Will the next batch, or the batch five years down the road, have the exact same extra stock on them? If not, you could be setting up for a problem. Doing die cast vent blocks about a decade ago, my boss hated air cutting, and made me program with no extra allowance. Then the next time the part came up, they'd saw the stock 1/4" or 3/8" bigger, wreck the tool, and yell at me for it. I told him you have three options: saw to a tighter tolerance, program for the largest possible stock, or take some cycle time to probe. We did the probing thing briefly, but he got aggravated by the extra minute added onto a four hour program and pulled the plug on that. He would rather the spindle be turning, even if it's wasting time.

Yup, did that too, a set of about six or seven different geometries. One of the other students couldn't do it, so I made an extra set and sold it to him, with knowledge of the instructor so he didn't get credit. He dropped out a couple weeks later.

At Dunwoody in the 90's we hand filed our first project to shape after roughing it out on the bandsaw, after welding our bandsaw blade and laying out the project with Dychem and hand scribing. I think it teaches a lot; you learn an instinctive understanding of the material properties etc., and an appreciation for the more efficient modern methods. Plus if you ever have to fall back on it, you have it.

You don't need a shrink fit machine, just a MAPP gas torch. I did that for a few months while evaluating shrink fit and it worked great. Just takes a bit longer. For that kind of reach, I'd consider roughing it with a highfeed endmill first; they're pretty tolerant of low rigidity situations. Helical and Maritool have some that would work.

Yup. Just define it in inch terms.

I was in love with the idea of MCfSW, but when I looked into it, it was limited. It didn't have access to all the toolpaths that stand-alone MC had, and that made it a nonstarter.

I don't even use the tool library cutting parameters. I use HSMAdvisor and other calculators to generate new parameters for every cut, except for drills and the like.

You can also make another solid (or surface) for avoidance; that can allow it to rough deeper in some areas than others if you want. Is that for a clavicle?

I remember crunching a flowline for a guitar neck on a 266MHZ Pentium in the 90's. Took about half an hour. I'd set the stepover and tolerance way loose to test and adjust things until I liked how it looked, then crank it down and crunch it. Now I figure somethings up if it takes more than a few seconds. And I did walk uphill both ways barefoot in the snow... And I liked it.

Yup.

The toolpath geometry might be on another level, or blanked.

I usually do one part at a time. Sometimes I'll do a setup with anywhere from three to (most so far) 98 parts in an operation. If you're asking about how many Mastercam windows I'll have open, I'll occasionally have one or two additional windows open with similar parts that I've done in the past, to reference details on how I did it.

This sort of thing also happens if you're trying to import a configuration which hasn't been regenerated in Solidworks. Load the file in Solidworks, go through each configuration and regenerate it, save again, then try the import.

Sink EDM it.

Pretty sure I don't have the IT chops to pull it off at this point. It would be a major project.

I imagine there would be a noticeable performance hit.

As soon as I know Mastercam and Solidworks can work reliably on Linux without a noticeable performance hit, I'm gone.

You can ask Windows to pretty please not track you. No guarantee it works. I don't have the time, energy, and expertise to do a deep packet analysis to find out.

Won't touch it with a ten foot pole until I have no other choice. I'm still mad about being kicked off 7. Bought my first Window 10 system this year. Change is great, when it improves things. Change for its own sake is detrimental. Change that makes things worse is far too common. If you thought Windows 10 tracked and controlled you too much...

Light yellow coating for aluminum is zirconium nitride. Helical calls this Zplus. Not to be confused with the darker yellow titanium nitride.

I feel for you. In my experience it's very difficult to get the computer you really need when working through an outsourced IT company. I've had to do it at two companies, and at both, when I sent them a list of specific components (brand and model number), they would swap things out with what they thought was vaguely comparable, but they could get through their approved suppliers. Back and forth for months; no, I don't want that, I want this. In both cases I was eventually able to buy and build the systems I wanted, by promising management that I would take full responsibility for my system, and they served me well.

I know I've said this a million times, but first, do you actually need a laptop, or will a desktop work? I know some (like Ron who programs at customer sites and on airplanes) need a laptop. The rest of us will get far more bang for the buck from a desktop.

What I've been saying since 2016. More clicks, hidden features, major customization required to achieve moderate usability. Now you need to mod the software to get back what was lost.

Ron IS the industry standard...