I work for a general contractor with a fabrication shop and we have a laser cutter that does up to 1" steel plate. We end up scrapping a lot of our smaller remnants from our sheets of plate and now have a program that will place "infill parts" into jobs to minimize scrap.
For you 1.5/1.6" scale guys, I could get you blanks to turn 4-1/8" or 4-1/2" wheels in 3/4" plate for $8 each and $10 each in 1" plate. We only use laser quality A572-Grade 50 plate. We can include a center hole just under 1/2" in size, then it's up to you to finish bore the hole and turn the wheel profile and reliefs in the sides if you wish. The laser leaves a little burr in the hole where the cut ends, but has minimal camber and a pretty smooth cut otherwise, round parts chuck up nicely in the lathe and the lower heat of the laser seems to minimally harden the edge of the cut. On laser cut parts for my truck sides, I've ream drilled the bolt holes with a HSS drill and am still on the same bit so far. It looks like I could get 8 of them in the ~$15 USPS medium flat rate box, so that would be $79 shipped for 3/4" and $95 shipped for 1" for a set of 8.
Only limit is I have a 70# limit for the USPS flat rate boxes, and if there is a lot of interest demand could outpace production of the available plate for infill.
Gaging interest, laser cut steel wheel blanks
Moderators: gwrdriver, Harold_V
Re: Gaging interest, laser cut steel wheel blanks
Are you cutting only disks or also doing the spokes and counterweights? Can you do it in 3/4" scale?
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
Re: Gaging interest, laser cut steel wheel blanks
While this ad was for round blanks, I could certainly cut spokes and counterweights. Just keep in mind we are limited to etching or cutting all the way through the metal with our laser. Our laser fits a 5' x 10' sheet of metal and can cut up to 1" steel plate so scale isn't really an issue