Blud's Latest 4 Blade CNC Saw Lathe

[RSB-Refugee]

I was talking to Blud a little while ago. He emailed some photos of his 4 blade CNC shaft saw lathe. I told him I would post the pics for everyone to see. He explained a lot of it to me, but I would not feel comfortable answering any questions about it. I'll show, he can tell.

Tracy

 

[cueman]

Does this machine run on taper bars or CNC?

 

[blud]

CNC only

Does this machine run on taper bars or CNC?

Chris, If you will take a closer look at RSb's post, it clearly states 4 headed, "CNC" saw.

Take a closer look at the pictures and you see square rails mounted on the base, and two stepper motors driving the 4-heads, and the Z axes coming from under the blades, the Y axes motor is not shown, but it's there.
The blades turn at 3,450 RPM's, .
The blades tuck under the table top for safety at the start and end of each program. This machine can turn cut, shafts up to 31" long same with butts, and also turn cut 17" handles and fronts as short as 12 1/2 "...
It wiill accomadate 4 of the same product at the same time.
It cuts perfect. No vibration at all. Heavy as all get out.
blud

 

[cueman]

Chris, If you will take a closer look at RSb's post, it clearly states 4 headed, "CNC" saw.

Take a closer look at the pictures and you see square rails mounted on the base, and two stepper motors driving the 4-heads, and the Z axes coming from under the blades, the Y axes motor is not shown, but it's there.
The blades turn at 3,450 RPM's, .
The blades tuck under the table top for safety at the start and end of each program. This machine can turn cut, shafts up to 31" long same with butts, and also turn cut 17" handles and fronts as short as 12 1/2 "...
It wiill accomadate 4 of the same product at the same time.
It cuts perfect. No vibration at all. Heavy as all get out.
blud

Shows how good my reading comprehension is. Can it be made to work with taper bars. Price is everything when it comes to my need.

 

[blud]

price

Shows how good my reading comprehension is. Can it be made to work with taper bars. Price is everything when it comes to my need.

Chris, I can build one with 4-heads, that will use taper bars, it will look simular and operate a lot differant. But it will do the same good job.
I'll call you, [or you call me]tonight if possible, and visit about your needs. Then I can give you a rock solid price.
blud
830-232-5991

 

[RSB-Refugee]

Chris, I can build one with 4-heads, that will use taper bars, it will look simular and operate a lot differant. But it will do the same good job.
I'll call you, [or you call me]tonight if possible, and visit about your needs. Then I can give you a rock solid price.
blud
830-232-5991

I have a question, Blud. If someone decides to go with taper bars, as opposed to CNC, could it be easily retrofitted to be a CNC machine?

Tracy

 

[blud]

machine

I have a question, Blud. If someone decides to go with taper bars, as opposed to CNC, could it be easily retrofitted to be a CNC machine?

Tracy

Yes,it can very asily be retro-fitted for CNC. The mechanical one would have to be refitted for the Z, axes and a differant configuration for the x and y travels. Would take about a week to convert, and $3,500.00 to do the job.If you want post a couple of pictures of the machine, I sent you today.
blud

 

[RSB-Refugee]

I almost forgot

If you want post a couple of pictures of the machine, I sent you today.
blud

I got busy cutting the grass and it slipped my mind.

Tracy

 

[blud]

2-headed saw

I got busy cutting the grass and it slipped my mind.

Tracy

Tracy, these are pictures of my dual headed mechanical, saw/lathe.
You can turn cut 2-shafts or 2- butts at the same time, [2 of the same product] and size each of them to a differant MM size.Or you can be cutting 1- shaft and 1- butt at the same time. It also turn-cuts handles[ 17"] and butt seleves on an arbor. Bad a** machine..Either side can be dialed in to cut the same as the other side.
blud

 

[matthew staton]

Chris, If you will take a closer look at RSb's post, it clearly states 4 headed, "CNC" saw.

