Cans and Cants of Machining

[chophead69]

My 2cents dmat.buying a machinist hand booknis a godsend if you want more info on hole sizes,material types and strengths,radius,drill and tapes,reamers,endmills and cutters.and so much more.i agree with chris doing a cad is one thing most machinist i know we work from blueprints and write the program from there which is only a tool not a given it still has to be proven like tool height and depths hole sizes and such.nice finishes with no chatter takes skill to know your speeds and feeds.you might have to make fixtures to hold the part to be machined like the battery box you talked about the thinner the wall the more flex you get while machining causes chatter which looks like crap so now the process on how to machine becomes more complex.making a arms would require a fixture chris tranny case needed them depending on the part you could have a few of them.so that drives up the cost.most machine shops charge by the hour they are not hungry enough to care about making rc parts or even bike parts because they want that large production run.i have made even wrote the programs to have my bike parts machined by shops whiched saved a little but i had 100 to 500 parts made at a time just because thats the only way i could have them done.1 parts cost more to make than 10 per cost.so most shops want high runs not little one or two parts even a prototype can cost a arm and a leg because of programming and setup time.in this hobby no offence chris or anyone else on here making parts! The best way to make a part is to learn by doing buy a hobby lathe or mill and try making your own parts make a blueprint read up on machining take a class find a machinist to teach you or get a job in a machine shop start at the bottom and learn.thats how i started.i went to work in a machine shop because i wanted to make chopper bike parts and do my own welding i grew up in a paint and body shop so i had a trade behind me but wanted more that was 21 yrs ago.i am still learning because as the tools change so does the speeds and feeds with newer machines the programming changes but i like making metal chips lol

[DMAT]

I guess I'll have to try out one of the few companies that specialize in prototyping instead of production parts.

This is becoming the whole reason in why I like the Ideas of 3d printing. The only thing that you need to know how to do is create a part then save as a file type. Then depending on material, find the right printing company.

Guess its time to see how the direct metal laser sintering parts come out.