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Originally Posted by carpedav000
CNC mills are beautiful for sheet metal fabrication, if you have someone who is willing to cad.
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What R.C. said - waterjet, laser, router all make more sense for sheet metal parts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carpedav000
Lathes are basically manual CNC mills. They can also be used as very precise drill presses.
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No - lathes are lathes. Mills are mills. There is some small overlap, but they do very different tasks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carpedav000
Surface grinders can be used to remove sharp edges/burs from material that has been cut
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No - you're better off with a deburring tool or sander. Surface grinders are common in machine shops, but I struggle to think of where they would be necessary for FRC. They're used to create very smooth, and flat surfaces - often at very tight tolerances.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carpedav000
Cold saws (from what I understand) are basically fancy chop saws, which can be used to cut material (channel, HDPE blocks) to length.
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They're normally designed to cut ferrous material, normally at slow (<100 RPM) speeds. More or less a chop saw for steel or hard materials. Less than optimal for cutting aluminum, but they'll work.