Take a closer look at the pictures and you see square rails mounted on the base, and two stepper motors driving the 4-heads, and the Z axes coming from under the blades, the Y axes motor is not shown, but it's there.
The blades turn at 3,450 RPM's, .
The blades tuck under the table top for safety at the start and end of each program. This machine can turn cut, shafts up to 31" long same with butts, and also turn cut 17" handles and fronts as short as 12 1/2 "...
It wiill accomadate 4 of the same product at the same time.
It cuts perfect. No vibration at all. Heavy as all get out.
blud

Sounds great let me see sounds like a production quality cue maker now so you can turn out more cues fast with less cost to you lower quality and the price keeps going up wow what a great custom cue maker you are so when do the prices drop to the customer. I like the hand made cue I guess I just stick with custom cue makers not production makers or if I want a good production cue at a fair price I buy a viking. But maybe this is good the cues should be cheaper now to buy no more $500 plain cues load them up. just some hot air here.

 

[cueman]

Sounds great let me see sounds like a production quality cue maker now so you can turn out more cues fast with less cost to you lower quality and the price keeps going up wow what a great custom cue maker you are so when do the prices drop to the customer. I like the hand made cue I guess I just stick with custom cue makers not production makers or if I want a good production cue at a fair price I buy a viking. But maybe this is good the cues should be cheaper now to buy no more $500 plain cues load them up. just some hot air here.

Not sure if your post was a joke or serious so I will respond as if it were serious. If a cuemaker invests many thousands of dollars to make one part of his cuemaking faster for him, why should his prices come down? He either invests $$$ or labor. Either way he has an investment he needs paid for. By all means it sounds like a Viking is a very good deal for you. But why insult Leonard? Cues you call hand made all use machines to turn their cues. So what if the machine turns four at a time instead of one. Also for cues that are cut on lathes with wood cutting tools the old fashion way and inlays that are knifed in by hand. I can tell you where you can still get them and get them at a really good price. Look on Ebay under Custom Cues. If the location is Philippines then you have a good chance it was built the old fashion way. Some of the work is pretty nice for the quality of tools they are working with.
Chris
www.hightowercues.com
www.internationalcuemakers.com

 

[blud]

insults

Sounds great let me see sounds like a production quality cue maker now so you can turn out more cues fast with less cost to you lower quality and the price keeps going up wow what a great custom cue maker you are so when do the prices drop to the customer. I like the hand made cue I guess I just stick with custom cue makers not production makers or if I want a good production cue at a fair price I buy a viking. But maybe this is good the cues should be cheaper now to buy no more $500 plain cues load them up. just some hot air here.

One thing for sure, YOU SIR, DO KNOW HOW TO INSULT SOMEONE.[ you got a gold metal coming].

The second thing is, your totally clueless to how much time goes in to building custom cues.

For your information, sir, we as cuemakers make a living off people who appreciate our labor of love for cues, and don't even come close to making a ton of money as most believe

Some information for you sir..... Are you aware that we as cuemakers spend as much time building SHAFTS, as we do building the butts, if not more time with some cues. Did you know that? I don't think so or you wouldn't be insulting me and other cuemakers who try to cut there cost by not hiring someone WHO IS CLUELESS.

I will not hire someone to sit on there butt and ***** about the world and all the problems he or she has in life, and really not give a damn about turning shafts or butts, or there job...

Buy your 500.00 cues, and be happy, I'll continue on trying to make things go a little smoother and more effecent at my shop so I can pass the savings on to my many valued customers.

I will also continue to help other cuemakers build better cues with my machinery, and no have to worry about hiring the likes of someone as you.


[HAVEN'T RAISED MY PRICES IN 5 YEARS]....

BTW, have you had a raise in the last 5 years?

The average shop has about $50K plus invested. I guess that came out of a tree in someones back yard.

My shop we have over 400K invested, this includes the land and building.

Consider this sir, if we spend less time on turn-cutting shafts, it gives us more time to build higher quality cues. DO YOU GET IT YET?????

