CNC restoration, hard-milling knife blades and more!

aarongough said:
Pretty decent actually, roughly 6 blades per tool. Cycle time is 7.5 hours (I'm running 100% unattended/lights out).
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Is that six blades (one tool) in 7.5 hrs, or is that cycle time 7.5 hours per blade? <--- could be read either way...
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Is that six blades (one tool) in 7.5 hrs, or is that cycle time 7.5 hours per blade? <--- could be read either way...
Click to expand...

it has to be 7.5 hrs for a setup of 6 blades....1.25 hours each blade, pretty sure Aaron has a 6 blade fixture setup and the "cycle" to complete the set = 7.5 hours

as you know, 7.5 hrs per blade would be incredibly slow (even at that hardness) and no longer economical,

Frankly IMO, 1.25 hrs isn't that economical even at a bargain machine rate of say $45 per hour machine time.... but I know, it's unmanned, he gets to do other stuff while running it etc etc. And I think Aaron enjoys the tinkering and problem solving :) :thumbsup:
 
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I like seeing your process.

But for production water jet and a grinding jig for that design would allow a lot more blades with less cost and less time.

Have you ever thought of doing a different design that could be advantages by using a mill?
 
HSC /// said:
it has to be 7.5 hrs for a setup of 6 blades....1.25 hours each blade, pretty sure Aaron has a 6 blade fixture setup and the "cycle" to complete the set = 7.5 hours

as you know, 7.5 hrs per blade would be incredibly slow (even at that hardness) and no longer economical,

Frankly IMO, 1.25 hrs isn't that economical even at a bargain machine rate of say $45 per hour machine time.... but I know, it's unmanned, he gets to do other stuff while running it etc etc. And I think Aaron enjoys the tinkering and problem solving :) :thumbsup:
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Well yeah, that math doesn't work well for a commercial enterprise, but it can work okay for an individual. Lets say someone is making two knives a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year. If a person can make (and sell and ship) 500 knives a year he'd be making more knives than most makers on this forum and earning a decent living doing it. Utilizing a machine that's paid for. *shrug*

A mill doesn't need to produce insane output to work. It's probably not the bottleneck in the operation.
 
HSC /// said:
it has to be 7.5 hrs for a setup of 6 blades....1.25 hours each blade, pretty sure Aaron has a 6 blade fixture setup and the "cycle" to complete the set = 7.5 hours

:) :thumbsup:
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It's "single workpiece flow"

Multi stations on the fixture, they all get some ops and need to be held differently at different times.
At the end of the cycle, you move them all to the right, so you put a new blank one in position 1, move 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and 4 is ready for hand finishing/glue up.

The other stations on the fixture are for handle bits. Same idea.

One finished piece for 7.5 hours, not six
 
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