Making tiny parts en masse?

[jwz]

I'm considering getting a shopbot for use in, among other things, making tiny (2-3 mm diameter, 15 mm long) custom bolts. I'd need to be able to make several dozen of them in a run. How doable is this?

Is it easy to, say, cut out a few tiny parts and then once you are satisfied, cut out several dozen more? How would you handle cutting pieces out of a sheet/slab that already has pieces cut out of it?

[Brady Watson]

Jeremy,
I'm not toally following you...you mean actual bolts with heads? Out of what material? Please post a pic of what you want to cut so I and others can advise you on your project. It sounds to me like a CNC lathe is the right tool for the job, but without seeing your part, I can't be sure.

-B

[jwz]

Right, I need metal bolts (no threads though) with parabolic heads - think "mushrooms". And I need a lot of them.

[thewoodcrafter]

Jeremy,
Brad is by far the expert here, but metal bolts is NOT what a Shopbot will do very well.
You need a CNC lathe.

[henrik_o]

Scarce info, but this really does seem like something you should outsource to a competent metal workshop. Unless you need thousands and thousands of them and have a nice markup, investing in the kind of production machinery necessary for relatively rational production would seem prohibitive, unless you could find some NC equipment on the cheap when some shop upgrades to CNC.

Don't know what the situation is in the US generally, or where you live specifically, but at my place I'm able to get jobs like these made for pennies as long as I give them repeat business and a few larger jobs per year.

[bill.young]

It's always more fun to make something than buy it, but could you use something like these?

http://www.rivetsinstock.com/rivet01.htm

[Brady Watson]

Great reference, Bill.

If I had to make a bunch of these, and there were no threads involved...and, nobody else makes anything comparable, I would look into getting these cast. If you had the money for the equipment, a spincaster like the one here: http://www.tekcast.com/ , would be an economical way to produce a lot of them in a short amount of time. Casting is what is called an 'addition' process, where CNC machining is a 'subtractive' process. You may want to research companies that do spin casting or contact TekCast for a reference to a company that will take this on for you.

-B