Home / Capabilities
What this shop can actually do
Written so you can decide in two minutes whether your part belongs here. Where the answer is no, it says no.
Machining and finishing
Milling, turning, wire EDM, grinding and inspection are in house. Heat treatment, anodising, passivation, coating and plating are placed with processors we have used since 2019, then inspected here before the parts ship.
3, 4 and 5 axis milling
Prismatic and contoured parts up to a 600 mm envelope. 5 axis keeps a bracket in one setup so faces stay square to each other.
CNC turning
Bells, hubs, standoffs, shafts and adapters. Live tooling for cross holes and flats on the same spindle.
Wire EDM
Sharp internal corners, thin slots and keyways a cutter cannot reach, and separating hardened parts without heat.
Surface and cylindrical grinding
Flatness and bore finish on fixture plates and bearing seats.
Heat treatment
Placed with a heat treater we have used since 2019. Certificates come back with the lot.
Anodising and passivation
Clear, black and hard anodise on aluminium, passivation on stainless. Placed and inspected by us.
PVD coating
For wear faces and tooling. Specify the coating and the thickness on the drawing.
Laser marking
Part number, revision and serial or datamatrix, marked so it survives anodising.
Tolerances we hold
These are what the shop holds in normal production, not a best case from one lucky part. Call out the two or three features that matter on your drawing and let the rest run to the general tolerance. It is the cheapest thing you can do to a UAV part.
Thin wall and deep pocket work is quoted case by case. Send the model and we will tell you where it will move during machining.
| Feature | Held |
|---|---|
| Milled linear dimension | ±0.05 mm general, ±0.01 mm on called out features |
| Turned diameter | ±0.01 mm, down to ±0.005 mm on a ground or honed bore |
| Bore position, one setup | ±0.02 mm |
| Flatness, machined face | 0.02 mm over 100 mm |
| Surface finish, as milled | Ra 1.6 typical, Ra 0.8 on request |
| Minimum wall | 0.6 mm in 6061, 0.8 mm in 7075, quoted case by case |
Materials
Aluminium and engineering plastic cover most of an airframe. Anything outside this list is bought to your drawing with the mill certificate attached.
| Material | Typical use | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Aluminium 6061-T6 | Plates, mounts, housings, heat sinks | Machines clean, welds, takes clear or black anodise. The default unless the part is loaded hard. |
| Aluminium 7075-T6 | Arm clamps, landing gear, hinge parts | Roughly twice the yield of 6061. Stronger but not weldable and less corrosion resistant, so hard anodise it. |
| Titanium Gr2 and Gr5 | Fasteners, high load brackets, hot zones | Grade 5 where strength to weight has to beat 7075, or where galvanic contact with carbon is a problem. |
| Stainless 304 and 316 | Shafts, pins, marine and agricultural airframes | Heavy for flight parts. Used where wear or salt beats weight. |
| POM and PA66 | Bushings, skids, non conductive standoffs | Cheap, quiet, forgiving on impact. POM machines to tighter tolerance than nylon. |
| PEEK and PTFE | Insulators, thermal breaks, seal parts | Specified when the part sits next to a motor, an ESC or a payload that runs hot. |
| Brass and copper | Contacts, bushings, RF hardware | Machined and plated to your drawing. No plating in house, we place it with a plater. |
| Tool steel D2, H13, SKD11 | Jigs, fixtures, forming tools | For the tooling that holds your parts, not usually for the aircraft. |
Part families
Arm and boom clamps
Split clamps and boom collars in 6061 or 7075, bored round and concentric so a carbon tube seats without a shim.
Motor mounts and bells
Mount plates, standoffs and turned bells. Bolt circles and shaft bores held tight enough to keep a stator square.
Center and top plates
Pocketed plates that carry the stack. Thin webs, radiused corners, weight taken out where the load is not.
Gimbal brackets and yokes
Two axis and three axis brackets, bearing seats and motor faces machined in one setup so the axes stay square.
Landing gear parts
Leg clamps, feet, skid blocks and hinge parts, usually 7075 or PA66 where an impact has to go somewhere.
Payload and sensor mounts
Camera cages, lidar plates, antenna and GNSS mounts, vibration isolator seats with flat bonded faces.
Housings and covers
ESC, flight controller and battery housings milled from billet, sealed with an o-ring groove where the part has to stay dry.
Hardware and quick release
Latches, pip pin bosses, prop hubs, adapters and threaded inserts machined to fit your existing hardware.
Heat sinks and cold plates
Finned sinks and channel plates for ESC and payload electronics, machined from 6061 for conductivity.
Not done here
We would rather tell you now than three weeks into a programme. These processes are placed with partner shops, priced openly on the quote, and inspected by us on the way back.
If a whole assembly needs more of these than it needs machining, you are better off with a different supplier and we will say so.
- Sheet metal forming and stamping
- Casting and forging
- Carbon fibre and composite layup or CNC routing of CF plate
- PCB assembly and wire harnesses
- Injection moulding
- Plating, painting and powder coating
End use
The same rule applies to every part on this page.
We take commercial and civilian UAV work only. Survey and mapping, agriculture, inspection, cinema, logistics, research, education and hobby aircraft. We do not quote parts for weapons, munitions, targeting, electronic warfare or any military end use, and we decline the enquiry rather than pass it on.
Does your part fit?
Send the model and the quantity. We reply within 24 business hours with price, lead time and the questions worth asking before you commit a revision.