I saw that one earlier about golf that reminded me of this one. This guy is about to tee off and his wife is sitting on a bench over a little to the side of the tee box, just watching. He hits his tee shot with a driver and catches it off the toe. It hits her in the side of the head and she keels over. Later, at the hospital, the guy is pacing around waiting for any news as to her condition. A doctor finally comes out and says, "I'm sorry, but the head injury was so severe. There was nothing we could do and she just died." The golfer said, "Well, it is certainly all my fault. She was just sitting there and my tee shot hit her really hard, right in the side of the head." The doctor says, "Yes, that is almost certainly what killed her, but when we x-rayed her, we also found a golf ball lodged in her rectum." The golfer says, "Yea, that was my Mulligan."

Well, since everybody in this forum is a little bit crazy, I figured I couldn't offend anyone with this old one: A guy is driving along and suddenly has a flat tire right next to an insane asylum. He has a spare and a jack and everything is cool. He takes off the bad tire, carefully putting all the lugs in the hubcap for safekeeping. While he's getting out the spare, however, a car cuts by too close and hits the hubcap, sending all the lugs flying out into the deep grass. He just stands there wondering what in the world he's gonna do now and one of the patients that's been standing up against the fence watching all this says "Why don't you just take one lug off of each of the other three wheels and use them to hold the the spare. Then you can just drive to a parts place and get more lugs." The driver says, "Wow, I'm impressed....that really is a good idea, especially coming from...well a person in an insane asylum." The patient says "You know, they put us in here because we're crazy, not because we're stupid."

10-18-51 Some of you youngsters will get a kick out of this. I helped my roommate in college put together a MITS "computer" kit in something like 1972 but didn't get hooked on computers until Radio Shack came out with their TRS-80 later in the 70's. It had 4K (that's right, K} of ram and stored very, very short BASIC programs on regular ole audio casette tapes. Later on, they let me trade in my original when the new TRS80 Model II came out. Now we were getting somewhere because that one had a floppy! It was 8 inch. Plus, it had an optional 2nd bay so you could have a boot disk and a data disk going at the same time. That was a great option because there was no hard drive and so you always had to boot up with a system floppy! Hmmmm.....let's see, Floppies in the 70's, "IBM Compatible" in the 80's, CNC router (with Bobcad) in the 90's, Mastercam in the 00's....scary, ain't it? Paul

Generic Fanuc, 3 axis Mill post Thanks- Paul

Hey to all- I'm still new to Mastercam, running Ver9 Mill on an old Digital Tool router with a PC based controller. Our dealer set us up with a post processor and we're up an running. Still, I'm not satisfied to know nothing about post processing and wonder if anyone can steer me toward some good literature. I noticed that there is a "post" section to this emastercam.com forun but it is restricted. What's up wid dat? Thanks- Paul

We bring scanned (raster) images into Autocad and then trace over them. The tracings are vectors and can be scaled and so forth and then the whole thing can be saved as a dxf. Autocad will not do outright raster to vector conversion. Hope that helps - Paul

Trevor- I went to the link you provided but could not find the book you mentioned. I guess it may be hidden in there somewhere but if you can shed any light, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Paul

To clarify a point about what I said about Plexiglas (acrylic) not machining worth a hoot, vs Lexan (polycarbonate) which does machine ok.....As long as the as the acrylic is cast acrylic, I understand that it'll machine OK, too.

Thanks all- seems there was something funky in my post. The dealer fixed it and we're back to making sawdust.

Be careful of the terms "Lexan" and "Plexiglas"- Lexan is a brand name of polycarbonate. We make templates from it on a regular basis with a 1/16" diameter carbide cutter without a problem. Plexiglas, on the other hand, is a brand name of cast acrylic and we have never been able to get a decent template from it. It melts, glues itself back together, breaks bits, gives us a lot of grief. As Dave Barry says, "I'm not making this up." Paul

Thanks- I'll keep trying.

I'm still new at this but have created some surfaces and have created rough-out and finish operations for them. A typical area would be 2-3 inches across and 4-5 inches long. I'm roughing about 3/4 of an inch deep with a .625 dia. flat end cutter, leaving a little, and then finishing up with a .25 dia ball end cutter. We're working in wood with Mill9sp1. My rough and finish operations Backplot and Verify fine, but when I post them and actually cut the surfaces on our router, out of nowhere, I get big (5 to 6 inch) unexpected moves that would obviously crach the cutter into something were it not for me standing there and aborting the run. I suspect that this is POST related and that our dealer will get to the bottom of it. Am I wrong to expect Backplot and Verify to be accurate?

We have a couple of two-flute cutters from Amana Tool that take carbide inserts. We use them to cut out wood and MDF. The inserts are reversible so you get to use them twice, making the cost a little more bearable. They do not cut as smoothly as spiral cutters and they do not like to plunge! Anyway, their stuff is good quality and we have no complaints. Their website is www.amanatool.com Paul

I'm new to Mastercam, too. Located in the middle of South Carolina, doing custom woodwork on a CNC router. Previously used Autocad and Bobcad to create toolpaths. Had little success with 3D and hope Mastercam changes all that!