Thompson Gundrilling. His mother was our across the street neighbor when we moved here in 1974. The son is a great guy. I highly recommend them.

That's the same set-up we have. It sure saves a longgggg walk back to the office for changes we might make. Grab the file we want off the office computer by network and go. Works great.

We have a very large Seeburg NC machine that uses an Italian PC controller from Fidia. We have Mastercam installed and we have done some really large wood models for hydrotels and also sunk some very large dies for the forging industry. The models have been as large as five feet wide by over twelve feet long. The dies have been from four to ten tons in weight. The controller has been very reliable and accurate. The controller has a lot of extra bells and whistles, but I retired before figuring out how to use many of them.

We cut die steel(Finkl#2) in a VF2 and VF4. All forging impression work.

I joined my union(International Die Sinkers Conference)in 1964 as a brand new planer hand. Great wages, benefits and working conditions. Started to learn the trade from the ground up. Became a die sinker apprentice and started my 8-year apprenticeship. The owner always felt that he wanted union people in his shop because of the training they had and the experience. I worked in union shops(2 years off-U.S.Army Vietnam-1966-67) until I was layed off for the last time in 1993. Then I started working in smaller non-union shops-got great wages, benefits and other perks on the experience that I had. But I didn't have to follow assinine union rules and work rules. Surprising how much more work can get done! And the owners were happy with their profits. Yes. I always felt that the union was protecting the job of the LAZIEST, MOST UNPRODUCTIVE WORKERS. The unions were very good in their time to bring the 40 hour workweek, safer working conditions and benefits to families. But the unions ruined it for themselves. The union officers always figured everyone was ENTITLED, not did they really deserve it! When I started to learn NC machining and MC in the early 90's(all of this in night school to prepare for the future), the owner of the LAST union shop I worked for wanted to start a new classification for an NC person doing MC. The union turned the proposal down. I then quit and went to work for his son who had a NON-UNION shop. The son then bought his first Haas and a seat of MC. I retired from this shop in 2003 due to my loss of sight in one eye. But at that time he had 3 seats of MC, 2 Hass' and two very large NC machines. He is still in business! His father had to close his shop in 2001 and put all those union guys out of work because he could not stay competitive. The union shot itself in the foot. Many unions today are just not willing to change with the times. They are dinosaurs. Been on both sides.

Welcome to the forum. I started with MasterCam 3.1 in 1992 and retired in late 2003 with Version 9. I had never used a computer before that time. Went to a community college to learn. When my employer bought his first station of MC, my feet were held to the fire. We had very complicated multi piece forging dies, lot of surfacing and then worked our way through programming. You should be able to do simple drawings and programming within a few days. The more complicated work will take a year or two. You will never learn all that this software can do. Everyday is a learning experience. Good luck.

Randy Try this for a starter. http://www.ghostdepot.com/rg/rolling%20sto...otive/locos.htm Hope it helps.

Randy I belong to a group online called mylargescale.com There was a thread on that site about six months ago where a guy had prints of just about every loco ever built and I believe it was AutoCad. You might do a search there. Or just check the web. They are out there.

Jay Where's Dennis N.?

Jay I see it here.

We lost our access to the internet about two years ago. I retired about six months later. The funny part was we all started to work at 5:30 AM and the boss showed up about 8 or 9 or ........ We had to wait for him to come in to get files from customers and updates for MC and Windows and virus, etc. The amount of hours wasted per day was terrible. The last I heard, the guy who replaced me is pulling his hair out because he is in his late thirties and has a whole bunch of time left! Ah, retirement. I really "miss" the BS.

I had this happen about six months ago. My 2KPro machine had AUTOMATICALLY downloaded some drivers from Microsoft. I finally re-formatted and re-installed MC and NO trouble like this since.

We live in a hilly area of the San Fernando Valley, but have not had any damage here or around us. Most of the sliding homes are those built on the EDGE of steep hillsides. The sun was finally out today so maybe we can dry-out. We could lose some trees if the soil is too wet and we get wind(Santa Ana condition). Like Rek'd, we have been draining the pool every couple of days.

James For small stuff, it DID work great. But for doing plots in the larger formats, we always had problems. The last time I brought it up at Cad-Cam Consulting was probably six or seven years ago. I do know that there were problems with Win drivers or some damn thing. The owner of the place I worked for gave up on the idea of getting a plotter and we "stayed" in the nineteenth century. Ha! Ha! With a HP printer in plot mode, in the small sizes, it was very accurate.

In the 14 years I have used MC for plotting, I have had lousy luck using it. I have brought it up to MasterCam people in seminars out here and never really got a great answer. Maybe X might get it right.....

Frank- Just a piece of advice. Take it easy on yourself. I am retired now, but when I was drawing and programming, I made press and drop forging dies. These are one-of-a-kind jobs, they had to be made right the first time (theory), but mistakes ARE made and we deal with it. You were hired because you know what you are doing-you would not have the job otherwise. Slow down and check your work-rushing is where mistakes are made! If the boss doesn't like it, let him program for 30 machines! He will soon "see the light". If he doesn't let up, QUIT. There are many other jobs out there. Believe me.

Hey Jay, I am just going to use 9. Thanks for the offer though. I have some work to do for Santa Fe Enterprises- It keeps me busy during retirement.

Yeah!!

I've got a problem here with v8.1. I have loaded v8.1 from the 8.1 CD, NOT THE 8.0 CD (dated 1-26-2001) in my machine. I downloaded the patch for 8.1 to 8.1.1 to the main MC8 directory, but the patch won't take. Message says "Old file not found". This is not a big problem, I have v9.1 updated to SP 2, but I reformatted this drive and would like to have this version on the machine. Anyone had this problem?

I've had a Haas continue to run after a spindle overloads. Large cutter and big die blocks-very scary! Sure sounds like a spindle overload considering it occurs on plunge.

Before I retired from this rat-race this year, I used MC for all the design of our forging dies, learned to surface and fillet forgings the hard way! Then when MC came out with solids, that was great. We tried Solidworks for a while, but being self-taught and trying to produce, was the greatest! MC does it all!

These problems didn't just occur in the 60's. I have been in the die sinking trade since 1964. In the early 90's we got a job from Cessna Aircraft-a print with SIX datum planes and three were canted in different angles! I had to draw this part from the ugliest prints you ever saw. There were double dimensions, absolute dimensions (but only reference dimensions). A real nightmare-took about 2 and a half weeks to complete. Anyway I completed the job and we machined the die. We turned the cast in for inspection and we had some areas that were excess stock by .300. A lot of the problem was the rule of dimensioning and which dimension took precedence over the other. Remember, I am OLD school. I explained to the inspection department what I had done and they agreed I was correct. We sent the cast back to Cessna in Kansas and I got a call from their chief engineer asking me to change the dimensions on the print to match what I had done. He told me they had always had problems with the part but because the print had been drawn by hand, they were not able to catch the error- MasterCAM did!! This happens quite often. We have a little six man job correcting work for a hundred man engineering department. And, of course we don't get paid for all the corrective drawing and engineering we have to do. Just my vent.

As a Vietnam vet, I would like to recommend a site that is apolitical. It will explain why so many Vietnam veterans are so upset with Kerry. www.swiftvets.com

Jimbo- Go to backplot, display and then near the bottom of the general dialog box (lower left-hand corner, check Save as geometry.

It shades in an instant. 2.0 ghz Ti 4400 128 meg 1 gig ram W2000 Pro