Aluminum production question

[woodworker2]

Hi, I own a small partime hobby business, and the wood product that I make uses some connection plates that I make out of 1/8" grade 3003aluminum.
I am tired of getting peopole to shear cut my aluminum and then me wasting a bunch of time drilling it on the drill press, and then straightening the edges on the 12" disc sander. I am looking for someone that I can get a good low price on to cut the aluminum and drill a few holes for me. My largest piece is only 12"x14" and has 16 holes in it. Most of them will be 7"x12" or 10.5"x12" with 8 and 12 holes respectively. My goal is to save some money for a year or so, and try to buy a small cnc machine that can cut the aluminum and drill the holes in it, and hopefully I can use it to drill the holes in my plywood as well. Just browsing I ran across a small unit from http://digirout.bravehost.com/ for about 2900.00. Did'nt know if this is a good price or not. Looking for suggestions on a machine or a shop willing to take small orders.
Thank you in advance for any responses.

[ViperTX]

Never heard of them.....how many plates would you have to sell to cover the $2900 expense. Just take the profit you make off each plate and divide it into the $2900. For example, and you probably know this......2900 / 1 = 2900 plates that's if you make $1 profit per plate.

[mxtras]

Have you looked into laser cutting?

1/8" AL would take less than 2000 watts to cut - most production shops have lasers this powerful. 1/4" is a completely different story, but 1/8" is not a problem for a profficient laser guy.

In addition to using folks in my local area (VA), I have E-mailed DWGS to a job shops in NJ, NY, OH, TX and MI and had very good results.

Google laser cutting and check for guys in your area or you could post an RFQ thread with the information and guys on this forum will reply.

Scott

[austin.mn]

i do a lot of routing of 1/8" alu, and i would think that would probably be the way for the hobby shop to go. you can also do a lot of cool wood working with it, aside from the alu, to help cover the expense of buying/building a machine.

cutting something as you have disccribed should only take a couple of minutes to cut with a router, on the other hand a laser would probably knock them out in about ten seconds, they are amazing.

i would also think that looking into a plasma machine might not be a bad idea either, depends on how many parts you are planning on producing.

in my experience, i built my router to do woodworking, signs, doors, and other decrative items. as soon as a friend asked if i could cut aluminum though, it seemed like it changed everthing about my hobby/business. i tend to do mostly aluminum now. sure it takes a little longer to cut than wood, but i end up with perfect parts everytime, with the wood for some reason or another it seemed like i scraped about 25% of the items from tear out, ugly sap or grains. now i am almost wishing that i had spent the majority of my aloted funds on metalworking tools instead of wood working.

[Kmed]

Well
If you are looking for a shop, I would be happy to take a look at them for you. I recently took a job as a consultant for an aerospace company, and only do small side work.

Are the plates the same? You might want to look into a drill fixture and hand drill the parts, if qtys are always low this is usually the cheapest way to go. Then just have the aluminum lazer cut or cheared to size, or routed. Holes on a laser add time as it take more to pierce the material and adds to the cost. A drill fixture would make this a breeze. you could even make a routing fiture and have youre sheared pieces delivers, then using a hand router clean up the edges. CNC is nice but some times manual can be faster and cheaper.

[woodworker2]

Austin.mn and Kmed,


Austin.mn, I would like to see your machine and how you built it. I would also like to know how accurate it is. The biggest problem with having the parts sheared is that most people either charge me an exorbenent amount of money, and their accuracy is only to 1/16" in 12". Which in turn leads to the second problem, which is the time it takes with pencil and combination squares to square it up, and then once you lay out the hole pattern for a minimum of 8 holes to a maximum of 16 holes, you have spent a large amount of time. If the drillpress gets skewed a 1/16" or so, than your hole pattern is off and your alignment with the plywood is off as well. This is why I am shopping for prices on someone to cnc my parts for now, and I want to save some money and get my own machine so I can do them myself. Although I do have the ability to build a jig that can hold the plates tightly before drilling, I still have to have an accurately square piece. So if I need someone to cnc them accurately, then they may as well drill them too.