Hi - Am hoping someone knowledgeable could point me in the right direction.

Am based in the UK and looking to get hold of a square metal profile (brass or stainless steel) that tapers from 25x25mm at one end to 10x10mm at the other end, length 75cm. It isn't a precision piece, just a table leg. Everyone approached so far either says the job is too small for them, their machine can't do something that size or are looking to charge a fortune for it.

Here is a sketch of it

Would appreciate any comments or thoughts, thanks

What do you consider a fortune? Something like this as a one off should and will cost hundreds, it isn't until you order a large enough quantity, say several hundred minimum the unit price will come down. Nobody is going to set up machinery that can make things quickly and cheaply for a couple parts. It costs money to pay someone to set up or build the machinery and there is the time taken away from other paying job, not to mention tear down and setting it up to do it's regular job again. 

Possibly the least expensive way to acquire what you're looking for is to enroll in a machine shop class, learn to run the appropriate machinery and make them as shop projects. You'll also have an expert on hand to advise you.

Frosty The Lucky.

Another option would be to find a blacksmith who could forge a 25mm bar into a taper.  Probably cheaper than machining it.  Forging is lower tech than machining.  It could be finished by hand by filing or grinding if you want it silvery colored.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

X2

If it’s not a precision part then I’d say the cheapest an fastest option would be forge one out of mild steel clean it up with a file and put a brass finish on it,

that would be a pretty easy project for a local smith 

Precision shouldnt be a problem for a blacksmith. Use equivalent weights to figure out parent stock, center punch this length, forge end to a bit bigger than 10mm, forge from the center punch mark to the end until you reach your length and final end crossection. A 25# lil giant or a treadle hammer would be nice but, well within the working range for a 2-1/2# crosspeen with a ~5/8" wide crosspeen

I forgot to ask earlier, how it’s the leg to be attached to the table? 
does it need to be drilled and tapped for female threads or have a male threaded bar  coming out the top?  Or is it gonna set into a square socket? 
 

 

Stainless costs more to buy, forge and finish, the last two because it takes more work.  Brass will be expensive to buy and most brasses don't forge so that lets blacksmith's out.  While that's not a big job for a professional smith; their time is more expensive as they are paying for the tooling and education.  I'd look for a hobby smith.  Did you check with BABA for smiths in your area?

Note cost of materials can be surprising; when I was working for a professional swordmaker; we would get people wanting to buy a sword but wanting to pay the price we would buy the high tech steel at. 

Were it my commission I'd forge it from mild steel and have it plated to suit the customer. Good luck forging brass though there are yellow bronze alloys that forge well enough though they're not cheap. Maybe I'd ask Pat the caster in our club about casting a set from bronze. Of course I'd probably have to pay for a couple class sessions and make my own molds. 

That sort of thing complicates bidding but has fringe benefits. I like molten metal.  

Frosty The Lucky.

Shear the profile out of sheet metal and weld along the edges. Less expensive, faster, lighter, and far easier to do.  Do it in two pieces, bend in the middle, and weld the two halves together.  Depends on how sharp of corners you want on the final piece if you do it with two or four pieces

 

 

I was wondering about doing something similar with angle iron; put the taper on the edges and weld together.

Silicon bronze is forgeable, iron is forgeable. 

It never ceases to amaze me just how many solutions given here to problems are fabrication oriented instead of smithing oriented, considering this is a blacksmith site,fab solutions are a dime a dozen,,, blacksmithing solutions are worth their weight in gold, literally.

Naval brass (60% copper, 39% zinc, 1% tin, give or take) is also forgeable.  "Forging brass" and "architectural bronze" are also forgeable; they are similar to naval brass, but replace the tin with lead (~2% and 3%, respectively). Architectural bronze is technically a brass, as it is an alloy of copper and zinc rather than copper and tin.

The person seeking a solution did not seem to care about method; but was more interested in cost; so a Fab would probably be in their best interest.  Frankly I was thinking of forge tapering square tubing.

I'm sure my posts will be combined, but I just did not know a better way to do this.

2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

but was more interested in cost

Correct, Thomas

Mod Note: anvil's previous comment and the remainder of this comment have been combined into a new post: A quick tutorial on twisting

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahh he wanted a tapered square; no twist.  Twisting was a different thread; If I had a good picture of my twist samples I'd post them there.  I did 10? different twists as samples for customers to look at while I was "locked down".

22 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

tapering square tubing.

Tapering square tubing is a real beech. Even going from square to round and visa versa is a challenge. 

I've not had problems tapering sq tubing; thick walled is easier than thin walled and you have to be careful not to let it start crumpling.

I created some confusion here. Wrong thread. It would have made far more sense in the thread that was on mechanical twists. 

I rarely use tubing. For me, I use it on lighting. Its far easier to "upset"(actually drift) the end of the tubing and FW in a piece of upset solid steel that I can forge and taper far easier and quicker. Tubing is easy to gently scroll and makes a great chase to hide wiring in. And yes, thick wall seamless is my go to. 

Tapering a short bit is doable, but I would not attempt a 30" taper from 1"to 1/4". Nor would I take 2  30" lengths of 1" angle iron, trim 4 flats then weld and grind  2  30" welds. Its far easier and quicker to forge steel, silicon bronze, or naval brass to those dimensions even with a 2-1/2# hammer. Machining is an option, but that is a lot of waste.

Seems someone once said,,, " just because you can, doesn't mean you should."