Hey there guys, a couple of you may have seen my older posts about some other parts I was working on. I've been working on making some freestyle scooter parts for a while now, but when it comes to producing them, I'm rather lost. The piece I'm working on now is a front fork. I can make them well, but it takes me forever!




One of my problems is getting those two tubes with the 45 degree angles correctly sized. I've been rough sawing the pieces, then squaring them up on a mill and milling the finished length. Then cut the 45 with a vertical band saw. The mill work is to just make sure they will fit perfectly square in the jig.

Should I just get these cut somewhere? I feel that if I go buy a chopsaw to use the pieces will have too much tolerance to fit the welding jig. Should I have someone else cut these parts down? Are there any processes similar to laser cutting but for tube? I'll be looking for about 60 pieces next time I make a batch.



Secondly, would getting this piece laser cut be practical? It's 3/16 mild steel sheet. How many pieces would I have to make in order for it to pay off?


I know this is a very simple part to most of you guys, but I've never had the opportunity to do any real fabrication work outside of my garage until now. Just stick with me and help me out if you can! Thanks,

 

You can have the 1" square tubing pieces watter-jetted or laser-cut. It'll be the most cost-effective way for a healthy quantity, unless you have lots of free time. For your application, it'll have to be a two step operation. They would first water-jet out the holes, then they would turn the piece 90º and do the 45º cuts. Water-jetters usually have a $75 lot fee. If you provide them with a .DXF, you can probably have them cut a 20 ft. stick of 1x1" for about $75-100.

The 3/16" bracket is also best water-jetted. It doesn't seem to be very big, so expect to get about 15 brackets with your $75 lot fee.

I'm sure there are other ways of doing this, but I feel this is the fastest, cheapest and most accurate way.

Best of luck!

 

im confused as to why you can cut an acurate 45 on a band saw but you cant cut a 90? an why do you need to mill them to length? im not trying to be a smart *** or anything but i could make those pieces in 10 min with a chop saw, belt sander and hand drill. and if i measured twice probably not even the belt sander.

how close of a tolerance do you need? it looks like your MIGing it so a little gap shouldnt be an issue. if your worried about the holes lining up, weld everything up first and add a tube to your jig that goes between where the two holes go so when you drill the first side the tube keeps the bit going straight through the other side.

 

I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote all that. Let me try again. I've never used a chop saw. Is it possible to cut true on a cheaper chop saw? Is a carbide tipped blade necessary or does an abrasive blade suffice? I see no reason why I can't just zip those tubes out on a chop saw and then just deburr. I don't have money to put towards a good horizontal band saw, and I can't modify the current one I'm using to cut more true because it's not mine.

As far as the plate goes, I am merely trying to figure out how many pieces I have to water jet to make it cost effective. How does pricing work for water jetting? I'm not sure if I completely understand the lot fee.

Thanks for the responses and sorry for my utter stupidity

 

I can tell you I run my own waterjet shop and those 3/16 pieces are really easy to do. How my rates work is we charge $180/hr for cut time, with a $50 min. If we have to draw or design something for a customer we charge $60/hr. Cutting the 1x1 is not that big of a problem but you can't control the stream that well from top to bottom when cutting something with a void in the middle, because the stream degrades in that open cavity.

 

why so bulky - complicated and heavy??? 2 brkts each with 2 small bends and welded to the shaft would make it easy - light and cost effective.

 

Thanks for the info, I'm going to go check out some water jet places this week. Hopefully there will be some local shops who water jet.

 

do you really need the plate to have the round section in the center?? if you just use a 1x3 rectangle is it gonna make any kind of difference? if your just worried about having the tube sealed you could just fill the small gap with a weld and it wouldnt look that much different than the one you have pictured.

 

Technically I could do that. However, I do build the weld up in order to machine the lower bearing race. As far as cosmetics go, the part looks much better with the round and the weld built up on that. I personally can't stand filling any gaps with weld. I feel that I need a near perfect fit for everything. Maybe I'll think about doing that. That would simplify it a ton!