How did you get into CNC?

[TurningHead]

Cut my teeth designing Chuck Jaws and Tooling for the 2SC and 2SCL - when they were state of the art and Tape Operated !!

Has it really been THAT long ???

I landed my job at W/S in 1972, fresh out of the Infantry, wet behind the ears, and lucky as hell because I knew someone who knew someone and the second someone took a chance on me. It is no urban legend that back then Veterans were considered too big a risk and at the time many employers would not even consider hiring a Vet. The man who took a chance on me was named Roger Bitner and I still owe this man more than a few cold-ones. May he rest in peace. Not sure why he hired me - in my interview we did not discuss machinery or tooling at all !
The only things I really had going for me was one good reference, an Honorable Discharge, and decent Grades from two semesters at a Tech School called The Cleveland Engineering Institute.

Many Thanks to Roger. Largely because of him I have always been able to pull enough fruit off the tree to take care of my family.

Thanks for Asking !
John

[Ox]

At my last job (>20yrs ago) we had gotten in an old Brown and Sharp HydraTape. What a mammoth! And the control was a wall in itself! Had'ta be a '60's unit as I have never seen another one that old since! Nor have I see another control like that EVER!

I never prog'd that or enything, but I did change parts on it occassionally. VERY occassionally.

We got in a Hydratell with high expectations of getting some big die werk, but that fell through I guess and that machine never ran that I know of?


Then I went on my own. After a cpl yrs I was looking at "How the other half lived". I bought a nother cheap B&S Hydratape. This one was newer and had a GE550 on it I think? Or was it a 750? I kant be sure enymore.

Never got that one fully up and running and didn't feel that I had the $ to gamble with repairs and traded it back in for an Acroloc with a GN3 I think. (read Fanuc 3) I dinked with it a while and never got that one going either. Gave up on that one as well and sold it to an old customer who did an early PC retrofit on it. I think he still runs it?


Then in '92 I found a Bridgeport SerII SP with a 4 axis Dynopath System 10 control that was also sporting a 20" Troyke NC20 20" CNC rotary table. IT RAN! ( what a concept!) Not only that - but it was about 7 yrs old with not many hours on it. I BOUGHT IT!


Then a Cinci mill in '93

Then a Hardinge lathe in '97

Sold the Bridgeport CNC around 2000/01 (Still in nice shape and with an updated control on it.)

Another Hardinge lathe in '02

Another Cinci mill around '03/'04 (?)

2 Lodge and Shipley lathes and an Excello mill in '06 (The Excello didn't run.)

A sister Excello and a Tornos lathe in '07

Took first Cinci out of service in '07 and stripped and scrapped in '08

2 more Hardinges (mills this time) in '08

Just added 3 ATS "Turn 6" CNC transfer machines (Check that in for '09) But they are in storage currently. Waiting for either more roof or a job.

Goal for '09 is to have the one Excello making chips. It's comming along. That should make 9 CNC's in line and under power?

Does a robot count? It's unemployed - so I spose not....


---------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

[dkmc]

Well, a looong time ago (1993-4??) I got this job from a customer, drilling & tapping a row of holes down the length of pipe......

It was taking 45 minutes each on a BP mill
And quoted at $14 each!

So I started looking (harder) for a CNC mill clunker I could get for no money....but a tool changer would be nice too for this job! Drill, c'sink, tap ..... 3 tools eh?

So I heard about a junkie that had this mill that 'looked to be' like a one time cnc, but all the cnc was gone now.

And I went, I looked, I spent 8 hours haggling, and I bought for $350. Then I did some PI work, and found the prev owners. They had 3 more of these things, and stripped the CNC stuff for spares, but I talked them out of it (2 skids worth) for like.....$3500.
I now had the best deal on the last cnc mill "kit" on earth.....(that's the way it always feels at the time anyway). They cut off the motor and tool changer cables with a hack saw....all the guts, control boards, drives, were out of the (now empty) NEMA enclosure and sitting on the pallets. I guess I REALLY wanted a cnc mill.... And I spent hours....hours....reconstructing and re-fitting the motors, control, tool changer, etc.


Open machine, 'oversized' bridgeport NMTB 40 spindle.

Meanwhile.......

