Does anyone here work in metal fabrication?

timhulio

Bit of a long-shot, but I'm getting a bit tired of banging my head against the remnants of the British manufacturing industry. Where customer service is no-existent and two-word replies seem to be the norm. I need some of these brass casings made. Only about 20 units because it's early days. These can be laser/waterjet cut then folded to shape. BUT... I'd really like the corners welded, and that's proving incredibly expensive. 

m_c

There's a couple issues to what you'd like.
It's low quantity, so not many places will be interested.
You want them welded. Brass welding is possible, but I very much doubt many fabrication type shops will have the capabilities.

If you can get them cut and folded, I'd personally look at silver soldering them. All you need is a suitable work surface, some insulating blocks, a gas torch (small bottle mounted torch, or bigger LPG bottle and torch), flux, and suitable silver solder. When I need to do it, I just setup some insulating tiles on the concrete floor of the workshop.

timhulio

Ah yeah, thanks. The quantity is a problem, and means I have to do this rather than the preferable deep-drawn pressing. Unfortunately lots of places look at the small quantity and say no immediately, rather than doing the small job that may well lead to larger batches in the future.

I had considered soldering, but I put that on a back-burner (so to speak) as the finished items couldn't be powder coated. Now I'm fairly set on chrome-plating, silver solder looks a viable option. Do you know if silver solder can be chromed successfully?

m_c

I honestly have no idea, but a quick google suggests chrome plating over silver solder is not a problem.

And I wouldn't think powder coating silver soldered parts would be a problem. Silver solder melts at higher temps than electronic solder. I've just checked on even low temp silver solder melts at over 600degC

daveww

Would additive manufacturing in brass (3D laser printing) be an option?  I don't know what the cost would be but a lot of companies use this process for rapid prototyping small quantities.

webrthomson

@Graingerguitars maybe?

Corvus

Stainless an option? Easy to MIG or TIG, polishing might cost less than chroming.
Also its not perfect but chrome powder coat could be another one. Not mirror flat shiney though.

Nomad

Could get them machined from solid rather than cut and folded. No hassles with welding or soldering the corners, and more likely to find a machine shop that will do a small batch. They'd still be fairly pricey, even on a batch of 20 (which is a good sized job to get the unit cost down), but plenty of places would be happy to take on something like that. The unit cost might not drop much more for a bigger batch, in which case the sheet metal approach would be better, but it would get the initial small batch sorted out.

Plukky

Brazing is the process you are after, try asking for that instead of welding.

Plukky

And maybe try asking your local tech college - it may be that 20 or so pieces will give a City and Guild's (does that still exist?) class a morning's worth of practice.

paulnb57

Is 3D printing a possibilty?