Praetore is a precision manufacturer with a distributed factory floor. One engineering core does the DFM, the CAM, the fixture plan, the probing routines and the inspection plan. A network of American shops running one standard does the cutting. You deal with one accountable manufacturer — not a bid board, not a directory, not a piece of software.
Guaranteed speed requires honest scope, so this page is the envelope: the processes, sizes, materials, tolerance classes and finishes the Catalog lane runs. Inside it, the price is instant and the date is a contract term. Outside it, nothing is refused — a human quotes it with a real timeline.
Every value above is a published constraint of the current envelope, not a measured capability. The envelope is versioned and it only widens when verification does.
Nothing is ever refused at the door. What changes is which promise we can honestly make about it. That split is the whole quoting policy, and we would rather print it than explain it one email at a time.
In-envelope work. Upload the model, get a price and a date in minutes. The job leaves here as a complete Job Packet, batches with other parts on the same stock and fixture family, and the ship date is a contract term with automatic credits.
Outside the catalog? Send it anyway. A human reviews it and comes back within 2 business days with a real yes or no and a committed date, brokered through vetted shops — weldments, turned parts, exotic materials, assemblies, large formats.
We guarantee with money only where we have the delivery data to underwrite it. As the Catalog grows, so does the guarantee.
The two lanes are connected on purpose. Every Sourcing job is logged by feature class, and that log — not a marketing meeting — decides what the Catalog absorbs next. Tell us what you wish were instant, and watch the envelope grow.
A promise you can keep is a promise with edges. Central engineering can verify a job before it is released only inside a design space it fully understands, so the Catalog lane is deliberately narrow: 3-axis prismatic parts, a fixed material and stock library, tolerance classes priced from a menu.
| 3-axis vertical milling | Up to 2 setups per part — op1 / op2 flip |
| Drilling · tapping | Form and cut taps, within milling ops |
| Reaming · counterboring | Within milling ops |
| Chamfering · deburring passes | Within milling ops |
| Turning | Sourcing lane. First envelope expansion target. |
| 3+2 and 5-axis | Sourcing lane. A future container size. |
| Wire and sinker EDM | Sourcing lane. |
| Grinding | Sourcing lane. |
| Welding and weldments | Sourcing lane. |
Each of these is a future container size, added when the engineering core can verify it at scale — never because someone in sales promised it.
| Parameter | Limit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Max part size | 12 × 8 × 4 in | Fits every network VMC with fixture clearance |
| Min part size | 0.375 × 0.375 × 0.125 in | Below this, workholding turns custom |
| Min wall | 0.030 in metals · 0.060 in plastics | Chatter and verification risk |
| Min internal corner radius | 0.031 in | Accepts a 1/16 in end mill |
| Hole depth : diameter | 8:1 standard · 12:1 flagged | Drill wander, simulation confidence |
| Pocket depth : tool diameter | 4:1 standard · 6:1 flagged | Deflection modeling limits |
| Threads | UNC/UNF #2–3/4 in · M2–M20 · 2B/6H | Standard tap library |
| Undercuts · T-slots · dovetails | Flagged | Special tooling path |
Flagged means the automated quote pauses and an engineer dispositions it within 4 business hours. It is a pause, not a no.
Tolerances are a menu, not a conversation. A print with mixed callouts is re-quoted per feature class, mechanically — so a ±0.005 in bracket is never priced like a ±0.0005 in bearing bore.
| Class | Linear | Holes | Flatness | Lane |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | ±0.005 in | ±0.003 in | 0.005 in/in | Default. Instant price. |
| Precision | ±0.002 in | ±0.001 in | 0.002 in/in | Instant price, premium. |
| Tight | ±0.0005–0.001 in | to ±0.0005 in | Per feature | Flagged. Routes to a CMM-verified shop. |
GD&T is accepted. True position and profile callouts tighter than the Precision class auto-flag for an engineer's disposition.
