Without actually looking at the geometry and playing with it for a bit. I would try a dovetail cutter with enough shank relief to clear the end of the barrel. Just a thought.

Try here,

https://www.fastcap.com

This guy Ty, worked for setco for 15 years. I hear he's top notch at a fraction of the price. I personally know mechanics that have used him and have nothing but good things so say about him. pm me if you want his number.

Sorry should have read the whole post.

it should be behind the control itself, on the left, 2 screws should open it up. Power off machine, machine gives you 30 min to change the battery, so you should back the control up before you start.

Funny I had to buy batteries for my lathe. This is were I bought them.

http://www.batteriesdirect.com/product/details/specialty-batteries/mitsubishi/mr-j2

good luck

Yea, free solids!

That article really gave no numbers on specific materials. Although it could be done, but the taper/kerfing and cycle time would...

None the less its a great idea.

1) What kind of part quantity are you looking at?

2) How are you holding the part?

3) can you flip the part end for end?

4) how long is the tool holder? 13"?

5) is the machine 40 or 50 taper?

6) are you machining the slot in one shot?

7) what tool motion strategy are you using?

8) does the tool chatter? why?

Edm is a great idea but pricey

extrusion is a great idea, but I think this is cast aluminum plate.

Casting maybe?

Water jet through 12"...

Here's a tool I'd look at.

Ph horn

dia - 7.8740 w - .236

holder - 383.0200.40.06

insert - R/L 314.0320.20

Me thinks the lenght of your calibration standard is off by .0015.

My horizontal is setup a bit different than most. Pallets are shuttled in to the machine, the machine doesn't know which pallet is being machined nor does it keep track of what pallet is being machined. Each one of my fixtures has a unique bore size, the probe first touches the face fixture setting all the tools in the rack, and then it probes the bore, setting the fixture offset, and then based on the size of the bore the macro I wrote calls the correct program and machines the parts. I know everyone that has horizontal deals with these same issues. I just took all the operator input out the equation. Fixtures on a like tombstones can be ran on any face, this makes my job easy. We need part, operator loads the fixture, schedules the number of cycles, and the machine just runs. I can get 98% spindle time this way. That is if I can get the operators to load material. lol

Most machine tool manufactures only make certain parts on any machine tool. There fore the other 80% of the parts are sourced out. Yeah, I know you guys didn't know that.

That Google search can save you a lot of money! lol