The Wholesale Forums

[jaguar65]

I am an engineering student, part of my work involves regular consultation of empirical values that are tabulated. Reading these values off can sometime be tricky. Could anyone suggest where I could get 30cm, non-shatter 'rulers' made up in large quantities? They would need to be a custom design featuring several areas marked onto the plastic to highlight the desired values of the table.

[greedyboy]

The obvious choice would be China. I'd imagine it would be fairly easy to source a factory, but to justify the initial costs you would have to buy in a vast quantity.

Obviously you have a design in mind? You can use that to source the product and get quotes.

I have dealt with injection molding, not sure how flat plastic/rulers differ (or how the hell they are produced)? I'd imagine the final design would have to be in CAD format and some kind of tool would have to be produced. Tools can cost anything from a $1000 to $100,000 depending on their complexity.

The other option (maybe?) would be to product it from card, very thin perspex or acetate initially? From a cad design, you only need to make the cutting die which is a few hundred pounds and then easily produced in the UK and in much smaller quantities..

Just my 2p worth.

[jaguar65]

That would work, I had intended to incorporate the design into a ruler so people would be more likely to use my design and only have to carry round one item of that size/shape. Acetate/Perspex sounds fine, any suggestions on getting my design made up in that?

[greedyboy]

How precision does the item have to be? If the tolerance is very small they you will need a CAD design. If not, a basic drawing Package on a PC.

[jaguar65]

The precision would have to be to within a mil of my specification, but I can get it drawn up in CAD without any bother.