CNC Lathes

[Brian Selle]

We acquired (as in free) a small CNC lathe early this year. I have a fair amount of experience with manual lathes and mills, but as others have said, these type machines require a knowledgeable person to set up, maintain and teach it -or- a LOT of work by someone to get up to speed. I've been pecking away at learning it for the past 3-4 months and feel capable but very slow. We now have a few programs to turn retainer ring grooves on the end of hex axles, make Colson hubs, etc but seriously... with the amount of work I've put into this I could have turned 1000 axles. The kids dig running it but we probably run it manually more often than under CNC. I just put in a request for a nice manual lathe... along with a manual mill that should service 99% of what we need.