Machining small part, cost estimate?

Question

I am looking to have a part machined for a prototype. It is pretty simple but I need to have an idea of how much shops charge for this. It is basically a piece of 3/4" aluminum square rod 3" long. I need two holes reamed in it the length of the piece, one at 1/8" and the other at 3/64". How much is usually charged to ream these two holes. I know the one hole is extremely small, but it is entirely necessary...

Answer 1

remember this is an international forum.

here in egypt it may cost you three pounds per piece, and i am sure you don't want to send your workpiece to be machined here, do you !

Specify your country so that others may help you ..

good luck

Answer 2

ci

Answer 3

I just got some junk mail from metropolisdesign.com. They would be happy to give you a quote. But first you have to make a drawing, of course. This should be no big deal for such a simple part.

There may be some special tooling involved to drill a 3/64" hole through 3" of aluminum, but it is perfectly feasible. There will just be an NRE (non recurring engineering) charge, plus a charge per part.

Choose an aluminum alloy that machines easily, some are much better than others. Also ask how much wander they are likely to get on the hole, it is difficult to get it completely straight.

I have seen a hole 0.005 inch diameter drilled through 0.5 inch of solid tungsten carbide. By comparison, your hole is a piece of cake!

My WAG would be around $500 - $1000, but you had best ask them.