it is hard for anyone used to doing things in the conventional way to see all the possibilities with cnc and the prices are staggering but add up the prices of your tools that this could replace and also consider that your hands or fingers or face or etc are not in harms way which becomes more important in two ways
first way is in the aging population of woodworkers and mishaps
second way is in the younger population and mishaps and due to misconceptions of the dangers involved and poor training regimes
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smaller and lower cost
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no doubt there are other offerings from others
laguna is a good example since they are forward thinking
Ever catch the flying tip of a broken router bit when it hits a hard knot while being fed too hard??? Hot, sharp and FAST!!!!! And for the jobs a table saw is best for, the speed ratio is a good 4 or 5 to 1 - in favour of the table saw.
Or large piece of steel in a high hold int he vice when a fly cutter jerks it out and launches it across the room. There is a reason I have enclosures and poly crabinate shields around my cutting enevelopes.
Price not with standing a CNC ciruclar saw like those used in some advanced truss plants could eat up three table saws and spit out their component parts before breakfast.
A large CNC router of the type EC (I told myself I wasn't getting sucked into any more of his fantasies) is talking about won't beat a table saw for speed and small kerf, but for accuracy and repeatability it will eat it alive. The net savings in time will depend on the type of job, and how many identical parts are needed. If you are making hundreds of shelves there is something to be said for sliding a sheet of ply against the stops, turning the vacumm on, pressing start, and walking over to the next machine while it cuts all your parts for you. Even nested parts to optimize use of materials.
... and yes I can setup stops that won't move. :^)
No, I posted poly crabinate on purpose, because I figured I'd give some crabby bastard a little joy at the opportunity to be an insulting jerk. See yer happy now. Yer welcome.
most cncs have shrouds that go around the business end
not sure here either and as i said many that are used to doing things in the conventional way will not immediately translate how to accomplish tasks on a cnc
And all of what you describe can be (and has been for many years) done without any CNC. Automated feed has been around for over 100 years I saw an old sticker setup for making window sash that was designed before the turn of the last century that could crank out sash components faster than a 2 man assembly crew could keep up. Beautiful piece of machinery - and most of the parts were hand forged. It made all of the parts required to make a 6 or 9 pane double-hung sash with virtually no manual input.
I guess CNC is just a stupid idea, computers are totally worthless, and neither will ever catch on. LOL.
Sure you can do a dedicated process in an automated manner without computer controlled equipment, but really. How flexible is it? Honestly? And what does it cost? Your machinery may even be able to be reconfigured for similar jobs, but on a CNC router I can rough out guitar bodies today, cabinet asembley's tomorrow, all the parts to build a boat the next day, cut out fishing rod racks the next day, and I don't have as much money invest or have to be down to reconfigure the line. Just add consumables and press start.
There is a local machinist who I've learned a lot from who has that attitude. A lot of one off work really is faster and easier to do with machines who's ancesters from the early days of the industrial revolution don't look much different than their modern counter parts. I do have two manual mills several drill presses, and 2 manual lathes. I use them. I wouldn't be without them. I even use my big CNC mill in a semi manual mode on a regular basis. Sometimes it is easier to just turn the handles, but CNC really brings productivity to the small shop when its used intelligently. The difference is I am a one man shop and I produce about as much gross product as he does with 6 guys in his shop. To be fair the parts I make would be pretty impractical to make manually. It could be done, but it reuqires somebody who is both a craftsman and an artist. Many of the parts he makes are one off. It doesn't make sense to program a CNC lathe to cut a thread, when you can do it manually in a few minutes with just by setting the threading gears on your manual lathe.
While today's parts are cutting I am designing the parts for tomorrow and the next day.
I don't disrespect the ability to do work manually. I still own a table saw, a RAS, a couple miter saws, several jig saws, a couple circular saws, a couple wet tile saws, reciprocating saws, and even arm strong saws like drywall saws, hand saws, coping saws, a buck saw, and a couple hand miter saws with miter boxes. Probabaly atleast a half dozen or more I didn't think of at the moment, but know where they are when I need them There are times when every one of those is the right tool for the job, but none of them can work by itself while I figure out what its going to be doing tomorrow.
Nobody needs to be threatened by CNC either. It will not replace scribing in a piece for an exact fit anytime soon. Its not going to run that piece through the bandsaw following that scribed pencil line very well either. Its not going to be thumping on a wall (or using a stud finder) to hang a cleat anytime soon either. It probably not even going to hang anything on that cleat any time soon.
What it is going to do is precise accurate repeatable work do in and day out with no reconfiguration and down time limited to predictable maintenance.
The other day I used one of the CNC machines to make drawer dividers for some new tool and parts cabinets in the machine room. I could have ripped those pieces very quickly on the table saw, and then cut them down for cross pieces. The gone back and notched them. Instead I wrote a program to fit a sort of drawer divider kit on some pieces of plywood I had left over from another project. My son was helping me and he asked why I didn't do it manually. If I was only making one it would have probably been easier and faster to do it manually. The pieces were layed out to maximize use of the pieces of scrap. While one was cutting I was installing the previous one. If I had done it manually. It would have taken me all day just to cut them. I might not have even got them all cut in one day. Its tedious work. I would have had to install them the next day. Instead I started in the morning and was done by early afternoon. I had time to clean up and still go fishing. Now I am sure I could have built a non computerized automated system to make these drawer divider kits, but it would have taken me days. Maybe weeks, and cost an order of magnittude more money than my CNC machine. Sure it might even have produced the parts faster. That would be great if I needed thirty thousand of them. For 50 I think the way I did it worked out better.
