CNC Lathe and CNC Mill recommendations

Hello Everyone

Newbie here, I came looking for advice, a friend of mine said this is the best place

I am working as a Manufacturing Engineering Specialist for a company that makes heavy machinery attachments (Booms and buckets for excavators). we have been looking to add an additional lathe and mill to our shop.

What would you recommend? and how much dose it cost?


More details

for the Lathe we make

Pins 2.4" to 6" in diameter. 6" to 38"
Bushings: up to 10"ID and 3" thickness
we want to eliminate sending it out of house for finish. we would like something with high tolerance capability.
we rarely do threads.





For mill

We need a replacement for out vertical mill.

we will be manufacturing manifolds from steel blanks. sizes varies from 4" cube to 12"x12"x36"
also, some of the work pieces (not blanks) are as big as 5' high 4' wide.
making threaded holes would be a big plus.


This is the old girl retiring soon

You're going to get eaten up if you don't provide details. What do you want to do with them? How big are the parts you want to work on? What do you currently have? Have you asked the machinists who run your machines which machines THEY would choose?

TeachMePlease said:

You're going to get eaten up if you don't provide details. What do you want to do with them? How big are the parts you want to work on? What do you currently have? Have you asked the machinists who run your machines which machines THEY would choose?

Click to expand...

To answer this question is tricky. we have 4 Manuel lathes and one vertical mill with another used horizontal mill on the way. However some of the old lathes and mill are retiring in the next couple of years. we would like to replace them with CNC machines instead of manual, specially that (good) skilled machinist have been tough to find.

good CNC guys are as hard if not harder to find than manual machinest. unless your doing a lot of each part manual machines might be the way to stay. You might think about doing the one off stuff in house on manuals and sending the larger runs out ...

I agree with TMP, you need to ask the guys in the shop, not us.

Okuma
Mori-DMG
Mazak
Nakamura
Doosan
Gurutzpe
Hyundai
Willis
Cincinnati
and others...


would all be able to to what you need. I would warn against getting anything bargain, you need a heavy machine to do heavy machining. The bargain is going to be lighter castings and less rigidity. So the oppposite of what you want. (but it's a bargain!! ) What interface do the guys want? What software do you have in the shop? I can give you the numbers of 2 $30.00+ Turning hands in Portland right now, I don't believe it's hard to find help.

R

I use to work on custom excavator stuff in the uk. Mill you want at least a 40 taper to run port tools well, you need torque above high RPM so a low speed high torque spindle is a must.

Pins, we use to turn, send out for hardening and then grind between centers. Turning pin blanks is pretty easy and unless your running serious qty's cnc gains you very little here.

Bushes we generally turned in a large HASS cnc lathe, again, you want a machine with power and torque, not something with speed for aluminum style work.

IME they need to probably fire you though, thats not a vertical mill and if you don't get why you need to keep something with thoes capabilities to do this kinda work your really the wrong person to be doing the advising. A large horizontal is a must for that game especially if you want to get into post assembly finishing boring and thats the only way to really get good results with a lower skilled work force.

Maxximo said:

........We need a replacement for out vertical mill.

we will be manufacturing manifolds from steel blanks. sizes varies from 4" cube to 12"x12"x36"
also, some of the work pieces (not blanks) are as big as 5' high 4' wide.

Click to expand...

These requirements really point you towards 2 different machines. For your manifolds, a vertical could work. For your large 4' x 5' parts you are looking at a large horizontal or small boring mill.