The "Ask Nathan a Question" Thread

benchrest308 said:
Nathan the Machinist Nathan the Machinist will Jo's integral be the dagger design you were thinking of or is it more of a UF/Boot dagger hybrid? Jo's integral was something like 20lbs of bar stock milled to approx. 3lbs, right?
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The weight reduction is much more than that. The large dagger was 24 lb reduced to 24 oz. I don't know what the numbers were for Jo's but it's pretty small and light.
 
Just a basic two-axis lathe gets pretty wild when you're interpolating your X and treating the spindle like a c-axis and using a live tool to cut a hex etc. You ever done anything like that? I've seen it but I don't know how to program it.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Just a basic two-axis lathe gets pretty wild when you're interpolating your X and treating the spindle like a c-axis and using a live tool to cut a hex etc. You ever done anything like that? I've seen it but I don't know how to program it.
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I've used a T-slot cutter to cut blocks to size then used live thread milling to thread a hole on the x axis then line up the flat jaw pickoff to the flats of the part on the R axis for cutoff. That's pretty cool.

Id bet most of the 9 axis programming is done by mastercam. I wouldnt be able to program the super complicated stuff like moving on 3 axis at once but I could tell a drill to come in and drill at an angle in a certain x.y.z. location if I had practice and a program to study.
 
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Yeah that whole nine axis thing is a little bit misleading because they're not actually interpolating 9 axis of freedom of motion. I've run a split table gantry router and the two tables that you would think of as Y were a different parallel axis. That machine also had the tool changer on a motion control with a servo and it was an axis that could be controlled but obviously was not contributing to the motion control.

I have done a little bit of five axis machining but even that was not true five axis it was 3 + 2 with your regular XYZ and then a A and c rotary axis, The c-axis basically allowing the A to also work as a B. It's not a very good setup because it has too many motions stacked on top of each other and so it lacked rigidity and accuracy, but it sure was cool. It was a janky Thermwood. I made some thermoform molds and trim fixtures on it. I'm wanting to say it had 10 ft in the X-axis.

Our Mori that we bevel the knives on is a four axis. But it has servo motion control for the carousel and the pallet changer and the tool touch off system so when you look under the hood it is a "7 axis", in theory but it's really only a four.

When you hear nine axis lathe you start envisioning insanely complicated motion but I'll bet it's actually just a freaking three axis lathe with a sub spindle. You'll be making parts on it in a week
 
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