# Made a business card holder



## alloy (Dec 16, 2018)

Still trying to learn Mastercam and wanted to make something cool to put on my table at old car swap meets to show off my new capabilities.

I wish I'd had longer material so I could have turned the cards long ways, but I used what I had available.  

I'm looking for products to make a sell, I wonder if anyone on Ebay would want one?


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## T Bredehoft (Dec 16, 2018)

Nice, I keep wishing I had CNC capabilities, but the economics say there's no place for it here. Oh Well...


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## rgray (Dec 16, 2018)

Looks nice. With longer pieces and sideways cards I think it would be a great ebay item.
But ebay for me is getting way harder to sell on than it was 15 years ago.
So much stuff and large accounts get search results and top of page.
I've put things on there and the whole 5 day auction can run out with only 1 or 2 views.  Years ago anything I put on would have minimum of 25 views and many times near 100.
It's almost as bad amazon nowadays.

You might sell more at the swap meet than on ebay. You don't lose 10% that way either like on ebay.


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## rwm (Dec 16, 2018)

I think that is brilliant. I'll bet it would sell. I agree with having the cards sideways.

Robert


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## dlane (Dec 16, 2018)

Looks good , what size wrench is it.


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## francist (Dec 16, 2018)

Looks great! 
When I think of all the business cards I have seen, the ones that one first to mind are the unusual ones:
One made out of transparent plastic, one that was square instead of rectangular, one made from wood veneer...
Don't think that horizontal is the only way, it's just the way everyone else does theirs.

-frank


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## alloy (Dec 16, 2018)

Thanks guys.  I like creating things that I think up.  I'm just beginning to unlock the potential of Mastercam.   I spent two days trying to figure out how to manipulate the work coordinate system and bring in a STL file of a wrench I found on Grabcad.  The file was set up so Y was what I needed to change to Z, but no matter how I tried and how many videos I watched I couldn't get it.  So I designed my own wrench.

I also agree that turning the card sideways would be best.  This was practice for me and I want to make things I can use.  I checked at metal supermarket and a 72" piece od 1" x 1-3/4" delivered is $120.  That will make 10 parts.  Once I get the program optimized I'll have about 25 minutes in making the part.   Do you think I could sell them for $50 or so?  I have a great reputation on Ebay so I think people would take a chance on me having been on there for 20 years now.

What size is it?   Well it's a "TLIR", or "That Looks About Right"


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## Boswell (Dec 16, 2018)

are you making that out of 6061 Aluminum?   I just checked and Online-Metals sells a 72" 1"x1.75" for 61.22 and delivered to my house for 27.46. Total 88.68.  However, I almost never order online but go to a local metal supply for my aluminum.  I also recommend that you make it to a specific size. People that would buy this will want to know what size it fits, so why not. Finally $50 each sound like a lot of $ for a business card holder. I am sure that you would sell a few but it is hard to believe that there is a big untapped market for $50 novelty business card holders.  Just my out-loud thinking. Good luck.


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## alloy (Dec 16, 2018)

I'm trying to cover my cost.  if it takes me 25 minutes I at least want a $1 per minute of machine time.  So that would be $25 plus material. And yes 6061. 

Here is what my quote form online metals is.  For me to go get it that would be a 130 mile round trip.  Having it shipped  is a better option for me by far.  I wonder why your quote is so much cheaper?





Quote from rgray

"But ebay for me is getting way harder to sell on than it was 15 years ago.
So much stuff and large accounts get search results and top of page.
I've put things on there and the whole 5 day auction can run out with only 1 or 2 views.  Years ago anything I put on would have minimum of 25 views and many times near 100.
It's almost as bad amazon nowadays.

You might sell more at the swap meet than on ebay. You don't lose 10% that way either like on ebay."



I do transmission cable drive mods and I'm the only one in the world that does them so I get a lot of hits on Ebay.  A couple of them are over 12k views in about 3 years now and 151 down to 34 watchers for my newest item.   I guess I'm lucky what I do is so popular.  I also hate the fees they charge. My monthly bill from them can run up to $200 depending on sales.  If I could find a way to get to every hot rodder and transmission shop and rod shop and show them what I do.  I'd not have to use ebay and I'd have to hire a crew to handle the work.  But a lot of guys like me are older and a lot of them don't use computer at all so they have now way other than the swap meet to find out about me.


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## JimDawson (Dec 16, 2018)

That's about a 3 minute part.  I know your machine has enough HP to do it.

