will accept the print ink instead of paper, cardboard, or label stock. Once the die is made, then you can have them run off by the thousands at a fairly low cost. And they will have your logo and other text printed on them at the same time. I suspect it will be less than $1 for each one. Perhaps a lot less if you order enough at one time. The best price per gauge may be with making eight or nine of them on standard 8.5" x 11" sheets of the plastic.

They may even be able to do something to make the plastic stock thicker around the gauge holes.