YOUR CORRECT, about one thing,

your quote!

just some hot air here {{You got that part right}}

How would you like it if some guy came along and knocked your craft saying your production when your not, and you cost should go down because your doing your best to make a living for your family, and didn't think you should buy or build tools that would make your job easier? How would you like that?


hot air, what do you do for a living? Maybe you make good money? Maybe 20 or 30 bucks an hour?

This isn't hot air, pal........WE WORK FOR EVERY PENNY....and have no one to ***** at.....but ourselves.........

Thanks Chris.
blud
PS, to all my cuemaking friends, no matter how hard we all try to be helpful to one another, it never fails, there's always some guy blowing hot air............

 

[frankncali]

Sorry no hot air but I do have a question

I have only seen in person the taper bar type shaft turners. How does this
one work? Do the blades travel and create the taper?
Can you cut two different tapers at the same time?
Just curious

 

[blud]

Sorry no hot air but I do have a question

I have only seen in person the taper bar type shaft turners. How does this
one work? Do the blades travel and create the taper?
Can you cut two different tapers at the same time?
Just curious

Frank, the machines posted last are 2-headed with taper bars. It's a mechinical machine. It can be made into CNC.The mechanical one will allow you to turn-cut 2 shafts at the same time and 2 butts or 1 of each at the same time.
When CNC you must turn-cut the same product all at once. 4-shafts, 4- butts, or 4-handles, all in four's.
blud
PS, nice to have serious questions and answers, and NO HOT AIR.

 

[macguy]

Sounds great let me see sounds like a production quality cue maker now so you can turn out more cues fast with less cost to you lower quality and the price keeps going up wow what a great custom cue maker you are so when do the prices drop to the customer. I like the hand made cue I guess I just stick with custom cue makers not production makers or if I want a good production cue at a fair price I buy a viking. But maybe this is good the cues should be cheaper now to buy no more $500 plain cues load them up. just some hot air here.

I don't know why you are attacking Mr. B but I don't entirely disagree with you.. When technology increases production the price usually comes down. Take for instance the use of cnc. Instead of sitting at a manual pantograph machine for hours the cue maker starts the cnc machine and can work on something else adding many more productive hours to his day. This should actually reduce the value of the finished piece but instead the cue maker charges the same or more. Same with pantographed points. What would be say a plain fairly inexpensive birds eye cue is now a facsimile of a spliced cue and again the cue maker wants to charge the same or more although it was an easier and less time consuming cue to build.

I saw a cue recently that was said to be scrimshawed and the guy wanted a lot for it. It wasn't scrimshawed but engraved by a cnc machine. You can't even compare the two, it lacked the nuance of the artists hand and was actually awful, it looked cartoonish. I honestly don't think the cue maker had any idea what a difference there is from REAL scrimshaw and how utterly worthless what he had actually was, not to mention an insult to the cue makers who do real artistry. You just hope the buying public knows the differences. You can't make a photo copy of a picture in a book frame it and try to pass it off as a work of art that is basically in a sense what he had done.

 

[Chris Byrne]

cnc comment

You may not be aware of the time involved in creating an inlay program for a cue that works properly and has tight fitting parts. While it is true you spend less time at the machine you spend alot of time creating the cnc programs. Also you have the cost of the machine to recoup. My pantograph was $500, With all the cnc stuff added you are looking more like $12 - 15 thousand dollars.
If you do production work, yes the cues should be cheaper because you write 1 program and run it over ond over. I generally only do one of a kind cues. If you design a cue with 70 inlays you will spend alot of time writing programs to do that 1 cue. You have to charge enough to pay for the equipment, power, cutters, and all the other support stuff for the machine as well as pay yourself something for your time.
I am an auto mechanic in my day job. When you devide the time spent building a cue vs the money I make selling them. I generally make around 20 - 30% of my normal pay from my job. If I was to quit my day job today and only do cues I think I couldent make it. Doing custom cues for a living is something you do because you love it. I know when most people see a $2000 cue they think I am making a killing on it, If they only knew. My 2 cents

 

[Cue Crazy]

Sorry no hot air but I do have a question

I have only seen in person the taper bar type shaft turners. How does this
one work? Do the blades travel and create the taper?
Can you cut two different tapers at the same time?
Just curious

Correct Me If I'm wrong, but I believe the whole unit that holds the shafts moves on what looks Like NSK style linear rails.