Here is another example. If I take the time to machine a punch and die then a punch press can crank out identical parts in sheet metal an order of magnitude faster than a CNC mill or even a high powered CNC laser can produce those same parts, but the CNC machine can cut out hundreds of totally different parts in the time it takes to make that punch and die.
You know why built in light fixtures are so cheap nowadays. Its because the guys making them have rooms full of expensive punch presses each one setup to do only one job. Make a thousand of this part to be mated with a thousand of the part being punched out on the machine next to it. Even a thousand parts isn't enought o make it cost effective either. They have to make a lot more than that. I've been in factories doing that type of work. Holy crap! Talk about tedious. I would go insane if I had to work there listening to those machines going ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, all day long for years on end. That's where your non-computerized semi automated factory starts to shine. Making ten thousand mind numbingly boring identical parts for pennies on the unit profit margins. I wonder how much it would cost to retool that line though if a UBC change causes building departments nationwide to say they have to build those stupid light cans differently now.
Yeah, you are right. Its just a fad and it will never catch on. LOL.
On Mon, 20 Feb 2017 19:51:28 -0700, "Bob La Londe" wrote: snipped
Never said that. I make my living on computers these days. Just saying automation and CNC are not necessarily the same thing.
True - but the example I was replying to most certainly did not require CNC (cutting cabinet shelves to length automatically)
AS long as they work properly, they sure can. I spent many hours chasing down the problem on a fairly large and quite expensive CNC lathe a few years ago. It might make 20, or 50, or 55 good parts, then all of a sudden it started making junk. Shut it off and restart it, and it might make 5, or mabee 500 before it went "off the reservation" again. I improved it significantly, but they still had to keep a close tab on it - checking every 50 or so parts to be sure it was still behaving
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And they all do jobs that a CNC machine that would obsolete a table saw could NEVER do effectively - correct??
Like I say when customers say they can't stand how quickly computers become "obsolete". If it still does the job you bought it for, it's not obsolete. Just because an expensive laser can create a very accurate hole in just about anything, it hasn't made a n electric hand drill or a drill press "obsolete"
What it does BEST is make, say, 5 of one part, then 50 of another, then 5000 of another, without having to mechanically reconfigure the machine.. That said, a cnc screw machine and a 16X60 lathe are both technically cnc lathes - and neither one will efficiently do the job of the other.
You are definitely correct. And making the program for the tool chest parts made sense too because if you need to either make another one or replace the parts of the ones you just made, you can make identical replacements in a jiffy.
You are preaching to the choir. I never said there was anything wrong with CNC - just that cnc isn't always the solution - and no CNC machine will make a table saw obsolete for the "recreational woodworker" who this newsgroup is aimed at. Not in your lifetime or mine.
Not quite so long if they can use CNC lathes and mills to make the new punches.= as if they have to crank out all the new tooling by hand on manual machines.
Then again, there ARE NC machines that are not CNC. - those old punch tape machines - many of which had NO electronics - much less computers, involved.
Never said it was a fad. Never said it wouldn't catch on. It sure made my crokinole board playing surface a lot nicer than I could have done it by hand - even if it took the cnc router over 3 hours to make the 2. And it will NEVER replace a table saw. It won't replace my Myford super 7 either, nor an english wheel, or a shrinker/strtcher, or a planishing hammer. A friend with a seriously disabled daughter made himself a CNC router - a full 3 D "gantry" type - for milling custom foam seating pads for her wheelchair. He recovered the cost of the machine (which he designed and built himself) by making only a couple custom foam cushions for his daughter - they retail for several thousand dollars EACH. and they only last a few months - and having several different "styles" helped prevent pressure sores - or "bed sores" by rotating between them on a daily basis.
I suppose I could if I really wanted to. And, no. Not just square bodies either. If I was making just one I might even be able to rough it out nearly ready to sand with just a little creativity, and a custom sled or two faster than I could do it on a CNC mill, but then I am one of those guys who uses a tile saw to carve corners rather than hide them under the trim like most "pro" tile guys. Yes, one of my two tile saws is technically a table saw so... LOL.
The thing about guitar bodies (electric anyway) is they can be any shape at all. As long as they look good to "somebody" that all that even matters.
Do I make guitar bodies on a table saw. No, but I could. If it was the only power saw I could afford I would have to wouldn't I. Either that or do it by hand. LOL. When the only tool you have is a hammer...
having a shop outfitted with cncs in school might make the idea of woodshop and metal shop more palatable for the school officials due to the greatly improved safety of a cnc
parents would also feel better about it
cnc reduce the anxiety of operating dangerous machinery in a big way
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