I got a new metal lathe

[btboone]

Here's my new metal lathe next to the old one.

 

[Curly]

His and hers, or his and his?

 

[btboone]

You probably know the answer to that.

 

[Curly]

Gotcha. Hers and hers.

 

[rherrell]

NICE!!!!.....but WAY above my pay grade!

 

[Joe S.]

:drool:

 

[btboone]

With this lathe, it come with a special device that knows if you move the machine. It is not operational until Mazak sends people out to unlock it. They don't want it falling into the wrong hands and making weapons overseas! I imagine all the large machine tool builders will be doing that soon enough.

 

[plantman]

Bruce; Those are realy some impressive lathes !! Did you need Goverment clearance in order to make parts for NASA ?? I also have a metal lathe, but somewhere between your's and mine, a few ZEROS dropped off the price !! A craftsman is only as good as the tools he or she has to work with, and the knowledge and skill working behind those tools !! We expect great things to come out of those lathes and your skills. Would you care to adopt a 71 year old woodworker ???? Wishing you great things with your new toy !! By the way, what did your wife get to compensate for this??? Jim S

 

[btboone]

It's all part of the long term business plan. Need some kind of writeoffs! The new machines now come with forms that you need to sign with your intended use of the machine. You need to swear that they will not be used for nuclear weapons and other things. You also need to let them know if you are going to sell or move the machine! A little too Big Brother for my tastes.

I'll be working on some titanium trumpet mouthpieces.

 

[SteveG]

Bruce, I am very happy for you, and would like to order a small-to-medium size nuclear weapon as soon as you are up and running with the new lathe.

(Actually, in case big brother IS listening, that part was a joke)

Now, the serious part: PLEASE, IMMEDIATELY UPGRADE THE CURLY MAT. (Curly looks good on Koa, but on a mat. It can put you in traction with plenty time to wonder why you kept that 'accident waiting to happen' around for so long. :redface::redface:

Aloha!

 

[vanngo5d]

Wow that's not a lathe but more like a Dream Machine and I was excited that I just built a CO2 laser.

Congats on the new equipment.

 

[btboone]

It does nice turning. The real machines also do full 5th axis milling and turning on a back facing sub spindle as well. In time...

 

[Tom T]

Wow for sure. Thanks for sharing.

 

[bluwolf]

That is beautiful Bruce!

Mike

 

[Rich L]

Nice, Bruce. Good rep, good control, makes money. Now, if only you could buy it from your wife.

Cheers,
Rich

 

[Ed McDonnell]

When you say "new" next to the "old", it makes the "old" one sound worn out and needing replacing by the "new" one. I'm guessing that the "old" one is still producing just fine and the "new" one is to increase capacity.

Do you run both machines by yourself at the same time? I find I can no longer run multiple machines simultaneously without exponentially increasing my scrap rate (and of course, none of my machines are as nice as yours).

Congratulations on the new addition.


Ed

 

[Haynie]

Show off.

 

[btboone]

Ed, that's correct, the old one works fine. They can hold a thousandth of an inch for weeks at a time. It is to increase capacity. Because we run titanium, we've found that tools last exponentially longer if you don't run them very fast, so there's plenty of time to run a second machine. There is a limit to what can be run at the same time, but the lathes should not run into that issue with our normal stuff. It's also about having a backup machine, one where I can set up different tooling situations without interfering with our production tools. The only time I crash or ruin tools is when I'm trying new stuff. That would affect our ring making, which pays the bills. On the mouthpieces, I need to do a deep drilled hole with a long taper. This will take a pretty extreme setup with 7 drills and a $1300 special ground reamer. I can leave that setup on the machine long enough to do batches of parts without cutting into wedding ring production time. Once it's dialed in, I would leave it alone, even if it meant having the machine idle for a week. It's still more cost effective than having to dial in every time and risk ruining that reamer.

 

[Paul in OKC]

Got to learn Mazatrol a couple of years ago. Beat my head on the machine for a while, then once it started clicking, it was great. Nice machine!

 

[btboone]

Mazatrol is really great for 2 dimensional stuff. Draw the part and it does the rest. Very easy to dial parts in. I had a Mazak years ago when I made bike parts. I believe there is no better lathe out there, so I don't even want to look at the Okumas and Haas and other lathes. The engineering is impeccable. The electrical cabinet is all perfectly arranged with nothing out of place. This was one of their first models where the spindle is the motor, so there's no gears or belts. I think all their machines have gone to that now.

 

[SteveG]

I am not going to concede this point completely, but after carefully considering what you have said here, wrt capability, accuracy and precision, I will admit that your lathes (old and new) come very close to being on par with my Delta 46-460. :biggrin:

But what really got me was this: within 2 days of my moving the trusty ole Delta from one area in the shop over about 2 feet closer to where I store my weapons grade stuff, two (count 'em, two!) investigative agents showed up, demanding answers, taking pics, and finally settling on my making a segmented pen for each of them!! Now before someone pops up with the "No pics...did not happen." mantra: please understand something here. The two pens were confiscated IMMEDIATELY, and the one quick pic I managed to click off with my iPhone is equally unavailable, as they confiscated the phone also. Just thought I would pass along my experience.

That is my story, and I am sticking with it.

 

[btboone]

Don't you hate it when they do that!?

 

[Dalecamino]

Nice Bruce!

 

[btboone]

I finally got the Mazak guy out to unlock the machine, tooled it up, and cut my first part on it today. Hopefully I can figure out how to copy programs from the other machine so I won't have to rewrite them all. It's nice to finally be up and running.

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Do you do your design work on the Mazak control computer? I would have thought you would have a separate dedicated computer somewhere with your design software and you just sent toolpaths to the lathe control computer / controller.

Ed

 

[btboone]

I normally design my rings in CAD. I get the necessary dimensions from that. Most shapes are simple, si it's a matter of defining lines, arcs, and tapers by their start and end points. The lathe figures out all roughing and finishing tool paths including cutter compensation by using smart parameters based on the materials and tools used.

 

[jsun-1]

If (when) IF I ever get married again, I'll hit you up for a ring. Really nice work.

 

[ironman123]

WOW. WOW. One for your new lathe and one for your ring making.

Ray