Need to think outside the box

M

Maplehead

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Hi All
I had 3D printed versions of my guitar pickup covers made and they came out pretty cool. However, with my thickness requirement of .020” walls, they are pretty fragile, plus they just don’t have a top knotch quality finish. A lot of work forward woould be needed to get them to a nice finish, but I don’t think it’s worth it given their fragility. So I am back to wanting these covers in nickel silver metal. As somebody stated earlier in another thread of mine on the covers, getting punch and dies made could be $5000 or more. There’s got to be another way around that.
I’ve got the LMS 4700 micro mill, (Sieg SX-1P). Maybe converting it to CNC wouold be much better on cost?
The parts would be small and seem relatively quick and easy on a CNC mill. Does anybody here offer their services?
Any ideas fro how to obtain punch and die for my covers is greatly welcomed.
 
Have you thought about aluminum? They could be cnc milled and highly polished clear powder coated, or plated. I be willing to give you a quote.
 
Hi derf
Aluminum isn’t a desired metal for pickup covers, whereas nickel silver is the most preffered. Also, my wall thickness is .020”. That would be hard to mill. However, I think milling the punch and die would be easier than trying to mill the final product. I’ll gladly look at a quote for you milling a punch and die for me. If you can PM me your email address I can send you my CAD files.
 
If you are intending to stay with your original design of the double radius, form stamping is not gonna work because where the 2 radii meet there will be tear out. The only way that might work is to form it progressively. Any way you look at it, the die would have to be a progressive die with at least 3 stations and require a 5 ton press. The first station would punch the holes, the next is forming and the last would be trim. That means it would require a material feeder. I don't believe stamping is a feasible way to do this, given your small quantities.
You mentioned you had some 3D printed, plastic I will assume. If plastic will work, consider this: you can resin cast the parts in a cool color, such as mother of pearl. Casting the parts in a silicone mold will yield parts that are just as smooth and shiny as the master pattern.
 
For better finish on 3D printed parts, send them to a pro shop with an SLA printer.

Can't really help on doing that design in metal.
 
Unfortunately you are inside the box.
What you require may easily be produced in VERY large numbers at a price that people will buy but will be prohibitively expensive in small quantities, if you want to make them yourself a Haas TM1 mill may be purchased for less then $45,000 new and is well suited to such small parts.

Set it up, mill the parts then send them out for secondary finishing, plating, painting and so on. This will likely prove entirely to costly for the consumer.

I have a very good friend/customer that is in the contract manufacturing business, a majority of his work is done in China, your part is the type that would benefit from this approach. Large quantities are required to make this profitable however.
 
Hi ttabbal, the parts were 3D printed at a pro place, Sculpteo. They are just way too flimsy as plastic.
Derf, when you say double radius, do you mean the side plane and top plane with the right edges? If so, I originally wanted the outter edges where the two planes meet to be curved but TurboCad wasn’t letting me do it. I imagined that with a sharp angle as in the pics from the other thread that the edges would just cut through the nickel silver plate.
But given all that, how difficult would it be to make a punch and die for the covers without the holes and without the D logo? I could manually trim andfile the extra and then drill the holes. Maybe I could get the D made elsewhere, like custom lapel pins, and just glue them onto the top of the cover, or press the D in later using a punch and die of the D alone.
One more thing, would the punch and die need to be steel or would aluminum do? The nickel silver sheet is so thin I figure it wouldn’t need too much to form. I have a 12 ton press.
 
Tom Lipton at Oxtoolco is working on a YouTube series about a micro drill tool and had some of the parts 3D metal printed. I am unfamiliar with the current capability of the process - minimum thickness, material options, etc. He sent a 3D model and got parts back in reasonable time frames, plus seemed pleased with the price. There would be some finish work to polish them up, but if nickel is possible or something close and plateable you may be able to get there in metal instead of plastic. Others may have more expensive and input.
 
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