Make me a few custom shoulder bolts?

[JimDawson]

OK, I did a little figuring, I think I can make about 30 pieces / hour on the CNC lathe, about 2 min each. So 125/hr/30 = $4.71 + materials in 100 piece lots. And I forget how much the 303SS is/inch, but we use a lot of it so get a pretty good deal. and have a bunch in stock, a few cents per inch. There would be a one time tooling and setup charge of $400 and I would throw in a half dozen sample screws. I figure to do them on the Jet lathe by hand would be about an hour each.

The real problem is my health, I can only spend maybe an hour or so in the shop at a time. Getting old sucks. Maybe I can get my son to run them when he gets back from vacation next week.

Is that an accurate drawing in the first post?

 

[D.sebens]

I suppose for prototyping purposes you could see if you could get some of the shelf screws that can turned down and chuck them in a mill collet and use the mill to turn it. Then use a die to thread it.

 

[jocat54]

The real problem is my health, I can only spend maybe an hour or so in the shop at a time. Getting old sucks.

Yep, But a privilege many don't get.

 

[Ischgl99]

OK, I did a little figuring, I think I can make about 30 pieces / hour on the CNC lathe, about 2 min each. So 125/hr/30 = $4.71 + materials in 100 piece lots. And I forget how much the 303SS is/inch, but we use a lot of it so get a pretty good deal. and have a bunch in stock, a few cents per inch. There would be a one time tooling and setup charge of $400 and I would throw in a half dozen sample screws. I figure to do them on the Jet lathe by hand would be about an hour each.

The real problem is my health, I can only spend maybe an hour or so in the shop at a time. Getting old sucks. Maybe I can get my son to run them when he gets back from vacation next week.

Is that an accurate drawing in the first post?

You’re turning that and broaching the hex in 2 minutes each? I need a CNC LOL

 

[JimDawson]

You’re turning that and broaching the hex in 2 minutes each? I need a CNC LOL

Yeah, I figured about 15 seconds for the hex. CNCs are great, everybody should have some. Once you get it set up for a run, just press GO and watch it make parts.

 

[rwm]

@JimDawson - If you do this job please post video!

 

[borges1]

Yeah, I figured about 15 seconds for the hex. CNCs are great, everybody should have some. Once you get it set up for a run, just press GO and watch it make parts.

Ha! i've been looking at the small cncs. not a lathe but mill. for my scale i *think* i could make it work. but then again i still need to learn to run the mill manually. Seems every time i look they are a little better, a little simpler to run. If i can hold myself back it seem like in a couple years there will be a legit benchtop scale cnc that could produce parts well and fast enough for me. Or i'lll have a bigger shop and be looking at real machines used. I did recently see one designed for serious prototyping to go through a 2'8" door that was pretty cool - but a bit beyond my budget.

 

[MrWhoopee]

A tool called a rotary broach would probably be used to create the 4 mm hex recess you specified. IMO, rotary broaches are not ubiquitous in the hobby community so that may limit the sources for your one-piece design.

I have broached small hexes like this just using a piece of a hex key simply ground square on the end to produce sharp corners. Chuck it up and shove it in. With a pilot hole drilled to size or a few thousandths over the amount of material removed is very small.

 

[projectnut]

A friend owns a machine shop in Detroit He does a lot of work for the automotive industry One of the jobs he gets regularly is brake bleeder screws orders that range between 2,000,000 and 7,000,000 units per order

Currently his machines turn them out at one unit every 2.3 seconds To remain profitable he’ll have to increase the speed for the next order of 5,000,000 to one unit every 1.9 seconds

 

[D.sebens]

A friend owns a machine shop in Detroit He does a lot of work for the automotive industry One of the jobs he gets regularly is brake bleeder screws orders that range between 2,000,000 and 7,000,000 units per order

Currently his machines turn them out at one unit every 2.3 seconds To remain profitable he’ll have to increase the speed for the next order of 5,000,000 to one unit every 1.9 seconds

Could you imagine if he didn’t have an auto feeding stock? Pushing in raw stock every two seconds!

Also with a job order that high, does he stop the machine when the lights go out at the end of the day or let it keep running?