Another sister to this machine at another shop was traded in, and this dealer-from-afar calls me out of the blue, and asks if I want to buy this machine.....he don't want it. So, I go locally and look at it....it is in MINT condition, all complete, and functional.
$7500....and they do 4 payments.....yee-haw.

The 'pipe' job gets set up on this machine, one piiece at a time, and it takes 7 minutes per part. That $14 each is looking much better now!
This was around maybe ....1996....

The first machine eventually got put ALL together and actually was fully functional, and did some simple jobs for a few years, but eventually the control had some problems and it got ripped out...and in went a PC based retrofit that was never finished....and as it sits today.

The second machine still makes the 'pipes' now & then, finally made a fixture about 2 years ago to do 6 at a time....at around 4.5 minutes apiece, and they are at $17 each now....so that ole girl really earns her keep every time that job runs on 'er...

Then....about 2 years ago, another 'sister' machine (same make, same model) came available at sealed bid sale. It is all functional, and I played with it under power before the sale. Ironically, I got that one for $180. And 2 years later.....I have yet to power it up since it got here! But I have about 40 tons of 'other' fish to fry....ah....maybe FRY isn't a good word to use around old cnc machines......?

This is only a story about 3 machines out of about 15-20.

The two latest points of interest and results from my sealed bid adventures, are waiting just outside the door. Enclosed smallish VMC's....6000!! rpm.....flood coolant.....20? x 14ish x 18ish....woo. I have high hopes and low expectations. But they -could- be the key to vastly improving my cnc milling capabilities, and I find that a bit excitiing.
And if it all does work out, and if no parts or major repairs are required, and some, -ANY work- ever comes along again, I figure at $50/hr I'll have each one paid complete off in about an hour & 45 minutes....

dk

[HuFlungDung]

I got started when I was a wee lad back in the 60's, and hanging around my dad's blacksmith shop. I turned the crank on the old post drill, complete with the 'power feed' ratchet wheel on top. Oh, and turned the crank on the forge blower too. Man, that thing would hum if you twisted its tail hard enough

After I graduated from high school in 1972, I talked my dad into building a new and better shop. I had taken up telescope making as a hobby, and knew that eventually, I was going to want to make some telescope parts and that a lathe would be handy for that. Our first machine tool was a 13" lathe, a Western, Kirloskar something from India. It was a nice heavy little machine, complete with gap bed that you could turn something 18" diameter in!

So I fooled around learning and machining on my telescope parts. A friend sold me a small Fritz Werner mill, horizontal/vertical, a real cute little thing with about 12" of X travel, and barely room to get a drill in the spindle. The first paying job I can remember on that thing was milling the flanges down on about 1200 feet of bar channel, to make a roller chain guide track to go into a long dryer oven of a local egg tray flat manufacturer. I still remember the 'vise grip' fixture I built to reposition the material quickly......one foot at a time! Gosh, what we do for money

In the beginning of getting my shop going, I did a lot of welding and small fabrications and repair to all sorts of farm equipment, since the repair business was my dad's trade, as well has part time farming. He was no machinist, though, so I basically book learned and tried stuff on my own.

Dad sold most of his farm in about '76, so he offered to loan me enough money to buy a serious lathe, so I bought a 19 x 80 Summit. Wow, what capacity that machine had! It wasn't long before I'd picked up a cheap horizontal mill from a local pulp mill machine shop. Bought a new pillar drill. Hired a couple of men to help me, too. Did lots of repair work for local industries and got a good rep going.

Lots of businesses came and went in our area. I outlasted 'em all but they all helped me acquire what equipment I've collected today I got into cnc by first buying an old Bandit equipped lathe retrofit to play around with. We needed that thing when we got into manufacturing (on a small scale) some specialty equipment for the bee industry. And so to this day, we (myself and my brother) work on all sorts of things.

Oh, if it matters, we both have our journeymen's papers just so we could say we have 'em. Well, I needed mine so I could take on apprentices under various employment training programs.

