invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

While Matrix does have some nice stuff on their website, it would be nice if they had some sort of response plan to emails and telephone calls. I called and left a phone number 2 weeks ago.. never got a return phone call. Then left an email a week ago and still no response.

socshooter

My Feedback: (45)

Henk, Rex,

Thanks for the info. I will notify them as soon as I can. I'm flying out today. Back to the sandbox for a few more months. Keep the advice coming.

Cheers,

socshooter

My Feedback: (45)

Tom,

I do agree with you on that. I spoke with them via email and sent him my files but for some reason he could not open the files. I will contact the German company. It looks like they make some quality landing gears.

Cheers

ianober

My Feedback: (12)

I didn't seem to have any problems contacting John at Matrix and getting info and an order together for my A-6 Gear. He met the deadline and even sent me pics of the parts as they were being made. I was pleasantly surprised.

socshooter

My Feedback: (45)

Thanks,

I will contact him again and see if he can do them. I think the reason for not doing them was because he could not read my .stl files.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

Joe,
I'll keep an ear turned towards your thread to see if you have any luck. I was just inquiring to him being able to enlarge his current F-14 gear and make a few minor changes to the mounting system, so it should of been simple for him.

THEREALMATRIX

I've been on vacation and now have a long back log of work to move on.

You both have very ambitious projects that require more time and resources that I have at my disposal. I dont think I will be able to meet your expectations for cost and schedule.
Your expectation is that this should be a simple matter of pressing a button to make the parts larger to fit your projects. Unfortunately this is not true. Scaling up my 1:10 designs to 1:7 will not insure that stock sizes that needs to be ordered will be available and so I would need to redesign to the next closest stock size. this also requires more design time. All parts are machined not cast and each part requires 2-3 holding fixtures for each part for each machining process. That means even with your CAD models I have to re design each part and the fixtures for each part. In short, I will have more time (design and programming) and $$$ invested just in the "tooling" to make the parts than I will make on the low number of sets that you require.

I think that maybe you have shopped this around and the prices came back to high for you to accept. You both have good CAD skills, I think that if you took the time to produce detailed working drawings that a machinist could reasonably understand then you could go to any machine shop in the phone book and get a quote.

I dont want to say I'm not interested but for now I dont want to be holding up your projects.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

John,
Glad to hear you had a vacation (i'm still waiting for mine! haha). I thought it was odd, as I believe i had emailed you previously about this project and you were pretty quick on the response. But we know how things can go now-a-days.

I'll send you a PM in regards to what expectations i have on my project so as not to clutter Joe's thread.

Thomas

Countryboy

My Feedback: (25)

Thomas,

Don't know if this proposal will work, but if it did... it would be a very cost effective way of getting your gear made. Find a local trade school that has a machine shop class, and talk with the instructor to see if he may have a couple of top students that could machine the retracts/struts as a project. You supply the dimensions and materials and they supply the labor as part of learning.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

Good idea. I believe one of our club members is a machinist teacher at the local community college

Henk Visser

Hello Joe,

Received your e-mail and returned you an em-mail.

Right now we are working on a landing gear for a large EA6-B Prowler.


Regards, Henk

WhoDaMan

My Feedback: (164)

My Question is,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Who is doing the prowler

Dave

Countryboy

My Feedback: (25)

Henk Visser

Yes that's correct Ã*t's an all wood build prowler!


Regards, Henk

socshooter

My Feedback: (45)

Henk,

My apologies for not replying in a timely manner. Ive been traveling to the middle east these past few days. That is some amazing work you are doing with the prowler gears. Now my question is what type of files can you use to make my gears? I have .stl, 3ds files, I rendered the landing gear first in 3d max and then I rendered them in rhino 4.0 and converted them into .stl... Im having an issue with the conversion into iges files since many cnc machines use iges. Looking forward to hear what you have to say.

