Lets see what you have made with your Novakon Mill.....

[g29cc]

As the title states, lets see some projects or pieces you have made with your machine. And lets NOT see someone say, oh I can't make anything because I can't get my machine to run ( you know who you are ), that's not what this thread is for , so please respect that.

Please state

1 What machine it is.

2 What material you used.

3 What speeds and feeds , cutters etc.

4 What your tolerances were or what you were trying to attain.



I'll start with a picture I've posted already.

This is a small lever for a handgun we are producting. Its made from 1018 CRS. This is a multiple operation part. With 5 actual different setups for one piece. The speeds are almost all run at 4000 rpm between 40-65 ipm for most cutters. I just wish I had more rpm for some of the smaller cutters. Drills and reamers were run between 400-1200 rpm at 1-5 ipm. Here is a list of cutters I used.

.750 rough Dijet 2 flute insert
.375 finish Ingersoll 2 flute insert
.125 carbide 4 flute ball
.1875 carbide 4 flute flat end mill
.1935 drill carbide stub
.199-202 reamers
#2 carbide center drill
tiny little bastard center drill ( I think a .020 tip )
.060 wire drill

All operations are run with coolant. And most operations are setup to run 6-7 parts in a operation ( part 1 side 1 , 6 pcs in a row etc ).

The machine seems to expand its tolerances in certain areas as it warms up. As soon as this machine is all done with its project and I fix a few things on it to bring it up to snuff, I will retest many areas and see if things are a tighter tolerance then.

Here is a couple pictures.



Here are some videos on our website of the parts cutting in different stages.

Video of Parts being machined

I know alot of you probably have seen the pictures and my posts on some of this. So lets see what you guys have made and or are currently making. I ve seen some guitar bodies ! Lets see some others !

Thanks
Todd

[ihavenofish]

with some luck (as in me not being lazy) i should have 2 parts to show form the new nm-145 in the next few days. they are guitar hardware pieces.

the part in the attached pic is a guitar body made of mahogany. milled on the nm200 fisrt gen. done with a 1/2" 2 flute HSS end mill at between 50 and 100ipm. its been sanded to remove most of the tool marks. it was held to an mdf board with superglue. tolerances are more in the realm of nice straight lines and a smooth finish with no chipout. actual dimensions are non critical. the neck pocket can be out .01" and have no meaningful effect, the rest can be off by 1/16" and i wouldnt notice

this part is now done on a special built router with vacuum fixture and high speed spindle.

[g29cc]

At 50 -100 ipm, did you encounter any splitting , chipping etc, because of the low spindle speed ? ( I see after rereading you say no chip out. )

I ve cut a few wood pieces on mine, but the spindle wasn't really fast enough to do checkering, it could do contouring and profiling fine, but not detailed work.

Looks very nice ! Did you design this yourself ?

[ihavenofish]

At 50 -100 ipm, did you encounter any splitting , chipping etc, because of the low spindle speed ? ( I see after rereading you say no chip out. )

I ve cut a few wood pieces on mine, but the spindle wasn't really fast enough to do checkering, it could do contouring and profiling fine, but not detailed work.

Looks very nice ! Did you design this yourself ?

the spindle is too low and if you arent careful it does tear. you have to pay very close attention to direction of cut around the little details.

its my design, put them up for sale a few weeks ago.

[g29cc]

Cool beans !

[keithmcelhinney]

I make motorcycle parts. I usually use 1/4" 3 flute carbide endmil,.07 depth, 3500rpm at 13ipm in 6061 aluminum. I have an nm-135 series 2. I had absolutely no experience with machining until the mill was in my basement...











-Keith

[ihavenofish]

very nice.

[g29cc]

Nice work !

[ihavenofish]

made this on the nm200 (neck, body, fretboard). turned out quite decent, had to run slow so the spindle wouldnt tear our the wood too much (3500rom spindle).

[webgeek]

I've got a TON more and higher quality pictures coming in a few days and if I get a chance I'll upload them. This is a quad-roter, fixed-pitch helicopter. I sell the frames and needed components to put together one of these RC copters. Here is a pair of my frames being used to make both a large and a small copter and flying it around with a camera attached:
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EUS2GRtZcw"]YouTube - AeroQuad High Altitude Christmas2010.mp4[/nomedia]

-Mike

PS. Made this on my NM-200s2

[ihavenofish]

i made xmas presents on the nm-200.

they are very small, about 1/2" x 1-1/4". cut with a 3/64" carbide 3 flute bit in brass.

worked very well, but not very fast due to the 3500rpm spindle. ive got to actually make a bunch more now for late xmas presents!

[webgeek]

I really like the little snowflakes, those look great!

-Mike