[WILLEO6709]

My journey to cnc is a bit of a strange one.... I was always a gearhead in high school.. most likely to go into auto body or auto mechanics( though I did make national honor society on virtually no homework outside of class) as my high school did not have anything like a machine shop. The local junior college had a machining program....my choices were there, Iowa state for mechanical engineering ( actually accepted if I had chosen that route). I wound up taking the 2 year junior college program. The first year was all manual...second year there were 2 classes , one cnc milling, one cnc turning. Basic courses just enough to show you what you don't know.
About a year after graduation I got a tool engineering job at an office furniture manufacturer. Basically drawing stuff ( still used a board in those days, circa 1990), got a autocad system in 1994..... learned that. The place bought a cnc mill in 1996...I got to tag along to the training at the dealer. within a year I had a smaller one of my own at home. Within 1 year I had 2 machines, both vmc's. Fast forward 10 years or so.. we have 5 hmc's running, 4 vmc's, 2 cnc wire edm's, a cnc sinker, a cnc swiss, and a cnc turning center. Add that to od grinders, centerless grinders, jig grinders, surface grinders, tool and cutter grinders, manual hbm, bridgeport, older heavy iron mills, monarch ee's, a cochester 17 x 78 engine lathe, 11 full time employees and we are the most complete shop in the area.

[Gerrythewelshman]

Swept the floor untill someone went sick
Ran only capstans in the old days for 4yrs producing parts by hand
Sequence controls (pegboards etc,) came in early 70's
Then cam autos and multi spindles untill 90s
CNC after that 2 axis and 3 axis stuff
Then big ship parts in Holland (5ton+) on horizontals
Suger crushers on Verticals (1 ton)
Lathe 2 axis and 3 axis in Ireland smaller stuff to 2" dia
10 axis Deco sliders and 10 axis Miyano's from 0.125" to 2.5mm at the moment
www.Mannengineering.ie

[grymster]

I like to think I finished my graduate studies in the seventh grade..... well.... as much studying as I was going to do anyway . Spent the next few years partying, then at age 16, got a job as a machinist's helper at Western Gear in Belmont, California. Mostly operated a broom. They grew weary of the labor union and moved to the Los Angleles area about six months after I started. One of the guys that got the axe went to work for Standard Engineering in Fremont. He hired me on and I ran put-n-take parts on drill presses and Bridgeports. Then he tried me out on a Shizouka CNC mill. I got to be pretty fair at it. Left there for more money and a shorter commute in Redwood City. Paramount Tool and Machine had a Monarch VMC 75, a few big Cinci CNCs, a DeVleig JMC 360 Jigmill, a couple CNC lathes and a bunch of smaller equipment. I was soon setting up the machines, editing programs and leading the efforts of the swing shift crew. Over the next few years I cast about, honing my skills at a bunch of job shops and manufacturing companies on the Peninsula, then came to my present employer in 1986. One-off R&D work on a wide variety of machines, both manual and CNC will hone one's skills nicely. They took notice of my considerable machining and computer skills and I served as a programmer for a couple of years. Got bumped to a supervisor's position, then a superintendent and finally manager of manufacturing operations, where I continue to toil to this day. I haven't run a machine in some years now and have to satisfy myself by acquiring nice machinery, tooling and training for the crews.

It pays well, but I sure miss looking back at the end of the day, holding something tangible in my hands and saying "I made this!". Instead I usually have to say "what the hell did I do today?.... attended three or four meetings, played politics, approved a few requisitions and listened to a bunch of complaining!

[Steve Seebold]

I was 19 years old taking a tool and die making coarse at LA Trade Tech. One day I was thumbing through a magazine, I think it was Modern Machine Shop and I saw a picture of a Bridgeport that looked wierd to me. After further examination, I noticed "THIS THING DOESN'T HAVE ANY HANDLES ON IT". How does it move? When I finished the coarse, I went and found a job in a shop that had this type of equipment. They had 2 Kearney Trecker Milwaukee Matics. What cool machines they were. The controls were as big as my 2 car garage, and they wouldn't move very fast by today's standards, but they were state of art at the time ( mid 1960's ). I started as a toolsetter, and after about 6 months I had progressed to a point where the company was going to send me to Milwaukee to learn to program the machines, but unfortunately the Vietnam war was going on and the day they handed me my ticket to go to school, I handed them my orders to go in the US Army. I didn't get any more experience on CNC till 1980 when I had my own shop. There were 3 new shops side by side, and 2 of them bought mills with Bandit controls, so I bought a lathe. The rest is history. Two years ago I had a major medical problem that forced me into retirement, but now I'm better and I want to go back to work so bad I can almost taste it.

