This is the easiest page to write because Nummech Products is my company! You can also read the About Nummech brief article. The company was created as my side business for contract work within the robotics industry (my dayjob at the time). As time progressed, many of the manufacturing facilities I visited while under contract were also interested in having items and equipment fabricated, most of which were currently being outsourced to expensive high-dollar machine shops. I noticed that many such fabrication projects shared multiple features and design aspects with my prior experience working within the paintball industry. To fulfill this demand, I joined with another machinist colleague, and we created the brand Nummech Products.
Nummech designs and manufacturers a wide variety of assorted items for both paintball and non-paintball industries (both of which are displayed below). Some of our equipment was purchased specifically for producing paintball accessories, but some aspects of the machine shop are used exclusively for other manufacturing work that doesn't necessarially cross into the paintball world. For instance, we have a sheet metal plasma router, automatic heat treating system, welding equipment, surface grinders, and other hardware which almost never sees any paintball parts. However, the wide array of equipment is necessary to ensure we are indeed able to create simple and straightforward fabrication efforts regardless of the workpiece type, paintball or otherwise.
Essentially, Nummech is the sale point for any paintball-related item that I personally design. I have lots of my own ideas for accessories, but many of the parts made by Nummech were ideas that came from other players. Most of Nummech's accessories are "preference" items that some people like while others would never use; for example Nummech manufacturs many different ASA drop forwards and drop backs for markers that use air-through-frame porting. Ironically those two different products feature directly-contrasting ASA mounting locations (forward or back) but we make and sell both styles. I feel it's useful to give players the option to use whichever type of equipment they prefer, since preference-based items cannot be totally good or bad. It depends on the player.
Originally, the first Nummech accessories were for use with Mini and Axe markers, including foregrip extenders, internally-ported drop forwards, and bolt-on snatchgrips. We then expanded into more complex accessories including grip frames, bodies, and virtually every other component of a marker.
Manufacturing equipment:
· Okuma LC20 dual-turret CNC lathe; built for mass-production workpieces, and those with large diameter. Equipped with a robotic loader.
· Haas GT10 CNC lathe; small and quick machine which is very effective when making small parts or performing secondary operations on larger workpieces.
· Haas HL3 CNC lathe; Nummech's first lathe which was retired in 2016.
· Haas ST10 CNC lathe; this multi-purpose turret lathe manufactures Nummech's smaller workpieces or carries through the starting operations on larger components.
· Haas VF2SS 4-axis CNC mill; currently our main machine for large workpieces and high-power roughing operations.
· Haas VF2 5-axis CNC mill; an older machine with less speed and power. It's dedicated mainly for plastic parts and secondary operations.
· Haas VF4 5-axis CNC mill; Nummech's largest CNC mill is used to fabricate mainly non-paintball items, but occasionally we use this for making bodies or other larger parts.
· Haas DT1 4-axis CNC mill; an extremely fast and high-speed lightweight machining center used to fabricate smaller items or perform secondary operations on larger parts. This machine is also extensively used for 3d surface milling on marker bodies.
· Bridgeport Centroid-retrofit CNC mill; my first CNC that was used to fabricate the first Nummech accessories back in 2008.
· Nummech's first "production" level CNC mill was a Haas SuperMiniMill, but it was retired in 2012.
Miscellany equipment:
Nummech produces a variety of other products for markets outside of paintball. We also have many ancillary machines in addition to traditional CNC mills and lathes, which allows us to supply a variety of different manufacturing processes for virtually any industry. Including the following:
· Cosen production bandsaw (model C-260NC)
· Toyoda hydraulic diameter grinder
· Brown & Sharpe Microval CMM
· Torchmate CNC plasma cutter 4400
· Boss CNC laser router LS-2436
· Lucifer heat treating furnace (model 7022)
· Trinco filtered dry blasting cabinet (model 36)
· Many additional types of manual support equipment such as Bridgeport Series-I mill, Hardinge HLV lathe, welding supplies, 3d printers, surface grinders, and others.
As my formal training (and job) is within the robotics and automation industry, I've personally spent a large amount of effort toward integrating automation solutions into our daily projects. For instance, we have several robotic workcells that were purpose-built to handle our unique set of products. This equipment actually doesn't get used very often; there's a tremendous amount of upfront effort that must be spent before automated systems can be utilized (fixture building, tooling design, programming, testing, etc) which is better suited for mass production environments. We still heavily rely on good ole fashioned manpower and elbow grease. However, should the need arise, we have the ability to produce a large amount of product with minimal human intervention, allowing the humans to spend time on more important tasks. The costs per component can be reduced with the proper automated process.
Over the years Nummech has experimented and eventually developed the ultimate fabrication process used in manufacturing marker bodies and grip frames. These concepts allows us to transition from one product to another, with virtually no downtime, while maintaining the same quality between all workpieces. Certain aspects of this fabrication process are only possible due to strong hardware, but a tremendous amount of skill is also required to maintain a reliable manufacturing process throughout an entire mass-production batch of workpieces. Below are some examples spread across many different marker platforms...
Grip frames:
Unmilled body blanks: (various markers)
Finished bodies: (various markers)
If you follow Instagram, you may enjoy following my page since I post almost exclusively pictures and videos relating to the fabrication process, with lots of upcoming preview pictures.
Videos - Parts Modification:
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Videos - raw workpiece machining:
Permalink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwuaLPi5DgE
Permalink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE869Z7skGo
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Permalink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7shPlx563ug
Videos - body milling:
Permalink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efgRuWFLOmc
Permalink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_6H01Z23yk
Permalink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wiE4fE718o
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Permalink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afO2q6rSz74
Nummech's machine shop builds products for several industries outside of the paintball world. We classify ourselves as a general-purpose machine shop, but most of our work deals with high-visibility manufacturing in aluminum and stainless steel materials. We also handle prototyping work for local businesses in need of test pieces or small batches.
Note: none of the below pictures show any copyrighted material.
