Cotton eyed Joe Posted August 21, 2004 Report Share Posted August 21, 2004 (edited) Hey cotton eye joe, what kind of work do you do? I think we do the same type jobs, I do some cnc work and teach a small machine shop course in the middle east. I agree the tooling and fixturing on that part would cost a fortune. Yes sir we do. I am part owner of a family machine shop, and am looking at buying it out completely in the next 5 years or so. I don't do a ton of air craft type stuff, but I do make alot of spindles for roller coasters, which as anyone should know, is a highly critical part. 0% rejects in 4 years. We do R&D work, tool and die, prototype, production, maintanence, fabrication, you name it. Hell we quoted a job where they needed us to cut up 8" diameter billets. Our mantra is "We don't turn much down." lol...we've made our living on doing stuff other shops don't want to be bothered with. Right now we are a 2 man operation in a 4000 square foot building with 8 machines. At one point we had 4 people in the shop working, but times changed, and so did we. We have 2 CNC mills, 3 CNC lathes, technically 2 manual lathes, but one is for parts finishing like polish and paint, 1 horizontal mill, and a 16" OD/ID grinder. Then we got all the other stuff, MASTERCam, 2 saws, 3-4 drill presses, 2 sanders, air tools, all inspection tools, digital mics that have .000050 resolution...etc...etc...etc.. but we are in no way a big shop. Quite small in terms of annual gross. I started making parts for the Banshee about a year and a half ago, mostly for the experience of starting a business. I am years from breaking even on my inital investment, but its been fun as hell, and the challenge of building something without buying the competitions parts and just copying it is almost addictive for me. I also plan on starting a 3rd business fabricating ornamental items on a custom basis later on this year, possibly at the beginning of the next tax year. Edited August 21, 2004 by Cotton eyed Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racer Posted August 21, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2004 yeah, how do they make those triples? that guy must be a muther fucker on a 3 axis mill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cotton eyed Joe Posted August 21, 2004 Report Share Posted August 21, 2004 yeah, how do they make those triples? that guy must be a muther fucker on a 3 axis mill. To make a triple, I think you would need to chop 1/2 of a case off from another bike, graft it onto the current case (no idea what side) and then bolt another cylinder on. I'm sure the crank is either custom, or a retrofit from a triple snow mo bile perhaps. The tough part would be getting 1: And air tight weld between the case halves 2: getting proper alignment on the crank journals...I think it would have to be line bored anyway. 3: getting all the proper ignition shit together to fire 3 cylinders. I've seen 4 cylinder banshee engines, where there are 4 in a row!! I can't remember the company right now...I think it might even be that monsterquads.com They offerend 3 and 4 cylinder versions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PolyKarbon Posted August 22, 2004 Report Share Posted August 22, 2004 CEJ, couldn't you just...I don't know, whittle those 800 cases? You know, like, just whittle them for me...please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cotton eyed Joe Posted August 22, 2004 Report Share Posted August 22, 2004 CEJ, couldn't you just...I don't know, whittle those 800 cases? You know, like, just whittle them for me...please. If I could do it, I would...lol...There is no way in HELL I could even get an endmill down in there to do it with my current set ups. I would LOVE to see these peoples shop in person. I would love to be able to just make cylinders or heads even. I'll be lucky to get a light weight shift lever done this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racer Posted August 23, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Whats all this fixturing and tooling you talk about being so expensive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cotton eyed Joe Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Whats all this fixturing and tooling you talk about being so expensive? With tooling and fixturing, it can get REALLY expensive. For example, for my billet bearing carriers I make, I had to buy a $700 indexable drill. It uses carbide inserts to cut that material. Its 1.6875 in diameter and has a length of cut of nearly 6 inches. The pie jaws I bought to hold the aluminum stock were over $200.00. Then it took nearly a day (at $75.00 per hour shop rate) to cut the neccesary offset in those jaws because I had to bolt the jaws to the chuck, then take the chuck off the lathe and put it in the mill, and I had to have a fixture to hold the chuck solid and square in the mill....and the chuck weighs in at over 200 lbs. For those cases, you have to hold them some how, and a vise isn't gonna cut it. You have to bolt the part down to a plate of steel, and it has to be accurite and precise, and repeatable. We make a fixture for a company once to hold something they needed held. It turned into a $10,000 job. They made 1000x that from our jig though. The cases are also deep, no matter how you hold them. You can't just stick a long endmill in there, it has to be larger in diameter to be long. Rigidity is everything. AND if you have a long endmill, you can't cut with it super fast. It will shatter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fixitrod Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Whats all this fixturing and tooling you talk about being so expensive? With tooling and fixturing, it can get REALLY expensive. For example, for my billet bearing carriers I make, I had to buy a $700 indexable drill. It uses carbide inserts to cut that material. Its 1.6875 in diameter and has a length of cut of nearly 6 inches. The pie jaws I bought to hold the aluminum stock were over $200.00. Then it took nearly a day (at $75.00 per hour shop rate) to cut the neccesary offset in those jaws because I had to bolt the jaws to the chuck, then take the chuck off the lathe and put it in the mill, and I had to have a fixture to hold the chuck solid and square in the mill....and the chuck weighs in at over 200 lbs. For those cases, you have to hold them some how, and a vise isn't gonna cut it. You have to bolt the part down to a plate of steel, and it has to be accurite and precise, and repeatable. We make a fixture for a company once to hold something they needed held. It turned into a $10,000 job. They made 1000x that from our jig though. The cases are also deep, no matter how you hold them. You can't just stick a long endmill in there, it has to be larger in diameter to be long. Rigidity is everything. AND if you have a long endmill, you can't cut with it super fast. It will shatter. That's just the accesories. How about the machines that actually do the work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holyman Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 All Pro could have carved that out of a solid chunk of aluminum with his dremel for under $500 and all just by eyeballing it. I don't know what you guys are talking about tools and all. All you need is a little skill and creativity Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTQuad Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Those things are sick, too much $$$ for me though - JT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
broke Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 (edited) Yeah, they are definately on the expensive side. I wonder if they build them to fit other cylinders too. I have heard that the 800 Rotax isn't the best motor anyway. I have no doubt it will be fast as hell, and it's the "and up" part that is really interesting. Just how big can they go? It will never be in my budget, but it doesn't hurt to dream. What is the advantage to using an actual transmission over the sled's clutches? It seems like alot of work and money two combine the two. I was just curious of the difference. I hope this isn't some secret like the porting specs turned out to be. broke (aka......jaggoff) Edited August 23, 2004 by broke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYUK Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 All Pro could have carved that out of a solid chunk of aluminum with his dremel for under $500 and all just by eyeballing it. I don't know what you guys are talking about tools and all. All you need is a little skill and creativity lol, remember them all pro cylinders? they are still going strong, the pistons and rings lasted 2 years in them 65 hp cylinders,i bought both all pro bikes and parted them out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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