[cnctoolcat]

I owe my career in machining to my dad, who convinced me to take machine shop at the county vocational school, starting in '83 at the ripe old age of 15. The two years of half-days at the votech school enabled me to win the Virgina VICA skills competition in machine shop. Competed in the Nationals at Phoenix, AZ, where I got my @#$ handed to me.

On to Va Tech, for a degree in Industrial Engineering. Did work-study at the Aerospace machine shop on campus to help buy baloney and beer. Got my first taste of programming cnc's in a couple of engineering classes.

Worked as a manufacturing engineer documenting machining processes for 2 years for Raytheon, making missiles for the Navy. What a shop...air conditioning, modern cnc mills and lathes, and lots of nice female support staff walking around! Laid off in '91...kinda ironic the plant was slowly being shut down, considering the US had just entered the first Gulf War.

Went to work for a Columbus Mckinnon, a chain hoist manufacturer, as a machining engineer, staying for 7 years. Here is where I got tons of hands-on experience programming, processing, tooling, on all the new cnc's we were buying. I was the "default" trainer whenever a new cnc machine came in. CM had maybe 4 cnc's when I hired on, and about 30 when I left to start my shop in '97.

My time at CM was made even more interesting by working and studying at a Honda car factory in Japan, for nearly the entire year of '94. I went over as part of a US/Japanese government engineering exchange program, and studied Japanese manufacturing and quality control methods. What's their secret, you ask? Nothing special really, they just learn well from their past experiences, and solve problems for good.

I left CM to start my shop in early '97. I had no luck in finding a used Mazak vmc and lathe (the brand I was intimately familiar with), so I ended up leasing a brand new vmc and cnc lathe from Mazak. Someone else already mentioned how the imminent threat of financial ruin can motivate us dreamy-eyed new shop owners!

My first main customer was some college buddies who had started their own servo motor company. Their parts were motor shafts and endbells with .0005" tolerances all over. I really cut my teeth on some doozy work!

Another major customer was my dad, who was running a shop with a couple of guys. I did lots of aluminum die casting machining for them. Dad also gave me the lead on a lubrication-equipment company, that would go on to be my main customer up to this day.

The lubrication company flooded us with work from '98 till the recession of '01. I bankrolled enough cash to buy 3 acres of land in a local industrial park, and to build my current 4,000 sq ft shop.

Along the way I acquired a new, small Daewoo cnc lathe, a used Leblond Makino cnc lathe, 5 used Mazak cnc lathes, and 1 used Fadal vmc. I have learned (usually the hard way) to fix just about anything on my cncs.

Also, along the way me and the wifey had 1 daughter, but managed to get divorced in '06. The stress of working together in the shop did it's share to do us in.

These days I am a 1.5 man shop, still doing work for the lube company, and work for my dad and his new partners in their new shop, and work for the coal mining industry. A salesman friend is helping me find new business in the coal industry, so we'll see how it goes....

Greg

[litlerob]

Was born, bred, and raised to do this. I think my first memory of running a lathe (manual) the top of my head was about the same height as the top of the chuck. (standing on a pallet or something). Same with my brother.

My Dad didn't really have anything else to offer us, I think.

CNC came natural, Trig was a cinch, G&M code, only logical.

Then move onto what makes sense CAD/CAM.

[spope14]

Started by programming black paper tape, then on hurcos using the little cassettes, which we thought were just the end all. Then on to bubble memory fanucs, and now teach the stuff in a HS and work in shops part time.

Always been around CNC and manual machines, they have always been something I see as working together in toolrooms and industrial processes.

[Dave Cross]

I took metal working in high school starting in the tenth grade. Our shop was well stocked for a high school metal shop, small foundry, about 7 engine lathes, a couple bp clones, saws, welders and some sort cnc knee mill, can't remember what it was or what control it had.

I didn't care for metal work. I had been working with wood since I could walk, my dad and all the generations previous all owned woodworking businesses of sorts. I personally was into hand carvings, mantels, railways etc.

