north scotland- anyone know any machinists?

[sandycam]

I'm needing the face of an alloy wheel turned/diamond cut and was wondering if anybody had any ideas of somewhere to get it done in the north(ish!). Doesn't need to be laquered or anything just machined. Any help greatly appreciated.

[scoobyiain]

How much machining are we talking about here? is it the spokes needing milled or the lip of the alloy needing turned? I'm a machinist but do not have a manual lathe at my work big enough to turn an alloy and the cnc's are way too big but i could maybe reccomend a few places. Just depends what exactly is needed.

[sandycam]

hi mate thanks for the reply. Probably looking at cnc to turn the face and the lip (18x8 wheel) but the spokes curve inwards to create the room for the lip so can't manage it manually. I was thinking if some way to sort of trace the face with cnc machine and then a skim with a tip tool, only needs about 300-500 microns removed. Any tips appreciated.

[scoobyiain]

Easy enough for a cnc to cut that sort of profile no problem. Have you tried just getting it refurbished? Might be cheaper that way or even buying a new one. A good company will charge around £50 an hour for using a small cnc and i think it would take around 3 hours to do. They would need to measure it all out, cut jaws to grip, get tooling, write a programme then machine it.

[sandycam]

doh, didn't realise time involved. The wheel has come home from refurb but unkown to me they powder coated them so now the clear part where its laquered doesn't match the original 2:( Just thought i could get someone to skim the front and i would live with them being bare metal and keep on top of them with polish.