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CNC
Machining:   
My
interest in CNC machining combines two, or perhaps, three
interests together. First, I have always been interested
in computers and especially "real world" control
of processes and motion control. Secondly, I am interested
in woodworking
and metalworking primarily from an artistic point of view.
CNC machine control offers some interesting possibilities
when it comes to the creation of ornamental
turning and
tessellations which
would be difficult and time consuming to achieve through
strictly hand methods. I would like to explore these possibilities.
The recent availability of relatively inexpensive CNC machine
tools
now makes this possible for the hobbyist/artist/enthusiast
like myself.
My
search for
equipment which would meet the above needs (and my budget!)
took me down many paths. I ended up selecting a lathe (not
CNC ... yet) and CNC mill manufactured by the Taig tool
company. I won't go into a great deal of detail here about
how I arrived at my decision, but if you are trying
to
make
the
same
decision about what equipment to select I would be happy
to correspond with you and offer the benefit of my experiences.
The
two best sites for information on Taig tools are the Taig
official site and Nick
Carter's Taig pages. Nick is
a distributor of Taig products and, in my opinion, is the
best
source for
purchasing them. I get no "kick back", I'm just
a very satisfied customer. You won't beat the price or
support
you get from Nick ... plus, he's cool
guy with a face you can trust! (yes there is a trustworthy
face somewhere under that beard).
I also
joined two email-groups on Yahoo which were tremendously
helpful and would recommend them both
Yahoo
groups main page : http://groups.yahoo.com/
Group on general CNC machining:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO/
Group
on Taig equipment:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/taigtools/
I don't
like long scrolling pages on web sites myself (particularly
when photos are involved) so I'll break up the information
on this page into separate pages primarily by the piece
of equipment it refers to. Photos are optimized as much
as possible and thumbnails are provided with deference
to those of you without a high bandwidth connection.
My Taig lathe page
My Taig mill page
My
Grizzly gearhead Mill/Drill G1126 page
Last
changed
August 11, 2004
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