My metal working teacher started us out by saw cutting a 2"x2" piece of 1018, and than filing/scraping it flat within .001" could have been worse yes, but it was enough to make me hate the class. After we completed this task we could move onto other machines. I really had no interest in metal work, especially machining but I did kind of like welding which I had done prior to high school. So I spent most of my first semester burning rod and wire in the back. I got good, fast. My teacher really encouraged me to consider pursuing machining and welding, I still didn't care for it. He was also my woodworking teacher and had given me a grade of %100 percent in that class the previous semester so he didn't really push it on me too much when I showed no interest.

I made a couple friends in the class who as I, were into skateboarding. It didn't take long for us to realize that we had everything we needed to make ramps and rails to skate on. Soon enough we were building these adjustable skate rails and soon thereafter selling them to other students and the local skateboard shop. Teacher encouraged this. But to pass the class the teacher required I did some projects with the lathe and mill. I ended up machining some base plates on the mill for our skateboard ramps and rails so you could anchor them to concrete, nothing special but it helped me pass. Still didn't care for machining, definitely didn't care for mill work.

I didn't care for lathe work either, but I soon discovered I could make hash pipes on the lathe, rather nice ones too. Being a punkass kid, this was kind of enlightening, metal working was a little more enjoyable here on in, but progress slowed

To pass the class we needed to building a small vise, NOTHING was to be provided except for raw bar and round stock. We even had to make the leadscrew, and hardware to mount a set of jaws. I did complete the project but I hated every bit of it.

The following years final project was... ANOTHER vise.
This one however required that we cast our own base out of aluminum cylinder heads from the auto shop.
Ok no big deal, but we had to CNC machine the casting as per the drawing provided to us. I didn't like it much at all, I did manage to learn my basic code to write the program, and complete the project but I never wanted to work with metal after high school again.

A couple years out of high school I was pursuing my woodworking career when I very suddenly, became quite allergic to most all forms of dust, especially wood dust like pine and cherry. Within about a month, even with a respirator I could no longer do "wood work".

I quickly took and apprenticeship at a Mercedes Benz dealer as a junior mechanic, I got good fast, but constantly found myself being overly frustrated when "some idiot" designed a part or system that needed service, but wasn't service friendly. I figured I had better ideas for some of these parts than the manufacturers so from this point forward I decided I wanted to design and manufacture "parts and systems".

I left MB and started my own shop part time while moonlighting at different welding and fab shops to keep steady cashflow. In my shop I did service on european cars and fabricated a few parts here and there. I gauged the interest of a few people who wanted me to reproduce some of these custom parts. Soon I was having flanges made for these different parts by various laser and water jet shops. Damn cnc machines again...

Within a few years my tig skills were quite good and I decided, from now on, only machined parts were good enough to compliment my welding, no more laser or waterjet flanges. I worked with a couple different shops but the prices were too high for some of the short run stuff I was doing, not to mention having them make the heatsinks and fixturing was really start to add up.

I managed to find a tree journeyman 330 cnc knee mill for quite cheap a few hours away so I bought it. Within a few weeks I managed to make a couple basic programs to make parts, about a couple hours into my part making the screen went dead, never to come on again. Not having any money or any luck repairing the machine myself it sat for at least a year or two before I finally ditched it and bought my current Matssura vertical which I tore right down to the bone to repair any of its issues. After getting it running the pressure was on to make parts, and in a relatively short time (albeit a bit painful) I learned the ancient control and started pumping out parts. Which about brings me to today, where I have had this little workhorse running 7 days a week minimum 10 hours a day for about 3.5 months. Now looking for a little Matsuura HMC to take over the production... Damn cnc machines

[Doug]

During college summers I worked in a machine shop. The owner was making money hand over fist. I watched him for several years trying to figure out how a guy who was such a doofus could make so much money.

After college I worked at a number of engineering jobs jumping around trying to find something I liked to do.

Started a manufacturing business making a niche market product. After ten years of that I decided I wanted to get into machining. Sold the first business for more than I ever thought it was worth.

With that money I started buying manual machines. This was 1984. After a year or so I realized the only way I could make any money was with CNC. Bought a lathe, then a mill, another mill and so on.

At the time, 1985, there weren't many small job shops with CNC so I had a big advantage. One of the hurdles was convincing some customers we could do their parts for less with CNC. At that time, and it still persists to some extent, lots of people were afraid of sending work out for CNC machining because they thought it would be too expensive for onesy-twosy parts.

Two years ago I starting downsizing to semi-retirement. I never got tired of watching a CNC cut metal.