Another Newbie Here

[Caistor]

Hi, We are a small family run business producing lead weights and selling them along with Aluminium moulds currently being imported from Europe.
I am thinking of the option of producing moulds for in house use in the lead weight side of things. I do not want to throw lots of cash at this until I am sure it is the right thing for us. So I have been looking at some of the Chinese models 3040CNC as an entry level machine. My engineering skills stop with hand tools apart from shot blasting and welding.
So my few queries would be

Is my plan able to get off the ground?
Am I looking at the right machine ?
Which software would you recommend?

Regards

Mike

[Clive S]

Mike. first welcome to the forum. I think you will need to give a bit more information re the moulds and what sort of quality you would be looking for. A pic of what you are trying to do would help.
The entry level machines from China and the UK as well are generally regarded as crap and certainly if you are trying to run a business with it.

[Caistor]

Hi Clive

Many thanks for the quick response. I have included a couple of pics of what the typical mould are about. Currently we buy in from Europe but mainly cast. We loose a lot of custom through people requiring "one off" My theory is that if we can produce our own CNC version we can also produce the weights from making a copy for ourselves. I have never seen it offered but do people write programs for other companies ? I would appreciate any spec you could give for the machine so I can start to price the whole idea up.

Regards Mike

Caistor Bait and Tackle

07979788562

[Clive S]

Mike I have never done any of that type of work myself but I think it is quite involved and will need a decent but small A Denford mill might do it . I thought lead was banned in the UK for fishing weights though.

Hopefully some one that has made moulds before will pop up and chime in.

You would need to design these in something like Fusion360 (free to us lot ie not commercial) but does need a steep leaning curve