Aluminum blanks and rings

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hoganj

New Member
Two parts needed.

1) Material type: 6061 al
2) Include material and usps flat rate shipping
3) Quantity
Blanks 50
Rings 100
5) Required time frame: ASAP
6) RFQ ending time: I would like to get this taken care of today 7-31-09 but I will see what kind of replies are given.

Jake@Motoworxracing.com
Canon City CO
81212

More info.
Blanks: qty: 52

I am thinking these could be made with a CNC Lathe with a cutoff tool. I have made these manually by bandsawing and then facing off both sides. If having a hole through the center of the blanks helps the cut off process then that can also be done. If it doesn't help than it is not necessary.

The small hole on the outer edge I also have done manually. If you have a better way than please include that hole. If not and you have to set up a second operation than don't worry about it.

Rings: qty: 104
Rings have a thickness of .100"
Again I did these manually by drilling the center hole and parting off in a lathe. I would deburr the outer edges as the tool was cutting in. I also would feed the tool back out taking a very light finishing cut so it would leave the outside of the ring with a very good finish. Then I would put them in my cnc mill. Can a cnc lathe with live tooling do this in one step?

If you have a finishing machine like a vibratory tumbler; I would like to know the cost of finishing the rings only. It is not necessary for the blanks as they get further machined.

Thanks for your time
Jake
Motoworx MFG.
 

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  • 1.9blank.PDF
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  • 12 HOLE RING.PDF
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Last edited:
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Starlight

Starlight Machining
Your 12 Hole PDF file is blank maybe a problem with the upload could you take a look. Sounds interestng just need to see both prints to give a quote.

Dave
 
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hoganj

New Member
quote closed

Thinks to all who replied. Right now I am just not selling enough of these to justify the outsourcing of these. I will have to continue for now making these manually untill I can grow the quantity that I sell. I apologize for taking your time, I was thinking that they could be done for less.
 
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Dualkit

Member
hoganj said:
Thinks to all who replied. Right now I am just not selling enough of these to justify the outsourcing of these. I will have to continue for now making these manually untill I can grow the quantity that I sell. I apologize for taking your time, I was thinking that they could be done for less.
Click to expand...

I appreciate your honesty but I thought by using a little creativity came up with
pretty good price on those 12 hole rings, and knowing how bad things are I am sure I wasn't the lowest. I am curious what kind of price you were expecting?
Your material requirements aren't even enough to get the first price break from a supply house, material cost was 1/2 what I quoted on the 1.9 blank. I wonder
how fast you could manually make one of those 12 hole rings? I know people
are bidding ridiculously low prices to get work, and you still thought they were
too expensive? And you machine parts yourself? Please post your target price, I am sure we would be happy to explain why it didn't happen.
 
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hoganj

New Member
response

First off let me explain what these are. They are Remote controll beadlock wheels. They sell in sets of four wheels. Each wheel requires two rings. I wish I was selling these at a higher price but the reality is that if I list them for what they are worth I sell 0. If I lower the price to $55.00 for a set of four wheels, 8 rings, and 100 screws they usually sell(this is on ebay). Out of that comes the ebay fees, paypal fees. So lets say I actually get $50.00 for a set. That would come to 12.50 for one wheel and two rings. The average quote was $7.00 per blank and $5.00 per ring.
4 blanks x $7.00=-$28.00
8 rings x $5.00=-$40.00
total =-$68.0
my selling price =$50.00
leaves me $18.00 in the hole
plus I still have to put the blanks in my cnc mill and machne the features. I don't machine the rings manually just cut them off manually. Roughly I get 5 rings per inch. It doesn't take me that long to cut them off its just that I only have one mill that is usually tied up with the wheels. I just thought that if somebody had the right equipment this would be a fast easy job. My target price is so low that I am embarrased to even ask someone to do it for it. But really for me to make any money It would be $3.00 for one blank and two rings.
 
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Dualkit

Member
hoganj said:
First off let me explain what these are. They are Remote controll beadlock wheels. They sell in sets of four wheels. Each wheel requires two rings. I wish I was selling these at a higher price but the reality is that if I list them for what they are worth I sell 0. If I lower the price to $55.00 for a set of four wheels, 8 rings, and 100 screws they usually sell(this is on ebay). Out of that comes the ebay fees, paypal fees. So lets say I actually get $50.00 for a set. That would come to 12.50 for one wheel and two rings. The average quote was $7.00 per blank and $5.00 per ring.
4 blanks x $7.00=-$28.00
8 rings x $5.00=-$40.00
total =-$68.0
my selling price =$50.00
leaves me $18.00 in the hole
plus I still have to put the blanks in my cnc mill and machne the features. I don't machine the rings manually just cut them off manually. Roughly I get 5 rings per inch. It doesn't take me that long to cut them off its just that I only have one mill that is usually tied up with the wheels. I just thought that if somebody had the right equipment this would be a fast easy job. My target price is so low that I am embarrased to even ask someone to do it for it. But really for me to make any money It would be $3.00 for one blank and two rings.
Click to expand...

