Design & CAD

Plenty of good ideas arrive as a sketch, a worn-out part or a problem description. CAD Custom's design service turns them into manufacturable CAD models — parts and fixtures drawn with machining in mind, so geometry that looks right on screen is also economical to cut.

Working from a physical sample, features are measured on the metrology bench and the model is rebuilt to real dimensions rather than eyeballed. Working from a napkin sketch, the intent is captured and the details are engineered around how the part will actually be held, cut and inspected.

Because design, programming and machining share one roof, the feedback loop is short: a feature that would be needlessly expensive to machine gets caught and redrawn at the CAD stage — before it costs you tooling, cycle time or a missed date.

Every part starts as an idea — few start as a model

Machine shops traditionally begin at the CAD file: no model, no conversation. But that is not where real projects begin. Real projects begin with a sketch on graph paper, a competitor's part that almost works, a machine down because a thirty-year-old component broke and the drawing died with the company that made it, or an engineer's clear description of a problem that no catalog part solves.

CAD Custom meets projects there. The design service exists to carry an idea across the gap between 'we need a thing that does this' and a manufacturable CAD model — a real engineering artifact with datums, tolerances and machining sense built in, not just a shape that renders nicely. Because the modeling happens inside a working machine shop, every line is drawn by people who know exactly what it will take to cut.

Sometimes the deliverable is the model itself, machined here afterward; sometimes it is design support alongside your own engineers, adding manufacturability judgment to their functional intent. Either way the entry requirement is not a file format — it is a problem worth solving. If you have been turned away for not having CAD, this is the page that says: bring the idea, the sample or the sketch. The model is the first thing we can make for you.

Reverse engineering from a physical part

The hardest drawing to get is the one that no longer exists. Legacy equipment outlives its manufacturers, and when the critical part finally wears out, you hold an object with no model, no print and no vendor. Reverse engineering rebuilds the definition from the part itself.

The process runs through the metrology bench. The sample is measured systematically — heights and locations with the Sylvac and Fowler gauges on the granite plate, profiles, radii and thread forms under the Starrett HE350 optical comparator, where worn or delicate features can be captured without touching them. Measurement is interpretation as much as recording: a worn bore gets reconstructed to its intended dimension, not its current one, and 'what the designer meant' is reasoned from function, wear pattern and the conventions of the era, feature by feature.

The output is a proper CAD model and drawing — your part's definition, recovered and owned by you this time. From there the path is short and familiar: the model feeds a Mastercam program, the program feeds the VF2, and the bench that measured the original verifies its replacement against the reconstructed spec. One roof, closed loop: the same instruments that read the old part certify the new one. Machines that were one broken component from retirement go back to work.

Design for manufacturability, applied early

Late-stage cost reduction is folklore; early-stage design decisions are where a part's price is actually set. By some old engineering rules of thumb, the majority of a component's lifetime cost is committed before the first chip — in the corner radii, wall thicknesses, datum schemes and tolerance choices of the model itself. Design for manufacturability (DFM) is simply the practice of making those commitments with open eyes.

Because CAD Custom's designers are machinists, DFM is not a checklist bolted on at the end; it is the water the modeling swims in. Internal corners get radii that welcome standard cutters. Related features get arranged so the 3+2 workholding on the VF2 can reach them in one clamping. Tolerances get applied where function demands and relaxed where it does not — precision on purpose. Materials get chosen with the cutting in mind: the difference between an aluminum part and a stainless one is not just properties but machining hours, and the model should know that.

For customers with in-house engineering, this works as a design review: send the model before you commit, and it comes back annotated with the changes that would save real money — usually invisible to the part's function. It is the cheapest engineering you will ever buy, because it subtracts cost instead of adding it.

Fixtures: the unsung half of accuracy

Ask where precision comes from and everyone points at the machine. Machinists point somewhere else: at the fixturing. A part must be held — rigidly, repeatably, without distortion — while the cutter does its work, and the device that holds it quietly decides how good the work can be. Clamp a thin part carelessly and you machine a stressed shape that springs out of tolerance on release. Fixture a batch inconsistently and 'identical' parts become a lottery. Design a production line's workholding poorly and every cycle pays a tax forever.

Fixture design is therefore a first-class service here, not an internal afterthought. CAD Custom designs and machines fixtures both for its own runs — where the fixture concept is developed together with the Mastercam program, so holding and cutting are one plan — and for customers who need workholding, assembly aids, inspection nests or production-line tooling for their own facilities, from job shops to tech and AI hardware lines.

A good fixture earns its cost invisibly, every single cycle: faster loading, consistent location, protected surfaces, and accuracy that survives operator changes and night shifts. If there is a part your operation handles awkwardly a hundred times a day, that is a fixture waiting to be designed — describe the part and the pain in the form below.

How a design conversation starts

Design projects stall when the front door demands more formality than an idea can carry. So the front door here is deliberately simple: describe the problem. What the part must do, what it attaches to, what it must survive, what the old one looked like, why the current situation is not working. Attach whatever exists — a STEP or IGES file, a PDF, a photo of a sample next to a tape measure, a napkin sketch. All of it is a valid starting point; the shop has built parts from every one of them.

What comes back is an honest scoping: what is clear, what needs a measurement or a decision from you, and what the design work will take. From there the loop is tight — model, review, adjust — with the manufacturability questions settled as they arise rather than discovered at quoting time. When the model is agreed, it flows straight into programming, machining on the VF2, and verification on the metrology bench: from idea to measured part without ever changing vendors, buildings or phone numbers.

That continuity, more than any single capability, is what the design service sells. Based in Banks, Oregon, serving everyone from farm equipment rebuilds to aerospace, clean energy and emerging-technology hardware: bring the idea; leave with the part — and with the CAD that means you will never be without its definition again.

What you receive — and what stays yours

A design engagement ends with artifacts, not vibes. Depending on scope, the deliverables are a native-quality CAD model exported in the formats your tools consume (STEP and IGES travel everywhere), a dimensioned drawing that captures tolerances and intent rather than just shape, and — where the shop also machines the part — a first article with its measurements. The definition of your part exists again, completely, and it belongs to you.

That ownership is worth underlining. The models and drawings produced for you are yours: to keep, to modify, and yes, to take to another shop if you ever choose to. The bet here is that the work keeps the relationship, not the hostage-taking. In practice the archive effect makes staying the rational choice — the shop that drew the part also holds its proven program and inspection baseline — but that is an earned advantage, not a lock.

Can you just clean up or modify my existing model? Yes; not every project is a from-scratch design. Common small engagements include making a downloaded or inherited model actually machinable, adding the drawing a bare model never had, tolerancing a part that has only ever been eyeballed, and modifying a proven design for a new variant.

What does design work cost? It is scoped and quoted like machining: after a look at the actual problem, in writing, before work starts. Small jobs are small; you will not be quoted an engineering retainer to radius some corners. Start with the form below — describe the problem, attach what exists, and the scoping comes back with straight numbers.