7 months by cncdivi
The CNCCookbook team is thrilled because it’s a new machine day, a day always exciting for any shop. We have just unpacked our advanced pre-release version of the imminent Tormach CNC Lathe. Here are some pictures for you to check out:
This right here is BOB’s lathe!
Hang on, this is not how I remember it from Wisconsin. Oops, it’s backwards–turn it around…
That’s how I remember it! That fella helping me out is John Bower, the owner of Santa Cruz Electronics, our Northern California Tormach Dealer…
My lathe has a roomie. This is Santa Cruz Electronics Tormach 1100 demo unit. The third fella is my brother Dave. Very easy to unpack and deal with this lathe when you got 3 guys. Honestly wouldn’t be hard to just do it alone. A pallet jack and some crowbars are about all we used so far.
Lots more to do before I’m making chips, but I’ve got to wait for some tooling to arrive before I’ll get very far. I’ll publish as I go, and hope to be starting work making machinist’s hammers before too long.
I want to give a special shout out to our local Tormach dealer, Santa Cruz Electronics, and John Bower, who owns SCE. John is a heckuva nice guy who’s been helping out the DIY and Maker community for ages. He’s not only a Tormach dealer, but he’s got a bunch of laser engravers and he can talk your ear off about guitar making as he is a luthier with a CNC Router.
It’s really neat having a machine tool dealer right down the street. SCE is a stocking showroom dealer, so you can actually see and touch the machines and tooling. He’s open 7 days a week too, so the next time I break my last endmill, I am hopping in the car and heading over to get a new one so I can keep machining. If you’re in the Northern Cal area (or heck further, he’s got people visiting from other states), and you’re interested in CNC, get in touch with John. He has a lot to offer.
John is putting on an Open House on Saturday, October 12, in Santa Cruz, California. The event will run from noon until 4pm and include PCNC mill demos. I’ll be there as well to meet people and enjoy the fun. Even more importantly, they’ll also have Tormach staff available to answer any questions you may have. For advanced registration or more information about the Open House event, emailRSVP@santacruzelectronics.com.
John has some neat products he’s working on for the Tormach, and I’m hoping one or two will be shown at the Open House as well.
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Bob is responsible for the development and implementation of the popular G-Wizard CNC Software. Bob is also the founder of CNCCookbook, the largest CNC-related blog on the Internet.
Bob, it looks great! Nothing like the arrival of a nice brand new toy to play with!
Anyway, have a look at this eye popping piece of 250 year old incredible technology that I just received! It will blow you away with its beauty and complexity. Has some relevance to what we are doing with programming and machining.
http://www.chonday.com/Videos/the-writer-automaton
This guy really had an incredible brain, to design and build this fantastic artistic “Automatom.”
I will be fascinated to hear your response.
Have fun with the new lathe.
Stephen
Fascinating video, Stephen. Thanks for sharing.
BW
All the pics are superb…well going with your pre-release version of the upcoming Tormach CNC Lathe uncrated. Appreciate your effort and keep sharing.
Nice machine so far! Waiting for the in depth review. By the way these pics give one a little perspective on size, it is actually smaller than I expected. That is actually good for those of us with little shops.
By te way is the lathe set up in your shop or at SCE? Just wondering.
AWESOME! Can’t wait to see more in this lathe!
There’s obviously been a mistake. That lathe was supposed to come to my shop!!
Bill, my lathe, MINE!
LOL
Hi Bob
Looks great. Can’t wait to see it machining those Hammers. When you have some time could you please take some detailed pictures of the mechanics, etc. Thanks.
Willy
OK Bob it has been a month now and still no videos of the machine making chips. We need to know if it works or is just taking up floor space. 🙂
Dave
Good news and bad–all on my side. The good news is it is now making chips. I still have one or two adjustments to make, but things are working reasonably smoothly. The bad news is I haven’t had an awful lot of time to play with it–CNCCookbook keeps me REALLY busy, LOL.
We did just have an open house with Santa Cruz Electronics where the machine is located and a lot of locals got to check it out. Reactions were very positive. I will start my series on making machinist’s hammers with it soon, I promise.
How about an update on the Tormach slant bed lathe?
Mike, still enjoying the lathe. Didn’t have as much time with it as I would’ve liked through the holidays, but I’ll get back to it. It has proven solid and I suspect we are nearing the end of the Beta test period.
Thanks – sounds like it shouldn’t be long now before they are in production. It would be great to see another blog entry on your experience with it so far.
Mike