If I bought a CNC Lathe, would you guys want custom hosts of your own design?

[H2Oxide]

I'd be interested. Especially if you could machine graphite.

 

[Pman]

Can you do things such as just simply making custom heat sinks if someone sends you their hosts? I've had Ehg do that for me befo e and I think there's a LOT of members that did the same thing.
If you were to make a bunch of ready to sell hosts the biggest things are a design that people really like and the cost that goes with it. There's a pretty wide variety of what we like. Personally I bet that if you could make a really nice 10440 pen in a few choices such as copper, aluminum, brass, stainless they would sell pretty good if the price was in line me with a small host cost. Would like to see some that look like the leadlight/laser66 that are thicker for more heatsinking. Of course Alaskan would like a flag pole

 

[Rivem]

I'd be interested. Especially if you could machine graphite.

I think graphite should be doable. Good quality stuff can be pretty expensive though.

I just saw that it was offered to you and guessing at a good "price"? To me it sounds good. Do you know what it machining capacities are as far as stock diameter and so on? I assume tooling will come in the deal cause that can be a bank breaker if not. Alaskan has some good points. Also remember members are used to Eghemus's prices and his love of the labor. Have you looked into prices a s far as bar stock. You do have a few member rooting for you

The machine is a good price, but the CNC controller needs configuration, and it's in need of some new tooling. I can handle the price of the machine no problem, but to buy a bunch of tools, I'd like to know if I could offset costs a bit before I would get it. As for the size, that's something I'd have to find out, but it's not a big machine. I'd say absolute max length is less than a foot. Max radius won't be too big.

Can you do things such as just simply making custom heat sinks if someone sends you their hosts? I've had Ehg do that for me befo e and I think there's a LOT of members that did the same thing.
If you were to make a bunch of ready to sell hosts the biggest things are a design that people really like and the cost that goes with it. There's a pretty wide variety of what we like. Personally I bet that if you could make a really nice 10440 pen in a few choices such as copper, aluminum, brass, stainless they would sell pretty good if the price was in line me with a small host cost. Would like to see some that look like the leadlight/laser66 that are thicker for more heatsinking. Of course Alaskan would like a flag pole

I could probably do heatsinks like that. I'd perfer starting with full hosts though since it'd be easier on CNC time. A pen host would be easy enough. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Alaskan]

The one machine shop in Anchorage who has monster CNC's lathes is a company called Unique Machine, but they have a minimum job order size of a couple hundred dollars. Most of their work is for the oil field. I don't have CAD skills, so can't just hand the job over to them right now.

 

[Rivem]

Thanks for all the input guys.

If I can get some more info on the CNC and come up with doable costs for myself, I'll let you guys know if it ends up happening. I'd assume I could take a few orders starting June if it happens, so don't start sending me your models yet.

If you're showing up to the thread late, please still feel free to vote or add input. If you'd like to talk machining, CNC, or CAD, feel free to PM me.