Amazingly Simple Automatic Part Engraver on a PCNC 440

I love automation – there’s just something about watching a robot making parts you’re going to sell. A machinist friend of mine (Hi Peter T.!) refers to his bank of older CNC lathes as his money printing presses. They sit there with their bar pullers grinding out parts for him to sell all day long and about all he has to do is change bars and inserts from time to time.

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2nd Ops Success: Tormach PCNC 1100 Boosts Output in Texas Machine Shop

Don Breneman purchased a PCNC 1100 as an affordable secondary operation CNC mill to solve a costly bottleneck in his machine shop.  A standing order for oil and gas components was keeping his Haas VF2 busy around the clock, but each part required a serial number. The engraving operation for parts of varying sizes accounted for more than half of the cycle time on the single machine.  “Using an 8000 lb. machine for engraving is like killing a fly with a hammer,” he explains.  By offloading the engraving operation, Breneman felt he could free up time on the VF2 for higher-value jobs.

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Getting Started with the Tormach Speeder

Our Speeder is a great option for doing small end mill work on a lower RPM spindle.  Its a mechanical RPM increaser that takes whatever the speed of the primary machine spindle is and multiplies it 3x.  On the PCNC 1100, that means that 5000 RPM becomes 15000 RPM.  For the PCNC 770, you can take 10000RPM up to 30000RPM, although we rate the device for that speed for short duty cycles.  Continuous operation should be limited to 20000RPM. The Speeder really excels at small pocketing and engraving applications.  Here's an example of a small engraving around a bar that we did for a recent product demonstration.

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Soapstone Machining

Milling Around blog favorite Jeff Rasnake shared with us some recent pictures of a handful of very cool projects he's been doing in soapstone.  According to Jeff, soapstone mills fantastic on his PCNC 1100 - here's a few example of the plaques and monuments he has made with soapstone that's quarried locally near his home in Virginia. It turns out that the relative softness of soapstone makes it a perfect material for DIY use.  Check out this article on DIY soapstone countertops from This Old House.  And Alberene Soapstone Company sells DIY kits for kitchens and bathroom vanities.  Check those out here. These are small compared to some of Jeff's other soapstone projects.  What really caught my eye is the very clever workholding for the larger pieces, which I'm told are for a park bench to be placed outside the quarry's business office. Very tall strap clamps! Final carving on the edge of the slab. This table extension is on casters and moves with the XY motion of the PCNC 1100 mill table. Check out the links below to see more work form Jeff: Jeff Rasnake PCNC 1100 Success Story Jeff Rasnake Packard Steering Wheel Project Thanks again for sharing,  Jeff!

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Diamond Drag Engravers

As some readers may know, in addition to blogging here on Milling Around, I also contribute a quarterly column to Digital Machinist magazine about CNC machining topics of interest to hobbyists and small garage shops.  The Fall 2012 column is set to be on newsstands in the next week or so. 

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