Fixed and stocked, on a shared thickness ladder from 0.25 in to 4.5 in. The shared ladder is what makes cross-customer batching possible: one plate buy, one lot cert, one fixture load, several customers' parts.
Customer-supplied material is accepted with a cert. It voids the batching discount and flags the job, because we no longer control the lot. The full materials guide covers how to choose between them.
Chem film, nickel and anything else is flagged, routed to a qualified partner, and adds days we state up front rather than discover later.
| 1 – 500 pcs | Instant lane. Price and date in minutes. |
| 501 – 5,000 pcs | Engineered quote, 2 business days. |
| Over 5,000 pcs | A program conversation, not a checkout. |
| Reorder of an existing packet | Always instant, at any prior quantity. |
Reorders are instant because the engineering already exists. The packet that made the part the first time is the packet that makes it again — same programs, same fixture plan, same inspection plan, same acceptance criteria.
Every order ships with material certs and a dimensional report written against the packet's inspection plan. First Article Inspection in AS9102 format is available on request at the price shown on your quote. Nothing about the documentation depends on which shop ran the job, because the plan came from us.
One query answers “what else could be affected?” That chain is the entire containment system, plus discipline.
ITAR-flagged work routes only to registered shops, with segregated storage and access logging, and it never shares a batch with non-ITAR work. Identify controlled data through the controlled intake before you upload it, not after.
A quote is software; a ship date is a machine that has to be free on Tuesday. Printing “5–7 days” on a web page costs nothing and means nothing. The date you are shown is built for your job: the packet's runtime estimate, the chosen shop's delivered history, how honest that shop's calendar has proven to be, and a buffer priced from the lateness distribution for that class of work. Those inputs come out of the Capacity Ledger, which records quoted-against-delivered on every job — and the guarantee is offered where that record is deep enough to underwrite it.
Standard and Rush tiers both exist. Rush costs more because guaranteed speed on liquid capacity is genuinely scarce, not because it is a checkbox. And a date can be guaranteed at all only because the network is standardized: when a machine goes down, the job re-posts and re-releases to another qualified shop through the same verification gates. Rerouting is the product, not the emergency.
Read the guarantee, caps and allYour part is cut by an independent American shop that received a complete Job Packet — verified programs, setup sheets, tool list, fixture plan, probing routines, inspection plan and acceptance criteria. Not a drawing and a prayer, and never an RFQ. The shop contributes what it is genuinely world-class at: spindle time, machine ownership and craftsmanship.
Praetore stays the manufacturer of record. We author the CAM, the fixtures, the probe routines and the inspection plan, so the outcome is ours to own. One accountable party, one invoice, one phone number when something goes wrong.
We send you the job, not the RFQ. No quoting, no programming, no sales. No hardware purchase, no fees, ever — v0.1 of the standard is a soft-jaw spec on vises you already own, and the jaw programs arrive inside the packet.
Apply as a shop“Any part, any material, any process” is the epitaph of this industry. Ours is a wide door and a narrow factory: the Sourcing lane takes anything and dates it honestly; the Catalog guarantees only what has been verified.
A feature class graduates from Sourcing into the Catalog when it exceeds 5% of inbound demand for two consecutive quarters and a verification method for it exists. Every change needs demand evidence, a verification method, a stock and tooling plan, and sign-off from engineering and ops. The envelope is versioned, and it never widens because a salesperson promised something.
Certification-gated end products. We make components for medical devices in either lane. We do not make finished medical devices — that waits on ISO 13485 and FDA registration, and it is a deliberate decision rather than a soft maybe. When the answer is no, you will get the word “no” and the reason.
In-envelope parts are priced in minutes with a ship date backed by money. Everything else gets a human and a real timeline within two business days.
Upload a partCommitted baseload, verified packets, payment on delivery. Your performance data wins you work — it is never used to negotiate your rates down.
Apply as a shop