This part is about the same size and complexity of your card holder.  Cycle time for 6 parts below is a about 15 minutes including load, drill, screw down, and unload time.  This little fixture is held in the vice.  I think these are finished at 0.625 tall x 0.75 wide, but it starts out life as a chunk of 1x1 inch 6061, cut to fixture length, then 3 lengths are clamped to the fixture long enough to get some screw holes in them.  3/8 carbide endmill, 6000 RPM ('cause that's all we got ), maybe around 160-180 IPM or so.  4 or 5 tool changes.

For the price Metal Supermarkets wants for that 6 ft bar of 1x1.75, you could get a full 20 ft bar at Coast Aluminum.

Since this is a low volume part, these are just run on this small fixture.  If we needed a lot of these, we would just buy bars of 5/8 x 14 and run them on tabel size pallets, 60 or so at a time.   I'm guessing you could run 30 or 40 card holders on your machine on one pallet.  You're going to have to make another trip over here to see how Jared is doing high efficiency machining, and get a little help with high speed toolpaths in MasterCam.


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## Boswell (Dec 16, 2018)

that is strange that there is such a price difference. I agree with with Jim that you could probably cut your cycle time per part considerably. I don't often do multiple part production runs but the few times that I have I could count on considerable improvements from my first "prototype" runs. There are lots on way to optimize starting with maximizing the Feeds and Speeds but also with workholding and how you setup the machining steps in the CAM system.  When I did the Lego parts (Avitar) I took the best output I could get from the CAM system I was using and then hand-coded some efficiency improvements that were pretty simple but took off a lot of time.    The good news is that you don't have to invest much to find out if they will sell or not so almost no risk.   BTW, have you looked at ETSY as a possibly place to sell?  More Art oriented marketplace.


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## dlane (Dec 16, 2018)

You make me a horizontal one and I’ll send you a bunch of 6061 material in a flat rate med box. These are some short ones but I have longer larger pieces I’ll send, these are quick change Kurt vise jaws .



I have buckets of them , just don’t have the masters for them, pm me if interested


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## alloy (Dec 17, 2018)

I agree I can speed the machine time up, I'll just have to see just how much.   I've not found any high speed settings in mastercam yet.   The feed rates are screwy.  You set it for 6061 material and the 1/2 end mill comes out at 1.68 ipm and 1069 rpm.  Obviously way to slow. I'm taking 3 passes at .25 deep and last pass at .15 and one finish pass.  I set it to 3500 rpm and 30 ipm. I don't have any tolerance to hit,  just want a good finish on it.

I've not dealt with coast aluminum before.  I see they have a PDF file for their materials, but no pricing.  Also doesn't say if they ship.




dlane said:


> You make me a horizontal one and I’ll send you a bunch of 6061 material in a flat rate med box. These are some short ones but I have longer larger pieces I’ll send, these are quick change Kurt vise jaws .
> View attachment 282605
> View attachment 282604
> 
> I have buckets of them , just don’t have the masters for them, pm me if interested



I'll pm you and see what we can work out. I need to get material first.   I only came up with this yesterday so haven't had any time to work everything out.


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## JimDawson (Dec 17, 2018)

alloy said:


> I've not dealt with coast aluminum before. I see they have a PDF file for their materials, but no pricing. Also doesn't say if they ship.



You have to call them or email for a quote.  Pricing seems to be a function of the amount ordered, they will sell less than bar lengths, but you pay a premium for that, but still normally less than the retailers.  Yes they deliver/ship, but I think there is a minimum order for free delivery.  We normally will call single bars and have them deliver larger orders.  We have had them deliver as little as 30 or 40 lbs in bar lengths.  They also have a CNC cutting line, if you need bars chopped up into specific lengths they can handle that.

I'm pretty sure the local Metal Supermarkets store buys their aluminum from Coast Aluminum in bar lengths, then they mark it up about 100%  Metal Supermarkets does have a rem room, aluminum is $3 / lb as I recall, but you have to actually go there to get it.


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## alloy (Dec 17, 2018)

I called and they have a minimum $100 order, plus  $10 per order fee.  I just have to decide if I want to order 2 bars and make 40 parts and they possibly won't sell. Looks like I can do them for $35 each if I got materials from them.


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## macardoso (Dec 17, 2018)

Alloy, 

Try looking at BuyMetal.com.  When I compared 6 months ago, they were the cheapest for aluminum of any online supplier I could find. No minimum order and $15 flat rate up to 70lbs (size doesn't matter).

