You got me thinking of what it would take to make a grill with small ram
heads.
For mass production you would need class "A" progressive tooling and run it
on a punch-press. Rather costly. It has been a long time since I priced
tooling of this type but I would guest at least 3 grand (cost depends on
how many ram heads you are making at a time).
The next best way that would provide really clean results would be to laser
cut the images. For metal, this would require a pretty hefty laser. I've
seen small units (that cost $20,000) that could barely etch the surface of
the metal. If you wanted plastic, one of these units could do the trick (or
someone who has one).
A CNC mill could cut the pattern, programming might be a bitch. Having
never gotten my hands on one of these I'm not sure how easy this would be
(or costly).
A computerized router (used in sign making) could also do the job.
Programming is relatively easy the problem is in how small you can make the
image. If you are running aluminum the smallest bit you could use would be
a 1/16" so the cutouts can be no larger than 1/16 wide. Depending on the
thickness of the material it will take a couple of passes at the slowest
the machine can go (5 inches/minute for the machine I have access to) to
cut through 1/16 material without snapping off bits. This would take a good
deal of time to run off a grill. If the grill was made of plastic you could
use a 1/32 end mill, up the speed and do the thing in 1/4 of the time. If
you kept with the 1/16 mill you could run the machine at max speed (54
in/min) and crank out a grill in less than an hour.
Now that I have rambled on, what does this all mean? It means you have
added one more idea of how to customize my truck (thanks). Now all I have
to do is figure out when I can play with this idea and make a grill with
ram heads. If and when I do, I will let you know how it comes out (probably
make two if you want one).
-- Miles Harris III Simi Valley, CA 01 Silver Dakota CC Sport, 2.5L, 5speed 01 Gold Saturn SC1 (3 door coupe) 1.9L SOC, 4speed auto http://www.spikesautos.homestead.com/Dak1.html Profile: http://www.twistedbits.net/WWWProfile/dakota/PfCA4R1zO470wPuddlestompa@aol.com wrote in article <90.11a16da3.27e55393@aol.com>... > I am thinking small ram heads would be very cool. > > Aaron "The Man" >
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