Good morning everyone,

As a bit of background, I am working as a Manufacturing Engineer and the most common question I get asked is "can we hold these tolerances?". We have various CNC machines (waterjets, oscillating knife cutters, CO2 lasers, router) and then a couple of presses. The materials we tend to cut tend to be elastomers, foams, fiber-based sheet, thermal pads. Now through my limited experience working here I found that the tolerances for us is more limited on the type of material rather than the machine's rigidity, precision, and tool life. We found that the general tolerance we can 100% hold is .015", but we still get customers asking for tolerances of +-.005" or less. I would understand those tolerances for metal fabrication because the material is rigid and stable, but for elastomers that moves and deforms a lot this is just ridiculous.

My question is then the following: For your industry, what sort of tolerances can you achieve and what do you feel most confident in achieving?

I am curious and looking forward to reading the answers.