Guys, I want to get some stainless steel rings made up to act as accent pieces on the Gooster. Does anyone have any experience in getting parts laser or water jet cut? Where did you get it done? Where you happy with the results? I have the dimenisons of what I want (They're just rings, 140mm ID, 150mm OD), but I only want two of them - so a lot of the local companies round here aren't really interested considering the low volume. Any suggestions would be welcome Ta, GOO
if i were you i would hope for a nice person somewhere on this forum having a desktop CNC who would be nice enough to machine them for you. You definately wont find a company to do it and if you did you would pay far too much for setting up costs etc.
i dont know if it services UK... but you can try www.rfqwork.com also, there's a dude that goes by the handle of "Duniek" over in XS who has access to a CNC machine... he's pretty good with a cnc machine...
Could you buy a couple of holesaws in the correct sizes, cut the biggest first and using the same pilot hole cut the smaller hole this would give you the rings you want and after a little sanding wouldnt look a million miles from a laser cut one.
I could, but it'd be expensive... Plus stainless steel is tough stuff. I'm guessing a normal holesaw wouldn't be up to it.
Another option i suppose would be to ask at a machine shop if you have one near you? Theres plenty round me, they could turn the outer 150mm on a lathe and then mill out the middle either by CNC or manually. Most machine shops should be able to achieve what you want.
It would burn the saw out pretty quickly, hole saws are great for cutting walls, and worktop materials, but generally not steel. If you have to do it at home, use a jigsaw with the best blade you can find!
Lasers won't cut through metals like stainless steel unless they have a very high wattage laser beam, which will be very expensive to get access to. You'd be better off buying some stainless steel circular rod and sticking it on a lathe until you'd got the right ID/OD and then chopping it into bits with a band saw or something similar.
150mm steel rod will cost a fortune! GOO, what thickness of ring do you want? Does it have to be steel, what about aluminium?
So um like all commerical laser cutters, the little ones provided to schools and colleges aren't worth a dam unless you do alot of rastering or acrylics. Problem is even turning it on a lathe isn't an easy task, its 150mm, and why use a bandsaw when you can just use a parting off tool, at least then you could face up one side each time.
Want to make a disc on a lathe? http://techtv.mit.edu/genres/24-how-to/videos/172-machine-shop-10 Check out 20:00 and onwards. If the stainless isn't too thick, a lathe is a quick way to do it. For a normal lathe 150mm disc is easy. Titanium angel suggested milling out the center, but that can be done on the same setup in the lathe. Watercutting and laser will work for stainless. They're just slower than on softer materials. Slow means expensive. At a local scrapyard I once saw a junkbin full of chopped stainless rods of different sizes. As they were so short they were only few euros a piece.
the thicknes will only be 1.5 - 2mm thick. It's only to sit between the light pod and the wing to give a polished accent piece to the light. I'd like stainless as there are already a lot of stainless parts on the car, which have been polished to a high mirror like shine. I'd like these to match.
That's not too bad, I was half expecting you to say 5mm. If you can't get a company to cut it, it would certainly be possible to DIY with a jigsaw/angle grinder/files and some 1.5mm plate; hard work though! Good luck convincing someone to CNC it, that would save a lot of work.
What i dislike with turning it on a lathe, is the stock material would have to be just over 150mm, and then to cut out an ID of 140mm, thats just so wasteful makes me sick! seriously as you want 1.5-2mm thick stainless PM M_D_K, his family own's a sheet fab factory, which uses nice CNC punches.
Right sorry for my absence not around these parts much, 2mm is fine I just had 2 sheets of polished 1.2mm delivered fingers crossed i got enough left over for this cause that would look well good . Morgan.
Profile Cutting Hi all Just want to say that the misconseptions about us profile cutting companies are not true I would be happy to quote for any items that people require the only thing is we have to have minimum order values set in place to cover our costs and postage, we also need to make a little profit after all we dont do it for charity lol our minimum order is £35.00 this would have easily covered the requirements that started this thread. you will get our details on www.advanced-profiling.com hope i can help! Steve