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The Cyclone emblem resting in the machined ground, swarf and chips scattered around it under a low key light.

PROTOTYPE & R&D MACHINING · GRAND RAPIDS

We machine what doesn't exist yet.

PROTOTYPE & R&D · 5-AXIS CNC · WELDING · FINISHING · GRAND RAPIDS MI

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The Cyclone emblem in red and chrome, suspended among machined parts.

◆One-offs · First articles · Development work

Send the drawing everyone else handed back.

This is where it gets machined.

01Materials

Every alloy has rules. We cut by them.

AluminumAlloy SteelTitaniumInconel 718MagnesiumCarbon Fiber

02To The Print

Thin walls. Tight profiles. Held to print.

Every critical feature inspected and approved — before the part ever ships.

Five frames in sequence: a round billet blank on the machine table; the blank clamped between step blocks with a dial indicator on its face; the same blank in the cut under a stream of coolant; the finished three-lobe swirl machined through it; and a stylus brought down onto the finished face.

02First article

From drawing to first article, nothing is left to luck.

  1. 01STOCK
  2. 02INDICATED
  3. 03CUT
  4. 04FINISHED
  5. 05MEASURED

Prototype and R&D work has no second run to hide a mistake. We read the print for feasibility, sequence the geometry first, and prove every critical feature before the part leaves the machine. A surface the print calls is part of that same sequence, honed or vapor blasted in this shop.

◆ Billet → measured part

Print in.CAD and CAM.Iterations that get proven instead of guessed.A first article that gets measured.Then the end part.One shop holds the whole chain — nothing is handed to a stranger halfway through.

  1. 01

    INTAKE

    Feasibility read on your print or model.

  2. 02

    PLAN

    Geometry-first toolpath sequencing.

  3. 03

    ROUGH

    Controlled removal, stress managed.

  4. 04

    FINISH

    The surfaces that matter, held.

  5. 05

    VERIFY

    Inspected and approved.

Inspected and approved — before it ships.

CAPABILITY

◆What we make

Machining. Finishing. Fabrication. Materials.

One is a real job here. First articles, revisions and one-offs are the work — not the exception we squeeze in between runs.

The instant quote said no. That is the work.

03 · PROVEN

Bored, turned, welded, blasted.

03The proof

R&D hardware, motorsport one-offs, and first articles. Every part below is the kind this shop makes.

Three contoured aluminum panels on the bench under raking light, stiffener ribs machined into the faces and the hole pattern carried across all three.
04 · STOCK

04Materials

The materials others decline.

The full material listAnd the finish after the cut
Six objects on a speckled granite surface plate: a bronze-toned forged link with a bushed eye, a billet aluminum housing, a dark forged arm carrying two pressed bushings, a turned steel round bar, a sawn aluminum billet block and a black hot-rolled round bar.

Bronze, aluminum, steel — finished parts and the stock beside them, on one plate.

◆The three that fight back

  • 01

    INCONEL 718

    Work-hardens the moment a pass hesitates. Every cut has to commit.

  • 02

    TITANIUM

    Holds heat at the edge instead of shedding it. The wrong feed and it burns.

  • 03

    CARBON FIBER

    Delaminates on a guessed fiber angle. The path has to know the layup first.

Also cut, same print — they don't fight the tool

  • MAGNESIUMlight, and it burns
  • ALUMINUMfast, still held
  • ALLOY STEELhard, and stable
  • STAINLESS STEELgummy, and it work-hardens

We plan the machine heads. We don't crash them.

05 · MEASURED

05Verified

Probed in the machine. Proven off it.

Critical features are probed in the cycle, then checked again off the machine before the part leaves. Quality here is process visibility.

A machined aluminum cover on a dark steel bench, its pockets, bolt-hole counterbores and sealing face cut, an outside micrometer lying beside it among a scatter of chips.Counterbore · to the datum

◆ Off the machine — checked again by hand before a part moves on

The inside wall of a honed bore in raking light, the cross-hatch running in two crossing directions across the full surface, a small red witness mark on the rim.Honed bore — the finishing operation, not a milling by-product

◆ Trunnion table · tool centre point

  1. 1

    SINGLE SETUP

    The part is clamped once and every face is reached from that one datum.

