Need help, buy or build to cut steel, stainless steel, titanium etc

[fatguyslim]

Hi there

I usedto have a carting track so i get some of your needs, we used to pay a local firm to make the parts we wanted.

To save you a bit of reading and headscratching. direct your reading to the following directions.

1. Your spindle needs to be powerful enough to cut them materials at low speed but high torque. ( just meens matching your spindle to your needs when you purchase ). You will probebly find most ebay spindles to fast

2. You should be able to easly beat the resolution your looking for ( accuracy ) with a basic machine.

Some other point to consider.

You can build the cnc parts you need, on top an old machine, if you can find a good old fixed router machine that will run the router at the speeds and power you need, you can fit the XYZ to that. But, building your own new is relatively easy.

Depending on your table design, you could add a cheep plasma cutting head to it for the few times that it would be usfull, then have a spindle head for cutting/milling or other needs.

Thanks for a detailed reply George. I believe something with high torque, low speed and deep cutting will be an ideal cutter for my purpose. One thing that I do lack expertise in is designing something of this scale. For example I have never worked with any CNC device before but I ready to learn. So say if I had the parts and plans to build one then it will be relatively simple for me to assemble but to design the parts and then getting the parts made would be something I cannot do and I don't think I have the time and resources to learn at this stage. The best thing would be for me to ask you guys as what small scale machines do you guys have and what will you guys do to improve it? Thanks