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History of CNC

dclingingsmith

Plastic
Joined
Nov 11, 2020
Location
Cleveland
I'm an economist working on a project about the diffusion of CNC in US metal manufacturing. I came across this forum while looking for information on the adaptation of CNC technology to non-metal materials such as wood. Is this a good place to ask for some help on this topic?
 
While your here since i am in Australia and note the difference to USA Why do you Tax Machine tools each year? PPT
Over here we do not do this. It seems sector based.
We have a goods and Services tax which is a one off tax, Governments sure do like to Tax things and get carried away with it.
 
I'm not a tax expert by any means, but my guess is taxes like this, which originated in the 19th century, were used because they were at that time easier to administrate than something like a value added tax or an income tax. I can't think of a good reason to have a property tax on machine tools in the modern era.
 
There was an excellent thread on old CNCs here a few years ago, like 2012 or something. There were machines shown in that thread still running mylar tape with GE controls, views of the control cabinet a nightmare of cards and wires, wires everywhere. I'm sure you've looked but if you dig through all the links on wikipedia there's quite a good history of CNC. From concept to Army involvement to automakers (it pretty much started out as a way to make helicopter spars). To the slack approach of U.S. machine tool makers to the overtake by Japan.
 
If you haven't read the book "Forces of Production" by Noble, you need to find and read a copy immediately.
 
If you haven't read the book "Forces of Production" by Noble, you need to find and read a copy immediately.

Excellent book!

To dclingingsmith - this forum will be predominately about metal CNC work, with plastic far behind, then wood and the like. If you give a little more context about why you're focusing on non-metals we might be able to help more.

And does this include composites? That's its own kettle of fish...
 
I agree with Emanuel's note, but I'll take it one or two... mebbie THREE steps back.

Before jumping in to "CNC", and NC, realize that there was automated cutting processes that used pattern-following principles...

And it is of paramount importance to recognize that pattern-following machines were state-of-the-art automation for woodcutting. Look at any 19th-century home at the stairway balusters and spindles... patterns for those parts weren't produced in the millions by hand... they were manufactured by a cutting tool which followed a 'master pattern' whose profile guided the cutting system.

Everything after that, right up to today's CNC, is nothing more than following a pattern.

As EG noted, Numeric Control... was a pattern, but instead of solid patterns, it was numbers... on punchcards, paper tape, whatever, but still, just a pattern. Move to CNC, and you send that pattern as data to a device which converts it to motion of the cutting system.

Regarding your reference to CNC being used for 'cutting wood':

Everything old, is new again. Pattern-based manufacturing process (in this case, cutting) is all about mass-production, and high-volume products THEN, were usually made of wood... especially in circumstances like the stairway spindles I noted above... so CNC isn't really 'GOING TO' the woodworking production environment... it is simply "Returning To" that material... or if you're really paying attention:

It never actually 'left' it.
 
Thanks so much for the feedback so far! I have read "Forces of Production." It was part of the inspiration for the project and I think does a good job of giving the background for why the US toolmakers lost their lead to Japan during the 1960s. Early in the project I read a lot of machine tool patents from the 1930s through 1950s and have a sense of the pattern-following and copying machines and the multi-station and multi-spindle machines that allowed for automation before the word was coined. Also the big transfer machines. BTW also found the book "Between Human and Machine" about the development of automatic control broadly speaking really helpful on the technological side. So I appreciate and take the point that it isn't that NC or CNC came into a world with no automation at all. What I'm really focused on is the rise of NC/CNC versus "business as usual" for metal manufacturing of the 1970s.

I've got a pretty good idea of what happens to NC/CNC for metalworking applications because it was the first application of this technology that combines feedback-regulated automatic control and symbolic programming with industrial machinery. For example, I know the exports by tool type (lathe, mill, etc) for non-NC and NC tools for the US, Japan, and Germany from 1970 on. This lets me make cool pictures like the one here that shows how NC grew as a share of the value of tool exports. Japan.jpg

So the reason I am asking about NC/CNC applications outside metalworking is that I know less about it. Here are some things I think are true.

1. CNC can be used to machine plastic, but it is more difficult than machining metal because of the material properties of plastics. I think this means CNC machined plastic is going to be rarer than CNC machined metal. I think that when plastic is worked using CNC machines designed for metal are adapted. I don't know when the adaptation first was in use, but my hunch is it was in the 1980s or later.
2. CNC is used in woodworking applications. Here the machines are custom designed for wood. I know that Weinig is one tool maker. My hunch is applications are mainly in furniture, fixtures, cabinetry, and so on.

