Hi,
I am new to this forum and and I have a couple of questions. Excuse my ignorance but I am wondering, will a Flashcut CNC Mill 2000 allow me to make small engine heads(I am going to sell these to racing kart drivers)? Will I need anything else besides just buying the machine? Ends or drills or anything? Will this machine be suitable for my application? Will the software allow me to make my billet aluminum engine heads? Would a manual mill be better? Here is a link to what I am talking about: http://www.flashcutcnc.com/html/mach_2000_5400.html
Thank you,
Jesse

ttt

Hi Jesse,

Welcome. I can't answer all your question but maybe I can help a little. The machine that you've linked to is a CNC Sherline. I have seen some amazing items produced with the Sherline, including small engines. How large of an engine head are you thinking of making? The envelope on the Sherline is 9" x 7" x 6.5". Will your engine head fit in that space with room leftover for clamping?

Buying just the machine probablly will not give you the tools you need. Here's a short list of things that I think you might need:

Measuring tools (Calipers, Micrometers, Guages)
Layout tools (Scribes, Ground Straight edges, Edge/Center Finder)
Holding equipment (Vise, Clamping kit)
Cutting tools (End Mills, Drills, Boring Kit, Reamers)
Tool Holding (Collets, End Mill holders)

You should checkout www.littlemachineshop.com They have a learning section where they explain the different types of tools and give examples where they are useful. You might also want to check out www.mini-mill.com which also offers some intro mill information.

Hey thanks! I will be making heads about 7 inches long and 4 inches tall. Will this let me do that? I am also wanting to make rods about 4 or 5" long and 1" wide. Any help is appreciated.
Thank you,
Jesse

I'm still pretty new but the advice I've read over and over again is: Minimills (inc. Sherlines) are best suited to producing one-offs or prototypes but even limited productions runs require a machine with a larger envelope and greater mass. If you plan on doing all production in house you might want to get a bigger machine. I hope this helps.

It can probably do what your talking about, with the right experience and tooling, but not on any commercial level. A needle and thread can make a quilt, but starting a business that makes quilts with a needle and thread would end up leaving you very frustrated, just like a small machine would. It might be fine (they're very well liked machines) for your own couple of heads or maybe one or two a week for a while, but it would not last long milling heads of that size. A two cycle go kart engine head is a substantial chunk of metal and I think you would end up running that little Sherline to death pretty quickly. They are basically made for model size stuff and jewelery. You need at least something like the bench top 9100 mill they sell. Good luck!

Thanks for the input guys!