CNC help needed.

[5.56]

Wrat,
At the moment I am making the following different bullets.
.458
.452
.430
.410
.400
.357
.355
.308
with different bullet lengths and weights for some of the sizes.
It would not be much fun to do R&D having to get a plate ground for each modification. The B&S would be a good choice if I were doing pretty much of a standardized type of part. I am looking at a 2nd Swiss screw machine if this starts getting out of hand.

If I plan carefully can add about2 or 3 more machines and bar feeders in my back room.

Nick

 

[wrat]

What? .430 but not .429? Would Dirty Harry approve?
(KID-ding.. just kid-ding!)
Hmm, well you do have a conundrum there. Bullet guys are usually using punch presses or carousels to swage their wares to the desired size. Hold it pretty close, but that's just with Pb or at best Pb with Cu jacket. Custom turning is gonna be a challenge for volume. But hey, with boutique products come boutique prices. Maybe it'll do great.
Yes, you'd certainly wanna trust your buddy over me in this regard. If he's working over a dozen of them, he knows the particulars far better than i. My memory is from a long past faraway company and i thought we were getting about however tight we wanted -- of course, always obeying the "fast-is-loose, slow-is-tight" mantra. But that was long ago.
Obviously, NC would be the only way to go in the proto/research effort. And obviously, the ideal setup would be to have machines automatically kicking out product whilst you worked out new profiles and weights on a separate workstation.
Guess i can't help much. But i really wish i could. If the BATF has bought into this, then it could really get popular and fast. See, it occurs to me that WHEN this catches hold, your 500 here-and-there orders will be followed up with orders for "how many THOUSANDS can i get?" and that from several customers simultaneously.
Even the best of NC is gonna have a tough time keeping up with that. Best of luck. I got nuthin'.

Wrat

 

[5.56]

Wrat,
Now here is the fun part of this. Up and till I got this Swiss screw machine I had not as much as ever turned a CNC machine on let alone operated one. I have been getting an education on maintaining, programming, set up and so forth. I am pretty pleased to have been able to make a viable product that is selling. Just a few things that I will be adding to the list of products will be stainless steel cleaning rods for firearms. Different length and sizes. I am also looking at making slitting/slotting saw arbors.
As for BATF buying into this........Now that is rather funny since I hold a 07 manufacturing Federal Firearms License that allows me to manufacture firearms and ammunition. Ruger has been in contact with me as well as Rock River Arms. It is hard to tell where this will lead to. I have the proverbial better mousetrap designed and built.

Now here is the real problem with what I am doing. Let's see a show of hands that have had experience making parts out of C110 copper. It is 99.9% pure copper. Special oil so not to stain the parts you make. You need to use 55 degree tooling, inserts for turning copper. The copper does not make "chips" it makes long streamers. You cannot be far from the machine unless you are willing to have a wrap up and crash. Stop every 15 parts to check for a build up of copper streamers/shaving. I can make Tellurian Copper bullets as well.

With the Dillon loading equipment, it takes me about 35 minutes to manufacture loaded ammunition using a full 8 hours of machine runtime making the bullets. If this takes off as I am hoping it will I would add another building with more room for CNC Swiss machines. We have California that is wanting to ban all lead bullets. So a good copper design will have a massive market in California.

I am 59 years old and have been retired for 11 years. This gives me something to tinker with. I just do not want to be the guy who went to the Doctor complaining about having an orange penis. The doc said to him my god man what have you been doing? The guy says " Nothing, all I do is sit around the house watching TV and eating Cheetos!" LOL

Nick

 

[Karl_T]

VERY INTERESTING PROJECT.

I've done low volume work with copper, its used to make electrodes for my sinker EDM machine. Yep, gummy stuff.

Are you using a Dillon 1050?

 

[5.56]

Karl,
I have a pair of 1050's 1 650 and 1 550B, plus 3 rcbs presses some mecs and lees. I do 50 BMG stuff as well.

Nick

 

[csprecision]

Hopefully you are getting a set of manuals for the machine, if not I would search for some.

I will recommend studying the manuals and slowly familiarize yourself with the operation of the machine.
My personal opinion is learn how to program the machine manually before you jump into cam.

The feed override dial will be your friend

 

[kd8wdave]

Dan,

It is a Hardinge Conquest ST16 Swiss. It has a Fanuc 0T controller. It has 1960 hrs. on the analog hr. meter. It was rebuilt in 2008, Ball screws, guides, motors. It came out of a medical equipment manufacturing facility and is currently inbound on a truck and should be here tomorrow.

I have no experience in CNC at all. But I can learn, I just need some help on where to how to go about either getting a hand or taking online course since the closest CNC school is about 90 miles away.

I am hoping the inspector will be here this morning to approve the 3 phase drop I did on my building so that AEP can set the new pole and 3 phase transformers.

As for tooling I have a no issues with purchasing what is needed with spares. I figure with the carbide jeweler saw to drop $1,500 on tooling if need be that can be bumped.

The bar feed I picked up is an Omni Bar FSQ20 hydro. I figure with the items I am wanting to run on the unit a bar will last about 2-2 1/1 hrs.

I need recommendations on a cad/cam program type of program to get ideas in my head onto/into a G code to make my concept into reality instead of an idea.

My biggest problem is that at age 58, my cup is full, and I am going to have to figure out what to pour out to make room for new knowledge! LOL Old dog and new tricks concept I think!

Nick

Hi Nick
There are 'far better' folks on here than I when it comes to helping you do what you want. Just wanted to say that at 58 you have a long way to go B4 mem will cause you learning issue. I'm now 72 and just finished building a 'homebrew' version of a small CNC machine. Mine uses something called Grbl(software that runs on an Arduino UNO, which in turn drives stepper controller's(that I built using PIC processor) which in turn drives some dual H-bridge drivers which are connected to my bipolar steppers. I have just gotten the machine to run a few days ago and now just trying to get my head wrapped in the 'g code' stuff. I don't have any fancy software for drawings yet. My main purpose is to cut PCB boards and trim off copper for capacitors that I make for antenna traps and anything else I can think of. It has been fun doing the little project.

You will probably spend many hours doing the same

cheers.

 

[wrat]

My personal opinion is learn how to program the machine manually before you jump into cam.

Not trying to be argumentative, but just to show there are different opinions.

I learned NC in the old days where there wasn't any 'programming' at the machine, to speak of. There was setup -- sometimes a very long setup -- and there was run time. But I found it more fun that working the conventional machines (for production).

I think it mostly comes down to however the guy learned it first. If I had learned programming on the machine first, I would probably champion that, too. I learned programming in the computer room.

In a high-zoot factory, the CAM guy has all the machines and tooling in solid models right in front of him on the screen. He has Vericut or some similar simulator. He doesn't even SEE the machine, let alone program it manually. The machine might be half-mile away.

Coming from that environment, that's sorta how I would lean. Keep it on the screen. Everything possible. Minimize touch-time. If ribbon chips were a problem, no need to stop the machine. I would introduce routines to serve as chip breakers. stuff like that.

However, that's just another opinion. This is a *hobby* machine forum so I don't know what would work especially well for your small scale.

As usual, i got nuthin' ;-)

Wrat

p.s. watch the Cheetos, bud.

 

[jumps4]

I ran across a tooling pdf for your machine
I don't know if it would be any future help
Steve