Advice needed on everything

[chrisjames]

Hi,

I've just joined the forum after trawling it for weeks along with other forums and have now got all the information I can without asking specific questions so can I get a bit of help please.

im basically looking for a CNC mill for machining stainless steel. I'm only looking for a work area of 60 x 60 x 10 (it's for machining watch case prototypes) I'm looking for it to be fairly accurate (0.05) and I'm not too concerned how long the parts take to machine.

I've looked into lots of mini mills and ways to convert them but wondered what others thought. I only have about £1000 budget at most and that would include the conversion.
I've seen lots of ways to convert machines and make improvements but was hoping it wouldn't be too necessary to make big changes for a small work area as the main reason for the machine is to work on other things.

any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

kind regards,

Chris

[Lee Roberts]

Hi Chris and welcome to the party!

Ask as many questions as you have and I'm sure you'll get what you need, use the forum search first as the same questions may have been asked already, if you need clarification on an older topic/discussion don't be afraid to revive the said thread, we're here to help at the end of the day. That being said, new content is always a good thing, if your inclined to start your own, feel free and good luck

.Me

[chrisjames]

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the welcome message. I have actually trawled through the threads for weeks now and haven't found the exact thing I'm asking. I guess I'm looking for someone to point me in the right direction.

kind regards

cheis

[cropwell]

Hi Chris,

My initial reaction is that your budget is very low for a machine capable of accurately machining stainless steel. I have doubts that the smallest CNC column type machine, would have the virtues you seek, and that is at least £2.5k. I would think your best bet is to look for a good second hand machine, possibly one that sat in a school doing nothing until they decided that they had to get rid and buy new.

Cheers

Rob

[JAZZCNC]

Hi chris,

Do you want to Mill or engrave Stainless.? One is much harder to achieve than the other. Unfortuantly Stainless is a very unforgiving material and if the machine isn't upto the task you'll be very disapointed with the results.
Like Rob says 1k isn't really enough money if your wanting to buy a ready built machine and even if converting you'll struggle unless you can find a really cheap base machine to start with.

In my experience low budgets just lead to disapointment and actully end up costing you lot more in the end thru lost time,material,tooling etc and thats without losing out on the actual machine it's self when you throw it out the window in frustration.!!

My advise would be hold off save some money, at same time keep watching for the Odd bargain to pop up because some times they do. Then when your budget is more health look again and buy or Convert something that will do the job good.

Edit: Also if your not space limited then look towards some of the Older larger Mills to convert has they often come up much cheaper than Mini mills and will easily handle Stainless. Think on a Large Mill can still cut small parts and lots of them at same time with a good fixture Jig.??

[mekanik]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EMCO-three...EAAOSwT5tWHhF2

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Boxford-CN...IAAOSwwbdWGrDD

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Denford-No...3D231724768943

Not sure if these will handle Stainless perhaps Dean could advise ?