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Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Gunstocks!!!!!
« on: June 11, 2012, 06:36:29 PM »
I am running Alibre cad/cam. They have a thirty day trial on there expert version
And also have a hobby version. I started with the trial version several years ago.
The tutorials are great and should get you started. After thirty days you will know if you want to purchase it or not
And also have a hobby version. I started with the trial version several years ago.
The tutorials are great and should get you started. After thirty days you will know if you want to purchase it or not
I will give all of you a little history so you will know how all of this started!!! I have been doing machine tool and die work for almost twenty years now. About five years ago I decided that I was going to learn to draw. Up to then everything that I done unless prints were furnished was drawn on graph paper. That's when I purchased Alibre Design. As I starting digging into it and learning it was almost like a sickness, I spent countless hours eager to learn more. A couple of years passed and then the next thing I knew I was doing mechanical design at work then building and implementing those improvements. What started as improvements eventually turned into complete machines. When the work load became more than I could get done along come the cnc. Hardest thing I ever learned was going from being able to feel the cut on the machine to actually being able to tell what rate to cut at. Drove me insane because the machine would only do what you told it. Enter the cam package!!!! Another all new learning curve. Unfortunately I consider myself to be pretty dumb when it comes to manual g-code. The guys who are proficient at it are like machines!!! My hats off to all of you that are!!!!! Once I had finally gotten the hang of cnc(still not an expert at all!!!!) I got online one night and stumbled across this forum and Mach. I wasn't concerned about the design of the machine because that was what I done on the industrial level. I would do the mechanical design and build then turn it over to the electrical guys for the wiring and the programming. I have had some training on both but I guess its like anything else, if you don't use it you don't grow. Fortunately for me this forum had alot of good information to make me successful. When we started taking some older equipment out of production to intergrate new equipment I gradually started cabaging on to LM guides and things of that nature. Like most I was on a pretty tight budget. Finally I started doing my design based on some components that I had available. My uncle has a shop and sells alot of raw materials so that saved me some cash to. I got an old machine frame with an electrical panel and modified it to fit my gantry machine. After countless hours of machining, wiring, posting questions and reading I finally had a workable machine. Not perfect but a good starting point. My intent was to do 3d reliefs and things of that nature. I purchased V carve pro, with full intentions of getting Aspire. Let me throw in my wife was about to kill me. At this point I had alot of money in all of my software packages and this machine!!! Made her a nice name plate then ended up making one for several of the teachers at school that she worked with. But hey she was off my back!!!!!!!! The guy that's doing the smithing on these was kind of mentor to me years ago. He ran a shop that I worked years ago. I credit him into turning me in to the meticulous person that I am today!!! Like me he had done things conventionally his whole life as well. We had spoken about this machine off and on but he had never saw it. One day my phone rings and he asks me if I could cut a gunstock. My exact words: If I can draw it, I can cut it. Now let me say that in my industrial world most things are basic shapes. Squares, circles, rectangles, cam profiles and things of that nature. I had no idea what I was getting into. I realized that my drawing abilities were about as good g-code abilities. Its been a long hard road for me and at times I was on the verge of insanity. We have been at this for a year and a half and I cant tell you what number stock the last two guns are. I still have the first one I made and when I get broke down I go look at it to see how far we have come. As for the rest, my buddy designed and built those conventionally. I done the engraving on them on my router. I have a laminated wood version of one of them. Don't know if I'll build another one. Countless hours of gluing!!!! Wood has been a whole new animal!!!! Its not like cutting metal. I built my own wood dryer and am getting all of the material from the sawmill green. Its the only way I could afford to do these. Specially with countless prototype models. If anyone is curious these stocks are walnut and cherry. I am hopeful that all of this can turn into something one day. This is just the beginning and I plan to have several pictures to post. As one of you mentioned, its to late the cnc bug has bitten and latched on hard. Now I am wanting to build another a whole lot bigger. Once again thanks for all of the support and helping me make this possible. I've told several of my friends that with this forum anyone could build there own machine. As for sending all of you a gun to try out, if I get to a place where all of this comes together I will be at least sending you all an invite to my neck of the woods to try them out. Thanks for the support and encouragement!!!! 
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