Reverse Engineering little metal bits. Easy?

[John]

Draw the parts accurately, either cad or a graph paper scratch out, and contact 3 people who advertises repetition or CNC machining.
The machinist likely won't want to draw them- they are generally over other peoples little projects- and a draftsman will be required which will kill the viability.

Know what the material is- 304 stainless is a guess, and what bar/rod diameter each piece is machined from. Sometimes you being able to supply the machining stock makes a big difference for the viability of these small jobs.
Polishing will be a separate job.
A bearing supply mob will organise the O rings. Again, know what they are dimensionally and material- nitrile is 99%, viton sometimes.

this man, he knows

superdave practically contradicted eveyrthing he said, but I'd go with this advice everytime.

[<---cop]

so you wanna cheap out and reproduce a $50.00 part and try to mass produce for $40.00.

yeah I can see the maths in that.

They are discontinued, you dopey cocksmack.

[BigMuz]

yeah, check the voltages first!

You passed the test :D

[Momus]

Where are you? Your location translates to more chook scratchings with references to yen, anime and bukaki.

Find a CNC machinist with a lathe with a full length bar feeder and live tooling.
Live tooling means the turned threaded part with the awkward to mill feature can be milled in the turning setup. Ditto for the screw slots.
Machinist may make all the parts from one bar diameter to save set up and handling. Try and identify the threads and hope they are metric pitches with nominal diameters not a collection of brass, conduit, and unf.
When you are succesful finding one, make the machinist match the threads on the new parts to the sample parts- which become thread guages. This is important.

[John]

or find someone with a sliding head lathe for even cheaper parts. But in oz, i guess you'll be struggling. Plenty in asia tho. A ton of them over here in the UK. Would definitely be the cheapest way to get them made for 50+ off.

[PLAYA]

I know where there is a guy who has a cnc lathe and mill together as you say, generally cheaper to use separate machines because of his hourly rate on it is huge. But for this it might be good, dinki di engineering in Lonsdale SA

[Gammaboy]

You're in qld aren't you cop? Try this guy, I've had good dealings with small parts made by him.
andrew at be-services.com.au
Brisbane Engineering Services
Andrew Cairns
Unit 2/12 Maiella street
Stayplton 4207
3807 9918

[Aaron]

emachineshop could be an option. Draw up a few of the simpler parts in their software - get a automated price back see how it goes - the software is pretty reasonable and should be able to design that shit no worries. If material type is less critical you can always substitute materials.

[Reax]

If you we're in Newy you could have borrowed my digital micrometer for accurate measurements, although I think the battery might need replacing.

[Gammaboy]

emachineshop could be an option. Draw up a few of the simpler parts in their software - get a automated price back see how it goes - the software is pretty reasonable and should be able to design that shit no worries. If material type is less critical you can always substitute materials.

They're visciously expensive/.

[John]

I know where there is a guy who has a cnc lathe and mill together as you say, generally cheaper to use separate machines because of his hourly rate on it is huge.

This flies in the face of all manufacturing sense btw. How can it be cheaper to use 2 seperate machines when you can do it on one if you are considering just cost to manufacture? Hence why things like mill turn machines and lathes with live tooling exist because setup and loading/unloading time is always the key.

Having said that, in the above images, all but 3 of the parts could be made on a very basic lathe. But for 50+, yeah I'd be trying to find someone with a mill turn/live tooling lathe. Once set up, I'm not exaggerating when I say you could make ALL those parts in under a minute each.

[Aaron]

They're visciously expensive/.

You've obviously never walked into Machine shop in Canberra....

Yes emachineshop is expensive, like ANY one-off job, but at least they'll take the job

[PLAYA]

This flies in the face of all manufacturing sense btw. How can it be cheaper to use 2 seperate machines when you can do it on one if you are considering just cost to manufacture? Hence why things like mill turn machines and lathes with live tooling exist because setup and loading/unloading time is always the key.

Having said that, in the above images, all but 3 of the parts could be made on a very basic lathe. But for 50+, yeah I'd be trying to find someone with a mill turn/live tooling lathe. Once set up, I'm not exaggerating when I say you could make ALL those parts in under a minute each.

Only my experience, have had some parts quoted and always cheaper to get done somewhere else on separate machines. Also I have found depending on the job cnc is cheaper for even quantities of 4, 50+ will kill anyone trying to do it manually unless you do it yourself and don't put a price on your time.

[John]

There is no way you'd want to do them manually, unless you hated yourself. So are you talking CNC or manual then in your example above?

[PLAYA]

Nah cnc, sometimes I have milling done at one place and turning done at another that specialise in each one. Maybe I should try a different supplier as he could just be overall expensive.

The stuff I am doing at the moment is fairly basic so cheap enough to do with the two operations