Custom parts and fabrication
Most of what we make is a part somebody can’t get anymore.
It’s out of production. Or it only ships from overseas and the lead time runs into weeks. Or it’s still sold and the price makes no sense for a piece of steel you can hold in one hand. Meanwhile the line is down and every hour of it costs real money.
I spent six years inside a pharmaceutical plant here on Long Island, most of it as a mechanic, and a good part of that job was making that exact phone call. The quote comes back days later, the number is worse than you thought, and the part ships from a factory on the other side of the world. Nobody in the building can do a thing about it. That is the reason A&A exists.
Bring us the broken one, a drawing, or a file
We measure the original, model it, and make it. Machined, printed or cut, depending on what the part is.
A worn part still tells you what it was. Wear patterns, thread pitch, the shoulder where a bearing sat. Even a snapped one usually has enough left to work from.
If you have the drawing, better. If you have a STEP file, better still, but almost nobody does and we’ve worked from a lot less.
Parts we've made
A drive spindle shaft for a capper. Built overseas, three weeks out if you order it new.
A ratcheting pin for a capsule machine. Same story.
A roller drive shaft for a cottoner nobody makes anymore.
Hoppers, downspouts and funnels for fillers that went out of production years ago. A belt tensioner for a capper. Drive sprocket shrouds. A suction plate for a semi automatic labeler. Guide pins, flange adaptors, brackets, suction arms, rollers, cutters, and the list goes on.
One offs, and what happens the second time
Most of this work is a single part. Somebody needs one now, so we make one, and if we’re already set up we’ll usually run a spare while we’re there.
The design stays on file. When that same part goes on you again it’s a phone call, not starting over from a broken piece.
How the part gets made
Some parts want to be machined. A shaft, a pin, a flange adaptor, anything that has to hold a tolerance and take a load. Milling, lathe turning and welding.
Stainless and aluminum for most of it, plain steel where it doesn’t need to be anything else. Brass and bronze for bushings and anywhere one part turns against another. Delrin and UHMW when it has to slide or run dry. Most of the metal ones can be powder coated after.
Some want to be printed. 3D printing in every material type we can get, including multi color and multi material, and it covers more ground than most people expect. Filler hoppers, funnels, downspouts, vacuum and dust collector funnels, drying plates, dies and molds, and prototypes of a customer’s own design.
And some are flat, which means sheet metal, laser cut to your drawing.
That whole process, measuring an original and building a new one off it, is reverse engineering. It’s most of what happens around here.
Send it over
Most of our customers are pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and food plants. Plenty of the work is outside of that. If what you want is a sign cut or something printed, there’s a page for that.
Send a picture or a file and we’ll quote it. Start here.
Nesconset, New York. 6AM to 6PM Monday through Friday, weekends on call.