Has any one ever cut copper tungsten (15% copper, 85% tungsten) I was wondering if someone could give me some ideas on tooling and speeds and feeds. Thanks in advance, Chris

Never heard of the MINI MILL before, read up on it and am very impressed. Any body got 30,000$. As for the desktop mill ,It's just another toy that I want. I think it would be fun to play around with. and hopefully I could make a little money on the side with it.

I've been looking at various model desktop mills from Roland to Sherline. I am very interested in purchasing one for myself. Does anyone have any experience with these products? And can you offer any suggestions or dos and donts. thanks Chris

Oh well Keith, Let her have her fun! I guess!

We use all Matsuura high speed machining centers. One thing that you may want to ask is what options that the machines come with. The problem that we are having right now is with surfacing- not big problems- but we notice that when the ballnose tools come into a small outside corner, the machine tends to slow down ( the machine is thrown into G107 look ahead) What we didn't realize is that there is a package addon for multisurfacing. Maybe you want to ask about what is involved or included in their HSM package---nurbs interpolation, multisurface HSM etc. I'm not sure if the machines you will be looking at have boxways or linear guideways. Our Matsuuras have linear guideways and that makes it a little harder to cut harder steels. I have to be a little more careful when I am programming . But I'm pretty sure the philosophy is all the same --- lighter cuts at much faster feedrates. Hope this helps Chris [ 09-20-2001: Message edited by: ChrisD ]

Luther, I read the second link you provided, and I don't understand why they are choosing to criticize Bush's reaction in front of a camera. Do alot of people actually feel this way? Chris

Good Morning First of all please allow me to express my deepest sympathies to the victims, their families and those who have been affected by this terrible act. We have been bombarded with videos and audio exerpts of the events from yesterday and those images are permanantly burned into my mind. One of the biggest questions that has been asked constantly is " How could this have happened?" or " How could we have prevented this?" In my own opinion, I don't believe it could have been prevented. It came out of nowhere. "Government Soldiers are paid to fight. Terrorists do it for nothing" This quote in no way is to downplay the US Army, Navy, Marines, Airforce personnel in any way. In my experience they are the most dedicated service men and women in the world. But, when you are up against people that are, "brainwashed", into thinking that they will be heroes for committing these acts without any empathy and compensation, it's hard to fight or predict a purely one track dedicated mind(s). I hope that there will be no "Witch hunt" for those who should take the blame for allowing this to happen. After all, everyone of us is only Human. Obviously those in charge would have never imagined something as evil as this happening, and I believe that is what makes them human. "Where ever there is a complete lack of empathy, there is pure evil" I don't know what it is like down in the regions affected by this tragedy. I can only imagine. It affected the whole world yesterday in one way or another, and I hope I am not overstepping my bounds here, but this is how I honestly feel. It made me proud to be in this part of the world yesterday to see that the American people will not let this bring them down. P.S. My wife and I used to argue about History taught in schools. She did'nt believe that it was as important as math or science, and too much emphasis was put into it, that the mistakes of the past were made by people and mindsets of the past. She learned a big lesson yesterday. God Bless Chris

...And just think, I bet alot of us were in the same shoes that these boys were in. Advice: use the knowledge that you utilized to outsmart your girlfriends' fathers when you were their age. That way, you know the little ........ can't outsmart you. PS : I think today's younger generation are probably alot more informed than we were about alot of things. I'm sure you can trust them and give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making important decisions. JMHO

Just thought I would do a follow up to a previous post "Things are slow" a couple of months ago. Just wondering if things haved picked up on everybody's end. Chris

Hello All. The company has purchased for me an Iomega Zip external drive. It has a parallel port hookup. It came with the utlity or setup cd. I was wondering if it would cause any problems with my hasp. If so than, what can be done. Any body have experience installing this type of thing. Mastercam 8.1 and Windows NT Thanks in advance Chris

Actually I'm looking for some, (don't laugh), astrological designs like Leo, Saggittarius and so forth. P.S. Thanks for calling me sir.

Good Morning Everyone. I was wondering if there is any place I can get a 2d vector drawing of different artwork. I am making some custom rosettes for the trim in my house. ( I've been promising my wife to get it done for the past few weeks and she's getting very impatient!) Help me please!

Thanks PDG.

Okay , here goes. I'm using 8.1. When I first got it I was able to goto job setup and use bounding box to set my stock size for verification. As soon as i was done, I was able to go to operations manager and select verify and the stock would be the correct size ,( I wouldn't even have to select "USE JOB SETUP VALUES" button). After about a month of being able to do that, I got a job that required a cylindrical stock setup. That worked out okay. After I went back to programming a rectangular shaped job. I went to toolpaths-job setup and setup my stock size. When I went to verify the program, I found I had to reset my stock sizes while in verify mode in the verify parameters, because the stock shown was way too big. Is this a bug? I find it strange that this happened after I did a cylindrical job. Is there a way around this that I may not see? Thanks for any help in advance Chris

Depending on which machine or control that you have, you may not have to worry about the pieces being reversed on half the stations. In some controls you have the option of rotating your G54 to G59 offsets 180 degrees. Have you checked to see if this is in your control? If it is, you can have the datum on either side of the fixed jaw. Hope this helps Chris

Just a curious question: What is a 401k? Is it a pension or retirement plan?

M60's are allowed?!!!

What kind of cutting tool are you using and can you describe the shape you are trying to cut?

I'm using software handshake.

I'm using CNCEDIT to communicate with a Nakamura-Tome C-axis Lathe with Fanuc controls. I can send a program from the control to the computer with no problem, but when I try to send a program to the control it just won't do it. I've checked everything baud rate- handshake - parity and they are all okay. Could it be the cable itself?

Mazak VTC 41M May 1995 to JUNE 1995 R.I.P. "G43 Z-19.000 H19 M08" Those numbers, I will never forget!

It's amazing how one question (just about a video card problem) can invoke such a catty attitude. Don't waste time trying to call this "multax" guy out of the bushes. There are other AND better things to worry about. Concentrate on doing the best job that you can with what you've got. This forum has been helpful to me and I have enjoyed reading alot of the posts in it. But this one is getting ridiculously childish. This has been my honest opinion and just to make sure that I won't be called a coward too, here is my name and address: Chris DiNardo Accufor Industries 46 Auriga Drive Nepean, Ontario, Canada

Just clck and drag your roughing parameters and select "Copy After". Then go into your new parameters and change your depth cuts to 5mm. I don't think it's possible to do what you want in one shot.

Rekd is right. We may never get rich but at least there are no regrets. As I told a friend of mine getting into this trade. Make sure it's what you really want to do. There's nothing worse than realizing 20 years from now that you are miserable at your job. Money isn't everything ---sometimes. As far as the business goes, this is one of those lines of work where you have to really like it-- good times or bad.

This seems to work on a 10 year cycle. Things slowed down here alot with the layoffs from two gigantic firms. The gravy train had to end sometime. Now hopefully, with wiser spending habits and ALOT less frills for their "star employees" they (i mean everybody-suppliers included) will come back down to Earth. But live and learn I guess. We're doing mostly prototype work now, which is not too bad. Things will pick up though.