Question about machining aluminum

[Deviant]

Just to chime in. That 20-40 buck seems fairly reasonable. Without seeing the scale of the item and tolerances.

I tried to have some parts made in the past from cad drawings. I couldn't find any machinists that were willing to touch the parts. The few that did quoted me around 1500 dollars to build it.

With that said, I decided to make them myself. Almost 2 years later, I have a mill, lathe, most of the parts to make it cnc, and a new16x20 workshop. I still haven't made the parts and have almost 10k invested. Now I'm saving up for an eletrician to power my workshop, which will be another 2.5k.

Just to put things in prospective.

In retrospec, I should have changed the design and tolerances for a re-quote. Of course, at half the quoted price, I still wouldn't have been able to make the item and sell at a profit.

Now that I have the machines, I find myself thinking of lots of neat things I want to make.

Assuming I ever get power. (lol)

*side note*

Anyone a licensed eletrician in Arkansas that wants to work for Beer and donuts?

*grins*

[Cyclone]

I was in Arkansas (Conway, Springdale, and North Little Rock) 3 weeks ago. I would have wired your shop for free if you would have taken me to Mc Clards for lunch.

[Deviant]

Lol,

Well I wish that it would have been that simple.

I'm having to deal with the pain of having a "service upgrade". House is older than I am, running on a 60amp meter face. Looking to have it upgraded to 200 amp, 100amp for house and 100 amp for building, with sub panel installed in the shop.

Due to new wiring code. I think I'm looking at an external panel on the house to hold any new wiring and to act as a feed for the existing dinky inside panel.

So mustbenu, make sure that your location has the proper power requirments. Assuming you decide to get into the world of machining.

All of the nickle and dime requirements eat you up.

[ViperTX]

Mc Clards....hmmmm....must be a strip joint or a BBQ joint....

[Cyclone]

The best BBQ ribs I have ever eaten ...brought back 3 bottles of their sauce 'ol Billy's favorite BBQ place

[Toolmaker96]

If you think that you are being ripped off then you should machine them yourself. For around $250,000 you should find yourself well enough equipped to machine your parts sucessfully. I think that once you are making them yourself you will find that at $40.00ea. you were really not being "ripped off".
Personally, I would not get anywhere near that job for less than $60-$65 ea.

[bobgerman]

"Almost 2 years later, ..."

"Where there's a will, there's always a way"..my daddy used to say. But he never said it was going to be easy.

I am just recently getting myself back into toying with machining after a 25 yr leave of absence. So far (and I'm afraid to look at the real numbers) just to set up with a mill/drill, a lathe, supporting equipment and tooling I'm already into $12k+. At least I started with work already lined up and there isn't much ($) left after making the payments.

Not to discourage anyone from persueing the trade but one thing that hasn't been mentioned here is the fact that everyone of you guys that know what your doing spent a LOT of time as a chip sweeper...you get my drift.

[Halfnutz]

Rome was built with a chisel and hammer. I remember seeing this one old guys turbo fan jet engines that were about a foot long with unbelievable detail and accuracy, the compressor fans were incredible (I wish I had the link), and somewhere along the site he says it was a real paindoing all that work with his SHERLINE CNC mill, because he had to re fixture the big parts so many times. Unbelievable work. The quality of the tooling is very important regarding the finishes. You can spend 65.00 on a 3 inch endmill, or you could spend 1500.00. The machine envelope is the only real limitation, and how well its adjusted and set up. That and the operator experiance of course. How fast you need to produce them, and how much work you are willing to do are the variables.

So, I'm basically agreeing with everyone, as far as your parts, its 300.00 min and 65.00 an hour around here.