Care CNC Machining Services for Metal and Plastic Parts

Careful machining means the process is planned around the features that can actually move during cutting. A part number is not released to the floor until the team has decided how each critical dimension will be held, how the part will be held in each operation, and how the result will be measured. That planning step removes most tolerance drift before the first chip is cut.

Work splits into three groups. Milling runs on 3-axis, 4-axis and 5-axis centers. Turning runs on mill-turn centers and Swiss-type lathes. Then come the finishing operations: anodizing, plating, bead blasting, laser marking. A part that needs all three groups is common, and keeping them under one roof is what separates a quote from a shipped box.

Size is the first filter. Our largest travel is 4,000 × 400 × 150 mm, and the Ø400 mm rotary table handles round parts that would otherwise need two setups. Anything that fits inside those envelopes can usually be machined in one or two fixtures, which is where the ±0.005 mm holds. Push a feature outside the envelope and the part gets re-clamped, and every re-clamp adds stack-up error.

Materials behave differently, and that changes the cutting plan. Aluminium 6061 and 7075 cut fast and hold thin walls well. Stainless 316L and 17-4PH work-harden, so the tool path has to keep constant engagement. Titanium TC4 (Ti-6Al-4V) and Inconel need low surface speed and generous coolant. PEEK and carbon fibre need sharp tooling and dust control. Same machine, different parameters, different cycle time.

A tolerance number means little on its own. What matters is which features carry it and how they are measured. ±0.005 mm is realistic on a bored hole, a ground face or a turned diameter that is set in one operation. It is much harder on a thin web between two pockets, or on a dimension that spans two separate setups.

So the first pass on any new drawing is a tolerance map. We list every dimension that carries a tight callout, mark which operation produces it, and check whether the datum scheme on the drawing matches the way the part sits in the fixture. When those two disagree, the drawing is right and the fixture gets rebuilt. That happens before production, not after the first article fails.

General machined surfaces land at Ra 1.6–3.2 μm as cut. Where a sealing face or a bearing bore needs better, we plan Ra 0.8–1.6 μm, and Ra 0.2–0.8 μm where a polished or lapped finish is specified. Each step down in roughness costs cycle time, so it helps to mark only the surfaces that need it.

A dimension that spans two setups is the usual source of drift. The fix is either a single-setup process on a 5-axis center or a hard fixture that repeats within the tolerance. Both are decisions made at quoting, not at the machine.

Every part is inspected before shipment. That covers three checkpoints: incoming raw material, in-process monitoring during the run, and a final inspection before packing. Reports are available on request, and for regulated programs they are part of the shipment, not an extra.

For a first article, we measure the tolerance map from the planning step, not just the tight dimensions. That shows whether the process is centered or merely inside the limit. A process running at the edge of a limit will drift out of it over a long run, even if the first article passes.

The four certificates we hold shape which industries we can serve. ISO 9001:2015 covers the general quality system. IATF 16949:2016 applies to automotive and EV work. ISO 13485:2016 covers medical devices. ISO 27001:2022 covers information security, which matters when customer drawings and CAD files are involved.

Uploads are treated as confidential, and an NDA is available on request. If your program requires it, sign it before the files move, not after.

There is no minimum order quantity. A single prototype and a 10,000+ part run go through the same planning step; only the fixture and the inspection sampling change. For prototypes, the goal is to prove the design. For production, the goal is to prove the process repeats.

Quotation and a free DFM analysis come back within 12 hours. That analysis flags features that will be slow or risky to machine, and suggests changes that lower cost without touching function. Production can start within 24 hours of approval, and parts ship in 3–5 days for standard work. Historical late-delivery probability is below 2%.

Prototypes often reveal that a design cannot be machined as drawn at the target cost. Better to learn that from the DFM report than from a scrapped batch. When the geometry rules out milling, we say so and point to die casting, vacuum casting or sheet metal fabrication instead. Sending a part to the wrong process is not a service.

Volume changes the fixture, not the tolerance. A production fixture is built to repeat within ±0.005 mm for thousands of cycles, and it is validated on the first article before the run starts.