Originally Posted by
Frederick Skelly
Aside. There are many sources for extruded aluminum. I happened to be on the Magswitch website and saw theirs. Posting in case it’s helpful to someone.
LINK
Yep - take your design and volume projections to any of the large number of starcruiser-class alum extrusion operations.
The circle diameter to press that shape isn't any great shakes, but the hollows do add a little bit of complexity, but are very common. There's nothing about that shape that seems much different than the many hundreds of shapes designed annually for architctural aluminum windows - curtain-wall systems, high-rent condo operating windows and doors, other purposes. Each new building design seems to require several new serious extrusions for connection to the structure.
You would contract for the extrusions with the people who have a factory of presses lined up, and the billet supply and reheat furnace to service them. Often anodizing tanks are part of the same operation.
$50k seems very high, but I've been out of it for a while so anything's possible. Its common to have a die amortization schedule of so-many-cents-per-pound. Low-volume usage would require some up-front $$. High-volume usage would not - the die[s] are fully amortized in the product price. Keep in mind that dies wear, and have to be replaced - as the buyer of the extruions, you don't want the dies to wear very much, because as it opens up, the extrusion walls get thicker, more metal is being pushed, and you are paying by the pound.
When I started woodworking, I didn't know squat. I have progressed in 30 years - now I do know squat.