  2. 2

    COMPOUND ANGLES

    The head tilts to the geometry instead of the geometry being re-fixtured to suit the head.

  3. 3

    SURFACE FINISH

    Tool contact stays normal to the wall, so the finish comes off the cut rather than off a later operation.

  4. 4

    CYCLE CONTROL

    Engagement, stepover and coolant stay under control from first pass to last.

Prototype work,
held where
most shops lose
the tolerance —
a straight line from
your CAD to a
working first article.
06 · FABRICATION

06Fabrication

The cut andthe joint.

TIG welding, tube bending, and custom assembly — planned and built under the same roof as the machining, not farmed out to a second shop. So is the finishing after it.

A machined lug TIG-welded onto a stainless tube held in steel fixture blocks, the stacked-coin bead even along its base, straw-to-blue heat tint fanning out from both toes, the air completely clear.◆ A machined lug, fitted and TIG-welded to the tube: machining and welding on one part
TIG WELDINGTUBE BENDINGFRAMES & SUBFRAMESHEADERS & PIPEWORKBRACKETS & MOUNTSCUSTOM ASSEMBLY

He welded race frames before he opened this shop.

07 · FINISHED

07Finishing

Vapor blasted. Not mirror-polished.

Honing, shot peening, grinding, and vapor blasting — a functional surface, delivered as the part, never chased as a showpiece.

Seen through the cabinet window, two gauntleted hands work a blast gun over a cast aluminum cover lying on the steel grate, the spray plume striking its face and vapour hanging in the chamber.◆ 01 · In the cabinet — the surface changing under the gun
A honed bore seen down its axis in a flanged aluminum housing, a fine even cross-hatch running all the way around the wall under raking work light.◆ 02 · Honing — cross-hatch
HONINGSHOT PEENINGVAPOR BLASTINGGRINDING

We stay away from mirror and chrome. A finish should work, not just shine.

The four processes, in fullVapor blastingBore honing
08 · REVISION

V1V2V3One part, three states

A revision isn’t a restart.

Most prototype and R&D work changes after the first article. Send the old part with the new print — what failed tells us more than the drawing does.

  1. V1

    WHAT IT TELLS US

    Toolpath still readable, notes written straight onto the face. Version one exists to be measured and argued with.

  2. V2

    WHAT MOVES

    The geometry changes. What already proved out doesn’t get thrown away and re-learned.

  3. V3

    WHAT SHIPS

    Verified against the print that changed — not the one the job started on.

Your revision cycle is machined in-house — no handoff, and no new shop learning your geometry from scratch.

Send the revised print
09 · FIELDS

09The five fields

Built for the work that can't fail.

Prototype and R&D work, motorsport, aerospace, automation, and medical fixtures. Five fields, one demand — the part either holds or it doesn't. No second chances, no forgiving tolerances. That is the work Cyclone is built for.

10 · THE SHOP

10The shop

A real shop. A short chain of command.

Grand Rapids, Michigan. Your print is read by the people who cut it — feasibility, program, setup, finishing and inspection stay inside one shop. Precision bred at RED Digital Cinema, applied to the parts that can't fail.

Beyond Michigan, the part can be mailed here from any state, and the drawing or the model comes by upload or by email. Signing your NDA is routine here — send it as a PDF with the drawing.

Dave Valiket, owner.

Dave Valiket — Owner

High-precision machining, welding, fabrication. RED Digital Cinema foundation.

Job Control & Communications

From RFQ to shipment, the timeline stays real.

A block-fronted industrial building behind wet paving, a pickup parked out front and machinery visible through one window.
A machine-shop aisle in low light: a machined housing on the workbench, one machine window glowing blue beside it.
A honed cylinder bore, macro, showing the cross-hatch finish inside a machined part.
Three machined aluminum parts laid out on a steel inspection bench with digital calipers, a gauge-block set and blank paper, a tool chest and steel benching behind.
11 · START

11Start

Start with the drawing.

Send the print, the model, or just the problem. The shop reads feasibility on the prototype and comes back with a real path — the part that doesn't exist yet, machined.

Send the DrawingContact the Shop