I'm not sure about where else we might find CNC machining at work. Is it widely used with any materials other than metal, plastic, and wood?
 
I saw a bullard Manatrol for sale in a shop in NE Philly a year ago. It looked like some kind of frankenstein piano with all the parallel steel wires/clips/stops etc. I told him to scrap it.
 
Applications of CNC for wood include sizing and joinery of timbers and panels used in timber frame construction. The CNC machines in that industry are often referred to as a "Hundegger" since that is the dominant manufacturer in that market. More can be seen on their website Home - Hundegger
 
1. CNC can be used to machine plastic, but it is more difficult than machining metal because of the material properties of plastics. I think this means CNC machined plastic is going to be rarer than CNC machined metal. I think that when plastic is worked using CNC machines designed for metal are adapted. I don't know when the adaptation first was in use, but my hunch is it was in the 1980s or later.
2. CNC is used in woodworking applications. Here the machines are custom designed for wood. I know that Weinig is one tool maker. My hunch is applications are mainly in furniture, fixtures, cabinetry, and so on.

I'm not sure about where else we might find CNC machining at work. Is it widely used with any materials other than metal, plastic, and wood?

I think the reason more plastic isn't machined is that it molds into finished products a lot better than metal. Machining is a pretty wasteful process especially compared to injection molding which is also so much faster so production plastic work is going to be molded. On the other hand most metal casings require post machining operations anyhow so slot more metal gets machined than plastic.

For wood machining google "Onsrud" there's a great YouTube tour of their factory which will do a great job by the way explaining the differences between wood machining and metal machining. It is also fun to watch anyhow.

Also to add to your book reading find the book "When the machine stopped" it is a must read to understand some of the issues that hit the US machine tool industry.


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..

So the reason I am asking about NC/CNC applications outside metalworking is that I know less about it. Here are some things I think are true.

1. CNC can be used to machine plastic, but it is more difficult than machining metal because of the material properties of plastics. I think this means CNC machined plastic is going to be rarer than CNC machined metal. I think that when plastic is worked using CNC machines designed for metal are adapted. I don't know when the adaptation first was in use, but my hunch is it was in the 1980s or later.
2. CNC is used in woodworking applications. Here the machines are custom designed for wood. I know that Weinig is one tool maker. My hunch is applications are mainly in furniture, fixtures, cabinetry, and so on.

I'm not sure about where else we might find CNC machining at work. Is it widely used with any materials other than metal, plastic, and wood?
Gonna have to go with duh and dope slap. Do not take too personal but your understanding seems maybe a tad off center.
Bob
 
I'm not sure about where else we might find CNC machining at work. Is it widely used with any materials other than metal, plastic, and wood?

The obvious addition if you want to define CNC as part of "Manufacturing" rather than just machining is 3D printing and composite tape layup. CNC by itself isn't limited to subtractive shaping. And then there's the hybrid printer/machining center, which has even more flexibility.
 
In the 1960's there was quite a market over here for " plugboard controlled " automatic capstan and turret lathes such as the " AutoWard " and the " Accuratool ". I think " Sir Alfred Herbert " had a version on their machines also. This was before NC became popular.

Regards Tyrone.
 
As Adam noted, direct CNC machining of plastic is not so common because it is, by nature, wasteful.

CNC machining is HEAVILY used in the manufacture of plastic parts, just not in the 'direct' line. CNC is used to make dies for injection molding, vacuum forming, extruding, and many other processes which are not subtractive, hence, there is no waste to gather up and either discard, or try to recycle.

Once the dies are made, parts can be molded at a much higher rate, and with much more repeatable quality, at a substantially lower cost, than fixturing it for subtractive machining process.

So in light of the manufacture of plastic products, applying subtractive machining process is basically a 'rework' circumstance... a second operation that should be corrected not as afterthought, but by fixing what went wrong in the prior steps to yield a part that didn't come out right in the first place.

5 Why. Kaizen. Six Sigma. Pull the thread... peel the onion... find out where the TRUE problem originated, and FIX IT THERE.

Woodworking... large-scale CNC controls are focused on common production... like setting up a sawing system for dimensioned lumber, or process control for making trim. The advantage it offers, is high-speed change of dimension, and quality control monitoring... it verifies dimensions, and records them, to look for deviations that suggest problems either with material, or machinery.
 








 
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