At $3.00 a pound which I pay for small amounts of domestic material and most people pay for small amounts of Chinese aluminum the material cost for that is almost $2. You have to allow for cut-off blade width. There is a machine that would run the rings quickly, problem is a CNC lathe with a 2.5
or more through hole, live C-axis and back working chuck costs about $250,000 new and would take a minimum of 2 hours to program and set-up.
Even in this economy no one is going to sell time on one for less than $60 an hour so on your rings you would get $1.20 minimum each for set-up charge.
Even in this economy I don't think China could hit your target price even with
higher quantities.
 
D

Dualkit

Member
Madmachinist said:
Tell me all about it. It seems to me that we the manufacturers of rare and hard to come by products have to learn how to tell the end customer to F off, "cause the price is what it is and we can't lower it just to suit them." Most of the people that I make custom gun parts for make way more money than me, they just like to complain and B!tch about the price. Hogan its not time that we improve our metal cutting skills but our "how to treat the A hole customer skills." Just my .02 rant over.
Click to expand...

Rant on, this one was pretty shocking. Since the RFQ poster does machining,
one would assume he had a general idea of material cost and machining time,
I guess not.
 
R

Riceburner98

New Member
My $.019 (+6.25% tax)

First off, I'm not a machinist. I got the brilliant idea one day about 4 years ago that I could make a certain product (heater control panels) for the kit car industry, and so on a whim bought a Taig CNC machine on eBay. (well, 2, the first seller just took the $$ and ran. Grr.) Having no experience what-so-ever I set the price for the thing at what I thought people would pay. $300. Had no idea what it actually cost to make one in the end, but $300 sounded about right.

For a while I was cranking out parts at home in my little back room ($0 overhead since I already lived there) and while it was taking forever, I was at least making a couple $ on each panel. Only sold about 4 since they took so long, but it was fun. Then I decided "these parts are easy, you just stick them in a machine and hit "go", how much could a "real" place possibly cost. I got educated fairly quickly, and actually awarded the RFQ to someone on here for the machined aluminum panels. They worked, but weren't as nicely machined as I had been doing them, mostly because I would spend 3 or 4 hours per aluminum part machining it, then cleaning it up, etc... It did save time though. In the production world, time is money, and that would normally add up.

Now a couple years later I've been making a different panel with a lot more parts. I was machining the .75" thick plastic front panel myself (eBay material, so pretty cheap) and of course labor again was "free". Also had to machine 11 clear acrylic rods / spacers for under the illuminated buttons. This time I knew what to expect for machine time, and set the overall price at $500 thinking I was going to be raking in the $$$. Brought it to the machine shop, and add in the setup fees, it was about $200 per machined plastic panel, and $1 per spacer.

The panel I expected, it's a fairly complex part to program, and now I realize it's a challenge to even grip the thing while machining it. The rods I somehow thought would be cheaper. Now in my mind I of course visualize someone sticking a long acrylic rod into a CNC lathe and minutes later having 200 spacers pop out the other end in a bag. In reality, they first had to buy the machine. ($250k+?). Then the material. (more than eBay $ I'm sure) Then a guy has to be paid to program the machine. Then load the machine, then collect / clean the parts, then bag them. Then the heat / AC has to be paid for. Then the building payment. Then..... In the end $1 a spacer is probably a bargain. Out of that $500 I clear *maybe* $100. Does that cover my time to assemble them, test them, the time it took to write the code for the electronics? Maybe... I probably get $5 an hour in the end.

There's a whole different world of people like me that (admittedly) no diddly about how real business works, but want to make and sell stuff. For the volume of these that I make / sell, a "real" business would have looked at the model and said either "no way", or "double the selling price and we'll talk". Of course, then the guys that are buying the things would be SOL and wouldn't have them to buy. (or, would have to suck it up and pay more)

I think most of the stuff we (small) people try to build just wouldn't exist if doing it "for real".... That's just the sad truth.. :) Sorry for the essay, just something I'd been thinking about for a while... For my own parts, now that the first run is done, they've quoted $100 a complete set for machined parts, which means if I sell enough I may actually pay off the 'cards that I used to buy all the parts to make them. :D
 
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Riceburner98

New Member
Yep, pretty much. If I'm lucky anyway.... :) If it weren't for the interest on the credit cards, I might actually turn a profit. LOL At least I get a little machine and some experience out of it, and get to help out some guys with a product that otherwise wouldn't exist. I'm working on the next model though, and a lot of what I've done will translate over to that one. So it will get better. I think that's what most of us are shooting for, with the hope of one of the ideas catching and taking off. (like those guys making that fruit computer in their garage back in the day.... Who knew it would turn into a phone? LOL)
 
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