How much would it cost?

Hang on.

Quoting you: An exact price would have to be determined by first providing a drawing.

But you want one of us to give you a quote on something without said drawing. And when one of us asked for a drawing, you state that he must be too inept to do the job if he can't figure it out w/o a drawing.

You border on a troll with this level of logic.

JW

I am disappointed in you, Steve. I gave you a simple description of what I wanted and you can't even give me a reasonable estimate of the cost in making them. I mean, if you need a drawing for a simple job like that then I don't want you touching the job.

You really missed the target on that one.

Between 1 and 1 million dollars.

An electrical engineer I once worked for had ordered some "simple" wall brackets to hang a piece of equipment, drew them unwisely, and was charged $3000 by the company shop to make them "exactly" like his sketch. After that he made a lot of unnecessary work for himself (and me) by avoiding any sort of custom mechanical solution to normal lab problems. I finally talked him into letting me design a fixture to hold an unevenly shaped optical device that he had been mounting for months with duct tape. The next day I found him holding the cheap, simple ball-plunger fixture in Rodin's The Thinker pose, just muttering 'wow'.

This is why we won't quote time or cost without a drawing, expecially from obvious mechanical innocents.

Jim Wilkins, electronic/mechanical/chemical lab tech

Gawd, you don't get it.....

How wide and deep are the flutes? makes a big difference. True 1/2 round flute or square shouldered "slot"?

And what's the transition from the square end to the turned middle? Square or large radius transition point?

Just those parts which you left out could make the pricing vary by 100% or more.

Koz

Again, nobody here is trying to give the man a hard time. It's just that the print of the part is the defacto starting point for any kind of manufacture for things like this.

Jim

Basically a hundred bucks an hour.

Jim

I don't want any flutes in my lawn chairs, but thanks for asking.

Steve, You missed it. When I have made parts from only a description there have been times that the customer says "That's not what I wanted!". And even though I repeated what the customer said, and made a sketch at the time, I still getbto eat the job and have the customer think I'm a dumbshit. So I insist on a sketch with numbers if the sketch is not to scale. Or a sketch that is EXACTLY what the customer wants and can just be traced. For you to insult people when they only asked for simple clarification is pretty lame. Eric R Snow, E T Precision Machine

This reminds me of "Spinal Tap" where they made a stage prop of Stonehenge but specified inches instead of feet. Instead of a towering structure, they got a hilarious little model a foot high...

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.............NO! I gave a thumbnail description. All I wanted was a guesstimate price.

If someone said, $5-$10 per item, I could say that is within the budget. If someone would say $40-$60 per item, I would know that is not within the budget.

I wasn't placing an order, just a guess.

Please reread the description. For a six inch piece of metal, what I described should be easily imaginable to any experienced metalworker who was NOT OVERTHINKING THE JOB.

A six inch miniature column cut out of a piece of 1" square solid bar.

Sheesh.

Steve

I'm sorry. What part of my $100 to $400 per chair didn't you understand?

Steve

How about simple round column $X.

With four flutes, $X.

With half round flutes $X.

How about a price from the simplest to the most complex so that I would have a range?

You are overthinking this, people.

Steve

Well, well, well, well. Finally someone who has the sense to just spit out a price, and put a few caveats, codicils and conditions in it. Thank you, Gunner.

Now, I know that having these pieces made by a machinist is not practical.

Thanks again, Gunner.

Steve

thank you, Jim. This is for a decorative item. It has tolerances of .250", well within even Steveland Morris' capabilities. It was going to be welded on to square tube.

I thought giving a very simple description would convey this message. And by saying they didn't have to be exact and could be made from scrap.

Steve

That's likely because you're asking a group of people to produce an item that would be difficult for the typical home shop guy that has no experience in working production------although I do have. That's why I suggested a ballpark price of $45. It's not easy to produce what you're looking for, so unless you can find someone that enjoys making what appears to be a simple item, repetitively, with less than optimum equipment (you can read that as CNC), you're not likely to get the hoped for answer. If you can eliminate the flutes, and stick to interesting designs that can be cut with a (simple) tracer lathe, you might have some luck, but few of the home shops have them, either. I happen to own one.

Only a fool would bid on a quantity of items without knowing more----for their interpretation of your well meaning instructions leave the door open for considerable misunderstanding, on behalf of both parties. Smart machinists don't bid on anything without full information, including a tolerance block.

Harold

Sounds easy. I think my middle you mean 4 inchs. The important detail here is the tolerance.

Now your getting more involved. I think that means you want a lot of closely spaced flutes. Maybe 16? I assume you want concave flutes? What width? This could get to be quite time consuming.

How about knurling the center instead of fluting?

"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote

That's why I suggested a

Thank you. A simple answer to a simple question. This now tells me that having them made is impractical.

People were acting like I wanted them to enter into a billion dollar contract with nothing down, and if I didn't like the finished product, I could refuse them.

Sometimes simple is just plain elusive.

Steve