Also I have extensively used Mastercam 2018 for my personal CNC. I'm a very long way off from being any kind of expert, but let me know if you get stuck on anything.  It is an immensely powerful program, but doesn't have the "free" community behind it.

Mike


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## JimDawson (Dec 17, 2018)

alloy said:


> I called and they have a minimum $100 order, plus  $10 per order fee.  I just have to decide if I want to order 2 bars and make 40 parts and they possibly won't sell. Looks like I can do them for $35 each if I got materials from them.



If you can plan ahead, you could piggyback on one of our orders.  We normally order $500 to $5000 worth at a time, so get a pretty good price.  Not sure when we will be ordering again, we just ran about 1000 lbs of parts so we're stocked up right now.  You would have to come down here to get it.  But no cutting charge, you can use my band saw


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## alloy (Dec 17, 2018)

I'll take a look there tonight when I get home. 

I completely agree mastercam is very powerful,  and hard to learn.   I have the streaming teacher series but it seems the problems I run into aren't covered specifically.  I know they can't address everything,  just too many possibities to cover. 

I will pm you later,  I get stuck a lot.  I am embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to program the wrench.  But I'm making progress,  slow but sure.


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## Be_Zero_Be (Dec 18, 2018)

That's a really really neat card holder. 
I used to work for a prosthetic company.
Here is our card holder.


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## alloy (Dec 18, 2018)

I ordered material from Coast today, enough for 40 parts.  It was was a wash with buymetals.com for price, but coast is fairly close and hopefully I'll get the material on Friday.

That's a great idea for a card holder for a prosthetic company.

I want to let everyone know that in just a couple of days* macardoso* has been a really great help to me with mastercam. I wanted to say thanks to  him publicly.

  I just hope at some point I can be of help to someone here like he has to me.


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## alloy (Dec 21, 2018)

Got my material in today and made the first of the full size holders. 

Tomorrow I'll run about 10 of them and them flip them over and machine off the excess material.  Then I'll put them on Ebay and see if there is any interest in them.


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## alloy (Dec 23, 2018)

Got my first one done.  Came out petty well I think


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## JimDawson (Dec 23, 2018)

Nice !


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## alloy (Dec 26, 2018)

I decided to make a few card holders and customize them with my customers business names on them and send them out today.

Kind of a way to announce I have CNC milling capabilities now.  My "calling card" so to speak


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## NCjeeper (Dec 26, 2018)

Very cool.


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## alloy (Dec 30, 2018)

After seeing a business card holder on here someone made for his wife, I decided to make some of my holders a little differently.  I can't seem to find the post with the dog bone shaped  business card holder.  If I could I'd thank him for the idea and apologize for stealing his idea


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## rwm (Dec 30, 2018)

I keep thinking that would be a great holder for end mills or center drills or some other tooling! 
Robert


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## alloy (Dec 30, 2018)

I hadn't thought of that.  I could make custom ones


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## kd4gij (Dec 30, 2018)

Just remember The off shore guys. Watch eBay like a hawk, for ideas to steal.


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## alloy (Dec 30, 2018)

Yeah I know what you mean.  Back in the day I had a line of ATV parts all polished billet aluminum.  I invented the billet thumb throttle cover and even got a magazine article on them.  Now they sell for $20 each with shipping.  I don't think anyone in the USA can make them that cheap.  They are selling them for less than I did 15 years ago. I sold them back then for $40 and literally sold hundreds of them.  I thought about making them again, but not for $20.

It won't take long for them to be copied I'm sure.  Just the way it goes I guess.  Can't stop them from doing it. 

 I've been looking on Ebay and other sites  thinking about making transmission adapters.  I'm a car guy and I'll make anything legal on my mill to sell, I'd rather do hot rod parts.   I love going to swap meets with my transmissions.  The best part is talking with about 98% of the people, and unfortunately the 2% aren't so fun.  But that goes with anything I guess.

Here is a link to the article on the wayback machine.   You can see some other stuff I made there too.

https://web.archive.org/web/20020207144135/http://www.alloyspecialties.com:80/article1.html


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## Shootymacshootface (Feb 4, 2019)

alloy said:


> After seeing a business card holder on here someone made for his wife, I decided to make some of my holders a little differently.  I can't seem to find the post with the dog bone shaped  business card holder.  If I could I'd thank him for the idea and apologize for stealing his idea
> 
> View attachment 283661


You are welcome! I love idea sharing on this site!


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