Hello Goodlet and how is your Shopmaster working?
I would like your opinion on if the Shopmaster is the machine for me. I re profile rifle barrels in my business. I take a 24" barrel and cut them down to various lengths. I then have to, in steps, take the old OD from about .7" down to .620", .600", .562", and .510". These new barrels will be 16" long and 17.5" long. After the barrel is contoured I used to take it and put it in my milling machine and use the indexer to cut 1/8" keyways in it. I then drill a gas port hole of .067" and thread the end of the barrel with 9/16" 32 threads.
Do you think the Shopmaster, in its new form, is capable of doing all this on its own? Hit a button, completely automated, walk away, come back to a finished product? I can't even figure out if the spindle indexes and I haven't been able to get Shopmaster to either offer training or programming help if I went down to Vegas.
I would have to remove my old 11x26 WT lathe to make room for the Shopmaster. I don't have the time to go without a lathe for a "learning curve". My neighbor is competent in Mach3 but I'd be a 2nd grader around this thing. I really need to be able to press a button and have the thing do its job.
I am not afraid to spend the money on a Tormach but I frankly don't know if a Tormach is set up for this physically.