Cheers,

socshooter

My Feedback: (45)

John,

Good to hear you commented. I hope you didn't take any of our comment in a negative way. Everyone I have spoken with on RCU says you do great work and highly recommend you. The money like you stated is not an issue, I know what is going to cost. If I had the time and equipment to build them myself I would do it. Working overseas 10 months out of the year doesn't help either with this project so I have to depend on companies like yours to make some of the parts I need to complete my project.

Thank you again for the comment and I appreciate you explaining the process it takes to make a set of gears.

Cheers,

Henk Visser

Hello Joe,

Please send me your drawings as an PDF file!
We don't have cnc machine's it will be all good craftmenship on conventional machine's!

Regards, Henk

socshooter

My Feedback: (45)

Henk,

I will send the PDF files once I figure out how I can get PDF files from my Rhino drawings. If anyone has any suggestions on converting Rhino drawings to PDF's please advice. Can you accept profile pictures of the L/G? Front profile/ side profile?

Cheers,

Henk Visser

Hello Joe,

Yes no problem that will do the job!

Maybe you can print your cad drawing with Bullzip pdf printer I got it free from the internet.



Regards, Henk

socshooter

My Feedback: (45)

Henk,

I downloader 3d reviewer and I think I got some good quality PDF files. I will send them to you via email.

Cheers,

Joe

socshooter

My Feedback: (45)

Gents,

FYI

This what i got from Glennis Aircrafts

(We are no longer doing custom one off sets of gear or
wheels. There were too many complaints about lead times and pricing
thanks
Dennis)

Cheers,

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

Well it sucks that he has officially gone that route since many of the guys at top-gun seem to use him for their one-off gear's and wheel's.. Oh well.

GlennisAircraft

My Feedback: (1)

To clarify; we still do a majority of what we do, just not the one of a kind "this is the only set we'll ever make" stuff. When we did that (for about 20 years) the market constantly deteriorated to the point that everything has to be really quick and really cheap (inexpensive) - and custom manufactured parts aren't either. Much of the Top Gun stuff is just standard kits/plans that we already do, the other stuff is easily modified, not a tool up from scratch project.

The post from Matrix above spoke volumes, and it only scratched the surface of what will be involved in a custom set of gear. You have to appreciate the number of hours/weeks/months and the amount of money that is tied up in the actual manufacturing of machined parts - the CAD is the easiest part. Sit down and take a deep breath before this next line . . . .

I've done many quotes for (and manufactured) these types of jobs, and I'll tell when I looked at the specs for the gear (17" long struts, 7.2" mains, etc.), I don't even have to see drawings to know that the quote is going to be in the ball park of $15000 to $20000 to start, and be 8+ months of manufacture. This is if we can use existing tire tooling, which we probably couldn't - then the price would go up. Once I saw the CAD I might be on the low side.

This would be very educational; In California where I am, machine shop hourly rates are $80+ an hour - so for example, if your gear could be done in two weeks you would have $6400.00 in labor, custom tooling, fixtures, material, and purchased parts (e-clips, orings, whatever) would be additional. I will tell you that it is a fact that it could not be done in two weeks, there will have to be much additional CAD, and them CAM done before it ever hits the shop floor. If it took 4 weeks, you would be at $13000 and so on. Getting it done by a college kid in a shop class is a good idea if they have the skill to do it, and if they are in school, they probably don't.

These are exciting projects - but very expensive when it comes to having the machined parts done.

Dennis

phantom_najd

My Feedback: (2)

I posted this link somewhere and they quoted an expensive price for a job. If you have your drawings ready get a quote from them [link]http://www.emachineshop.com/[/link] and you might get lucky

Azzam

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

e-machine shop is horrible.. they say you can upload your CAD files into their "program" but everytime i have tried, it always ends up horribly wrong... i gave up trying to use them.

Dennis,
Its glad to hear your still doing some custom stuff. Does this mean that you would be interested in doing sets of scale wheels/brakes for future kit productions?