Shout out to 67Cuda

[morrcarr67]

I just wanted to give a shout out to 67Cuda. He had posted in the "Technology" subsection that he was familiar with FreeCAD so I reached out to see if he could help me with a gun tool/gauge I am working on getting made.

Some of you may remember this post from April where I was looking for the dimensions of the OG M16 Firing Pin Protrusion Field Gauge. I was looking at trying to have it made when SharedSots directed me to Numrich with a link to the tool I needed. I was able to buy 500 from them so I was okay for a while.

Well back in October my customer asked how it was coming along with a new manufacture for these. Well the hunt was on again. I talked with half a dozen manufactures and kept getting crazy prices for these made out of steel. I reached out to my customer to tell them about the high cost of steel and they said they were open to other materials.

Thanks to Randall (AR15Barrels) I learned about a material known as Acetal. It's a special high strength co-polymer (plastic). So I started to look for companies that worked with this material. And this is where I ran into problems and needed help.

3 of 4 of the first companies I reached out to didn't like my chicken scratch hand drawn rendering of the tool I needed. They wanted a 3D file. Basically it sounded like they didn't want to be bothered with taking the time enter the design themselves into their software.

So I reached out to 67Cuda aka Tom and asked him if he would help me out and make me a 3D file for this tool. He was kind enough to help. He made me 3 files that should work for these other companies to be able to quote me on this tool. Now I can go back to these other companies and see what they quote me.

Just so you know Tom is a Machinist, a 3D printer guy and over all nice guy. Thanks for your help.

Jesse

[God Bless America]

Nice props!

[Romeo_alpha01]

Tom is absolute master class. I had him do work for me in the past when others would turn me down or doubt it would work. He took on those challenges and I get to rub it in once in awhile to all the naysayers.

67cuda is A++!

[67Cuda]

Thanks for the props guys. I'm always happy to help.

[morrcarr67]

Thanks for the props guys. I'm always happy to help.

Just so you know, I've sent the files to the 3 companies asking for them. One has already gotten back to me and they are smoking crack. They want more than the companies I contacted that would make them out of steel.

The highest quote I got for steel was just a bit over $23. These guys want $26.78 for ones made out of plastic. The company is Protolabs and while their business model is that of getting you the parts quickly, they really make you pay for it. Their lead time is 2 weeks while industry standard is 6-8 weeks.

Hopefully the other two come in with better quotes.