Hello All

[petesos]

Hi All
My name is Pete
New to the CNC world , in fact I am just starting out , I have a HPC Laser and Quite a well kitted out workshop/blaster/bandsaw/planers/stone tools and am right in to that and now I want to understand CNCs as I want one to work stone with one

Pete

[irving2008]

Hi Pete and welcome.

I know nothing about working stone with a CNC except a) it needs a sturdy machine cos stone is hard stuff (I did watch my granite worktops being cut n polished on a big one; very noisy, very messy) and b) it needs copious amounts of water...

I'm not aware of anyone else CNC'ing stone so it could be an interesting learning curve for us all...

[petesos]

Hi Bud
When I get it sorted I will post up a few photys or videos But having Probs with machine supplier just now but patience is a virtue so the Mrs says

[Fivetide]

Hi Pete ..welcome.. I have been thinking about soft / soap stone milling .. so I'll be very interested to see how you get along.

[Lee Roberts]

Seeing somthing done with stone would be new here thats for sure, looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

[petesos]

Hi All
The tooling i used on my milling machine at work and on my pillar drill at home was a diamond encrusted bit off the shelf part, and what i found was as long as the feed rate was slowed down enough and I had water continualy cooling the bit and then recycling the water back to the bit it worked very well.
The milling machine I used at work was a Toss and an adapter fitted to take a M14 size cutter , I paid £1000 for the old Toss to use in the Quarry and a job came in for a crap load of steps for an art college and I won the Job and that scared the crap out of me as I had never tried the old engineering mill out on stone but she done the job without a problem and earned £28,0000 on her first stone job but that was working nights as well .
As all things I suppose ,,,,,,high speed and slow feed or something like that.
Soap stone would be a good one to start with as it is nice and soft.....BUT believe me dont use a thermalite block or any gritstone as I used to sharpen my Diamonds with grit stone on my big 2.5mtr blade and a thermalite block for the small saw (You use the gritstone and the thermalite block to wear the compound from around the Diamonds so as to expose the new Diamonds ).
When I get up and running I will post some Photos for ya all .
Petesos

[motoxy]

Look forward to that Petesos. I have a small piece of soap stone i was going to turn. Milling might be interesting.

Bruce

[petesos]

Look forward to that Petesos. I have a small piece of soap stone i was going to turn. Milling might be interesting.

Bruce
Hi Bruce
What i was going to do was to cover the work area of the machine with a shallow plastic tray to save it running over the side of the machine and messing all the rails up. Then fix a circle of polythene or cloth over the spindle and run a fish tank pump pipe inside the cloth/polythene to cool the bit and I see no reason why a simple cnc machine could not produce results the same as in wood or aluminium.
If this is successful then I am sure this opens a whole new realm for CNCers to do and earn some money from it as in the Quarry I charge £4 per 4inch letter any font and that is cut by hand.
What I am aiming for is to put a photograph on stone with my laser and cut the letters with a cnc That is my plan but having big probs with supplier.
Pete

[motoxy]

Its good to hear how people are developing their business. Look forward to you being successful. I take it you will need a gantry type m/c to get the size for larger work but it will, as has already been said, have to be very strong.

Bruce

[petesos]

I WISH i had spoken to folk on this forum before I paid for my machine SICK:thumbdown:
Pete

[motoxy]

Pete tell us about your m/c. If it is the wrong one for you someone here may want it and you could get another one or beef up the one you have.

[petesos]

Hi Bud
I dont think anyone on here would want it( even if I had it) as its a StrikeCNC machine.
The words HAND CLASPED ON THROAT comes to mind
Pete

[motoxy]

OOps! They may have taken on board previous comments and improved the quality of their m/c's. You will get help from this board so you are at least in the right place.

[petesos]

Hi All
Just to warn anyone of using StrikeCNC
Strike CNC Took £4500 and over £1500 in lost work Over three months ago and all they have to show me is a simple frame of the base and now he will not even answer his Phone to me .
What I find most disgusting is he swore to me on his children's lives that my cnc would be ready three weeks ago and now he will not answer his Phone any more.
So I am in the process of taking this man and this company to court.
So if anyone has any issues with this man and company that I could produce to the court and maybe get some reconpence please pm me or post it on here or if any of the members here want me to bring there experiences to the attention of the Courts let me know as I only live 5 miles from them and its not a problem for me to pop over there and drop a letter in his post box.
Pete

[JAZZCNC]

Ha ha another Strike victim why am I not surprised.?? . . . . Search the forum and you'll have plenty of evidence to show the magistrate.!

Anyway back to cutting stone.!. . . I've cut stone on my machine which mainly cuts aluminium. Cut with a diamond encrusted bit and it was easy BUT very very messy with loads of water and slurry coming off and so for this reason I gave up has it was clear that the slurry/water mix was acting like grinding paste and would shorten machine life very quickly.

So my advise is build very strong and design in such away that the linear components are out the way and well protected.! To me stone machines are best purpose built just for that operation.
My friend is a stone mason and the machines he uses to cut and polish stone uses relatively slow running motor with adaptors for purpose designed tooling. This tooling tends to be quite large and often designed for purpose built spindles so it's not easy to interchange with milling or routing tooling.

If you do build a duel purpose machine then I'd certainly look to have twin head with both types of spindle.

[petesos]

I know what you mean Jazzcnc water and silt everywhere thats why you really need to cover the tool and motor with some stiff cloth or brushes just to keep the spray to a minimum and that silt gets everywhere believe me .
Purpose built stone machines do a really tidy job but I think they are out of my price range and the tooling is expensive. Two years ago I went to the Stone show in London at the exel centre and was quoted £30,0000 for a basic model .
Small scale to start with and build from there is my plan.
I wonder if anyone lost any money dealing with this company ???

Am going to go through the posts and read up on all the gripes with Strike

[motoxy]

Have a stiff drink and a hanky with you when you do. Do they have a written agreement with you as to times and quality?

Bruce

[petesos]

Have a stiff drink and a hanky with you when you do. Do they have a written agreement with you as to times and quality?

Bruce
Got the drink bud and am nearly pissed and on my second box of hankies ...........Why oh Why oh Why.
Yes they do as on there receipt for the machine it states 4 weeks build time .
Pete

[Fivetide]

this for me was breathtaking from scanning the 3d image to cutting the bust in stone.. I see what you mean about alot of water omg !

3D scan and cutting on a 5 axis CNC machine - YouTube


(http://youtu.be/1p-nTYKPo_I)

[petesos]

Outstanding

[petesos]

Hi All
Well I have my machine from strike.
Now can anyone answer my problem
Y and Z axis are fine.
BUT
The X axis.
On the work area I set a point and mark it with a pen mark and zero it using mach 3 and then if I move the machine to any place on the table ( just the x axis)
and press the GOTOZERO on mach3 then the machine should return to my start point 0 .

But what is happening is the machine either goes off in another direction..............OR the machine returns back down the table no where near my start point.

Please Please Please can anyone help me.
Pete:concern::distress::distress::distress::distre ss: