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Rolvsøy Metallindustri

The business model

We own no products. We make yours.

All production here runs in product-specific dies that the customer owns. That is what contract manufacturing means here — and it has consequences you should understand before you send an enquiry.

Send a drawing See the volume threshold

The starting point

Come in early. Preferably before the drawing is locked.

The important work starts the moment you are weighing up whether the part should be cast at all. You know what the part has to withstand, where it sits and what it is specified to do. We know what a steel die and a melt will actually give you. Those two things have to meet before anyone can quote a price.

Most enquiries that reach us concern parts that are already adapted for casting, wholly or in part. That is good. But there is nearly always something: a wall twice as thick as the one next to it, a hole with no draft, an internal corner with no radius, a tolerance that cannot be held without machining. The earlier we see it, the cheaper it is to fix.

If your design is already frozen, we will still take the enquiry. But then the tool is more expensive and the part heavier than it needed to be, and you pay for both in every single series.

Ten steps

From enquiry to running series

The first two steps happen before anything has been cast at all, and that is where most of the value sits. The next seven happen in the same building. The tenth — inspection and dispatch — is the link we have documented worst ourselves, and we say so plainly.

Start at step 1 — send the drawing

  1. Steg 01

    Drawing in and castability review

    You send a drawing, a STEP file or a sketch. We work through whether the part can be cast as drawn — and what should change.

    First response within 24 hours

    Du får

    A concrete list of what should change in the part, with reasons — and a recommendation on metal and process. Not just a price.

  2. Steg 02

    Tooling

    The die is procured through our preferred toolmakers, designed and gated for our machines. You own the finished tool.

    Du får

    A product-specific die in your ownership, sample parts for approval, and a part price that holds for the series.

  3. Steg 03

    Raw material in

    Aluminium and zinc arrive as ingot from established suppliers. The aluminium is secondary metal — remelted, not newly extracted.

    Du får

    Metal with traceable origin from a named Norwegian supplier, and a lower carbon footprint per part than primary metal gives.

  4. Steg 04

    Melting

    The metal is melted in a furnace. Aluminium melts at 660 °C and is cast at 680–700 °C. Zinc melts at around 385 °C.

    Du får

    The right alloy at the right temperature — and part of the energy in the process recovered as heating rather than lost as emissions.

  5. Steg 05

    Casting

    The melt fills the steel die — under high pressure in die casting, under its own weight in gravity casting. The part freezes in seconds.

    Seconds per shot in die casting, minutes in gravity

    Du får

    A part with the geometry from the drawing, repeatable shot to shot — part number 40,000 matches part number one.

  6. Steg 06

    Ejection and degating

    The part is pushed out of the die by ejector pins. Runner, overflows and flash are removed.

    Du får

    A part with no runner, overflows or flash — and metal that does not end up in the part going back into the melt rather than into waste.

  7. Steg 07

    Heat treatment

    Gravity cast aluminium parts that need more strength are heat treated. Pressure die cast parts normally are not.

    Du får

    A part with substantially higher tensile and ultimate strength than it would have had as cast — without having to make the geometry heavier.

  8. Steg 08

    Machining

    Faces and holes needing tighter tolerances than casting delivers are milled, turned, drilled and tapped. On our own machines, fifty metres from the casting machine.

    Du får

    An assembly-ready part with threads, holes and seating faces finished — and one supplier to deal with for both the casting tolerance and the machining tolerance.

  9. Steg 09

    Surface finishing

    Blasting we do ourselves. Anodising and powder coating go to established subcontractors.

    Du får

    The part fully finished, delivered from us — including when the treatment itself happened at a subcontractor. One point of accountability, for that link too.

  10. Steg 10

    Inspection and dispatch

    Parts are inspected and packed. This is the step we have documented worst, and we will own that.

    Du får

    Finished, assembly-ready parts packed for your assembly line — and an honest answer on what we can document, rather than a claim we cannot stand behind.

Datablad

How many parts does it take?

This is the question most enquiries founder on, and most suppliers never answer it in public. The figures below are indicative, not absolute — a customer with several parts in the portfolio or a clear growth plan is assessed differently from a single part.

Series and lead time

Response to an enquiry
Within 24 hours timer
Formal quotation with final files
Within 24 hours timer
Indicative minimum series, pressure die casting
A few thousand parts per year or per order
Indicative minimum series, gravity
A fifth to a tenth of the pressure die casting volume
Typical series size in production
Available on request
Lead time from tool order to first sample
Available on request
Time from sample to approved series start
Available on request
Lead time in running series
Available on request
Annual capacity
Available on request
Available capacity
Available on request
Call-off and stock holding
Available on request
Added lead time for external finishing
Available on request
Prototypes and pre-series
Available on request

Got the volume but unsure which process fits? Then the review decides it, not the table. Send the drawing.

