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Solution instead of trying to cast the Ameristep Steps

S

slickyboyboo

New Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2015
Messages
21
Instead of casting the Ameristep strap on steps, has someone thought about using a replicator, and making some out of Aluminum? Replicators are used all the time, to make wooden and metal parts. Also they should be much stronger when made out of forged or billet, than if they were cast.
 
I looked into this awhile back. There are guys who have home made cnc routers primarily for wood, but some are stout enough for aluminum. You might get one of them to run you off some, but not sure. You could go to any shop and have them made, but your not going to like the price. The initial set up is gonna be costly and you would have to run a lot of steps to get the price per step low enough to justify the cost. I doubt any of the aluminum steps on the market were ever out of billet. I believe they are extruded in long bar lengths and cut to width. Again in this situation you would have to pay for tooling and then run X number of parts to justify the investment. Our community of strap on step users is way to small to justify the cost. I think the alternatives are priced accordingly, like the Jim Stepp or a platform like DaveT1963 made. Even buying the cranford metal steps and having them machined like I did is gonna run you a few bucks.
 
10-4, the thought came to me the other day. I've got a buddy that is an ag pilot, and they have a metal replicator for making plane parts that aren't available anymore. He and I were discussing doing this the other day with some steps.


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