To second Ivan's suggestion. I have access to water jet here in Cambridge and have had a number of items made for tiny links that I needed for bonnet catch refurbishment, some brackets for rear lamps - even head gaskets from solid copper. It is a very accurate system and maybe easier to find than laser cut?

Location: Cambridge

Just a note on water-jet cutting; I was asking about it yesterday for some racing car bits and I learnt that there are water-jet cutters and water-jet cutters. Always ask if the machine has a 'ruby' jet (I'm assuming it's made from a ruby?) because the lesser machines without this type of jet tend to wander and I saw an example of a pilot hole in 10mm aluminium that went round a corner!
The other advantage of water-jet is the diameter of a hole is not constrained by the thickness of the material as with a lot of laser-cutting outfits - a 3mm hole in a 50mm thick billet is not a big deal.
I had a couple of sets of Morris Six manifold gaskets made in solid copper which have been a great success. Jowett Jupiter head gaskets are currently being processed.

Location: Suffolk

The basic hierarchy of clever, CNC cutting goes:

Water Jet (best)
Laser
Plasma

There's no point having unnecessary cost or precision and for general fabrication plasma is pretty good. Helps that I've been using the same company (Phillips Engineering in Suffolk) for so long now that I've moved on from father to the son who now runs the company.

Hi R
I am a big fan of water jet cutting and have a super supplier here.
They can cut to a 10th of a thou.
It is superior to laser cutting and you can cut very diverse materials.
If you send me a sample or drawing I will get you a quote.

Location: The Centre of the Universe

Charles is right, depends on the quality you require. Although at the top of that list I would add CNC machining if it has to be absolutely perfect!

At work we use CNC machines (including a 5 axis and a giant industrial robot arm that used to weld cars that mainly gets used now to cut polystyrene!) for detail stuff. We have a plasma table for rough stuff (not a great one, generally needs a lot of clean up) and lasers but they are small so those are only for plastics and wood. For tiny detail things the lasers are great and are very accurate depending on the material. We send bigger stuff out for water jet cutting if it needs to be accurate and clean.

I'd say work out the exact precision you need then see if the suppliers can do it. I know they've looked at getting a water jet cutter at work and the maintenance/running costs were horrendous so you probably want a place that looks after their equipment well to get the best results.

Simon

Location: Wellington

All your advice and offers here, and through email, are very much appreciated - thank you very much indeed.