Uses of a Machine Shop and Equipment

[scottandme]

Originally Posted by carpedav000

CNC mills are beautiful for sheet metal fabrication, if you have someone who is willing to cad.

What R.C. said - waterjet, laser, router all make more sense for sheet metal parts.

Originally Posted by carpedav000

Lathes are basically manual CNC mills. They can also be used as very precise drill presses.

No - lathes are lathes. Mills are mills. There is some small overlap, but they do very different tasks.

Originally Posted by carpedav000

Surface grinders can be used to remove sharp edges/burs from material that has been cut

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.

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.

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.