Pricing

Five things decide what the part costs

The part price is built from calculated metal volume and cycle time, plus any machining and finishing. There is no hidden margin buried in a table somewhere — it is these five things, and you can influence four of them at the design stage.

Metal weight

Not just the finished part — the runner and overflows too. All the metal that has to be melted to produce one part is metal you pay for. Which is why designing away unnecessary section pays.

Cycle time

How many seconds the machine is occupied per part. Thick section solidifies slowly and costs machine time. Thinner, more even walls shorten the cycle — the same change that lowers metal weight.

Secondary operations

Every time the part is picked up it costs. Degating and deflashing, machining, tapping, blasting, packing. One operation saved in design is one operation saved on every single part, for the life of the series.

Series size

Machine changeover and die changes are a fixed cost per run. Small runs carry it badly. Four call-offs a year of 2,000 parts costs less per part than twelve of 700.

Tooling cost

Paid by you up front, not amortised into the part price. That keeps the pricing transparent, but it also means the tool has to be paid down over a real number of parts. Undercuts requiring slides drive this item most.

And one you do not control: the metal price

Aluminium on the LME has risen sharply over the past year. Since the price is built on metal weight, that feeds straight into quotations. Ask about price adjustment mechanics when you request a quote for a multi-year series.

The tooling

You own the die. We look after it.

The tool is the economic pivot of the entire model, and the ownership is clean: you pay for the die, you own it, and you can move it.

That is worth saying out loud, because it is unusual to say it. The lock-in between us is practical — a die is heavy, it is gated for our machines, and moving it means paying for run-in somewhere else — but it is not contractual. We keep customers by producing well, not by sitting on their tooling.

We do not make dies ourselves. We buy them through toolmakers we have used for a long time, and we specify and gate them together with the toolmaker so that they suit our machines.

Then we maintain them continuously through the life of the series. A steel die is gradually broken down by thermal shock — it is a wear part, not a permanent asset. Without maintenance the flash on the parting line comes first, then more manual finishing, then parts you cannot use.

Read more about tooling

Straight talk

What we turn down

We regularly see enquiries for one-off orders — parts that will exist once, or that have very limited volume per order and per year. That combination usually means you do not consider it justifiable to buy a die, and that it is not viable for us to offer one.

The reason is not reluctance. Establishing a new product takes real time: follow-up, sampling, measurement and process qualification before regular production can start at all. When production is then limited to low order and annual volumes, there is little left in it for either side. It is better to say so immediately than to spend three weeks on a quotation that should not be accepted.

Specifically, we say no to:

  • One-offs and prototypes without tooling. Our model assumes a series. For a single part, additive manufacturing or machining from solid is the right answer, and we will say so.
  • Large, heavy structural parts. We have no sand casting. Østlandske Lettmetall in Elverum is the right address for those.
  • Products of our own, and product development on our own account. We make what you have drawn; we launch nothing ourselves.
  • Toolmaking as a standalone service. We buy and maintain dies; we do not make them.
  • Anodising and powder coating in house. That link goes to established subcontractors, and we tell you about the extra lead time.
  • Metals other than aluminium and zinc. No steel, no brass, no bronze.
  • Direct supply into a car maker's own production line. That normally requires IATF 16949, and we do not hold it. We supply into automotive supply chains further down the tier structure.

At the same time, we look at a customer's total potential. If you have more product ideas than the one part in the enquiry, or a product that needs time to establish itself in a new market, we take that into account. Call, and we will talk about it.

Questions and answers

Questions we get often

You do. You pay for the die, it is your property, and it can be moved. We procure it through our preferred toolmakers, specify it for our machines and maintain it continuously through the life of the series.

On calculated metal volume — weight including runner and overflows — plus cycle time in the machine, and any machining or other secondary work. The tool is priced separately and paid up front.

Within 24 hours. If all you have is a sketch, you get an estimate so you have something to work with. If you have final files, you get a formal quotation within the same window if you want one.

Yes. Confidentiality is one of three words in our values, and it is why every product example on this site is anonymised. We do not name customers without written consent, and we do not show parts that could identify a product without an agreement.

Available on request.

Available on request.

Available on request.

Yes, please do. We are at exit 10 on the E6, one hour south of Oslo. Call ahead so someone is free when you arrive.

Does your part fit the model?

Send a drawing or a STEP file with an estimate of annual volume. You get an answer within 24 hours — and a straight one if the volume does not carry.

Send an enquiry Read about the design review

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