@cathar
as far as i know you've asked around for injection-modelling and got turned down. if i remember it right, the problem was getting the small "pipes" done.
i've been at a local company that does stereolithography for plastics and slm (selective laser melting). and they can produce any shape. even hollow parts, etc ... atm they're doing steel-samples of tools, or implants with the slm-machine. but, as the head-engineer, of the company told me they can use any metal. silver, gold, steel, titan and some chromalloys ...
and - as the manufacture - the machinery themselves and sell it across the globe, you might be lucky enough to find a shop in down under that uses just that kind of machine.
the way those machines is pretty simple. you send them a cad-model of the part you want done, and their software breaks it up into 0.1 mm slices. later the laserbit builds these layers one atop the other in a somewhat lengthy process .. the result is awesome! i've seen samples of what they do!
the only thing i don't know for sure yet is pricing. as they told me that they're doing a lot of this for smaller companies around here it can't be that expensive. the cool part about it is they can manufacture more than just one bit at a time - depending on the size, of course. so you could have 5 wb designs done at the same time and still get away pretty cheap.
i don't know, when exactly i'll meet them again - probably 2 or 3rd week of july, but then i'll asl for prices!
- this is just another means of producing those blocks, and maybe it's a cheaper alternative than having a cnc-shop do it...
regard
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