Need a custom sheetmetal part?

[GAJoe 852]

I never watch a complete add on YouTube but this one got my attention. I thought it would be of interest to you guys and gals who have need of a part that is no longer made or a good idea for a new part that would sell. It's called SendCutSend.

They can take your CAD drawing and make the part. If you don't do CAD they can convert your hand sketch to a CAD for a fee. Do a search on YouTube to see if it impresses and sounds like something you could use. Besides metal they do plastics, composits, and wood also.

Edited January 20 by GAJoe
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[CCW 1,453]

Visited the website and worth exploring further.

 

[GAJoe 852]

3 hours ago, CCW said:

Visited the website and worth exploring further.

 

I did a little more and see that the prices include shipping.

I found that they have a video that explains the factors that go into pricing with a few examples.

I know that some of the members here sell "aftermarket" parts and I think this may expand their offerings.

[wh500special 2,357]

I hadn’t seen that source for parts. I’m glad you posted. 
 

There are quite a few online providers who can convert your CAD files to reality.  Some do the bulk of their work in-house while others source worldwide from their network of anonymous suppliers.   In addition to sheetmetal some of them do machining, 3D printing, stereolithography, casting, molding, finishing, plating and painting, and more.  
 

We have a well-equipped manufacturing shop at work with all kinds of machinery -CNC machining centers and lathes, CNC routers, waterjet, laser, press brakes, manual machines, welders, etc - but we’ve found it’s sometimes cheaper or faster to get parts made for R&D at these convenience stores than we can make them in house.  At some point it becomes worth setting up to do them, but for short runs these are a nice place to go. 
 

I’m running a program where I sourced all my sheetmetal and some of my machined parts from these types of supplier over the last year. Quality has been excellent and everything has shown up on time. This from Xometry.com and Protolabs.com.   

 

in my case the tooling for our press brake was going to have a long leadtime and a high enough cost that it was a no brainer to go out of house for parts we might never run again. 
 

 I was nervous since there is very little interaction with a human

during the automated quoting and ordering process - especially with xometry - but we’ve had no rejects over about 10 unique parts in multiples of 36-144 pcs each. All in, I’ve received over 1000 pieces of stuff and it’s all been ready to go right out of the box. 
 

If you’re having a single part made it looks incredibly expensive, but if you get into a couple dozen of the same thing the per-part prices drop dramatically. Over that in our case it’s probably cheaper to bring back in house.  But It’s very turnkey. 
 

THIS sort of thing is why the internet exists.  😏 
 

I’ll shop sendcutsend next time too. 
 

Steve