Blud, thanks for contributing, and sharing pictures of your machine. I like to build things Myself, must say that design Is very nice, and you seem Like a smart fellow to come up with some of the equipment you've built. Wish I had the meens to build such a machine as your cnc Myself. I have a manual tapering machine in works for doing one shaft at a time, but after seeing your design, it sparked some Ideas of how to set it up to do 2 at a time. I just got the last few parts, and finished one project for doing My inlays thanks to alittle help, so this one is still in the beginning stages, and can still be modified for 2 shafts. Thanks for sharing. I've wanted to get a better look at your designs for sometime. I love the way you designed the "Z" on the cnc.

I for one apprietiate you sharing with us here. Hope you will continue to show your designs. I know quite a few of us are fabricators at heart ourselves, and can apprietiate what you are giving out here. I got alot of usefull information from it, and just want to say thanks. You've been knocked for not sharing the fabrication, and just trying to sell, and I have to admitt it kind of seemed that way to me even, but then you show pictures that give up some valueble info on major parts of the design, so you won't hear a word from me about production, because if I had a cnc that tapered 4 at a time you better bet I would put it to good use. this would only slightly change the amount of work that goes into it. it's not like it does 10-20 at a time, so don't see it really being production in a high volume sense. Just allows more time to focus on design. It's always a give and take when building cues, and anything that allows more time to be creative is a pluss in my book. The amount of time i have in building a cue the way I want to, does'nt even allow me to sell at a profit at this time, so i just build for fun, and experience, until I am setup up in a way that will speed some things up, allowing me to use the rest of the time toward other elements in the design.


Thanks, and please continue to show more as you are able.
Greg

 

[blud]

comments

His comments do not apply to me. I know what I build. My cues are custom cues, some CNC, some not. CNC does not take away from the beauty or the work involved of the cue. Just because some inlays are done by a machine that is not MANNED, dosen't mean it's production.

Some folks think because it's CNC it's not done by hand. Bull Crap.......
An old panamill does the same work as the CNC [ it also makes the points round ], However, the cnc doesn't take a break or wiz and is never late for work and requires no pay check..... The same parts and pockets are used for either style cue. Using a CNC, does this make one a production shop. From this qualified cuemakers point of view, HELL NO.

CNC allows the cuemaker to do more with designs and also allows him to build many differant styles of cues.

Vee points are faster to build than CNC cues. Really.

My vee pointed cues are done by hand. Hand inlays, just as CNC parts are hand inlayed, just like we all did years back. We all use a lathe to machine the tenons and joints, machine the ring work, thread the cues with a lathe,the lathe cuts the Vee grove, the indexer rotates the front to a new possition,the jointer squares the inter-inlay for the points, the band saw cuts the parts out, the sander sands the parts, we clean the parts by hand CNC or not,the saw or router turn-cuts the tapers on the butts and shafts, now, someone tell me what is hand made and what is not?????
All our woods are used on either CNC or Vee pointed cues. The wood doesn't care, or know......... It's all got to be stress-releived and air dried.

We all know, VEE points come to a sharpe point, RIGHT?

WRONG, some CNC cues points come to a sharp point also. Bet whatever?

A few years back, a well known west coast cuemaker told me one time, nice VEE points Blud, nice points, my reply was, sorry sir, they are not Vee points. He said yes they are. I said you don't have a clue as to how this cue was built. I built it, you didn't.

Well guys, I wanted to bet $1,000.00 about it, but he got crap in his neck. It was not a VEE pointed cue, it was a cnc flat bottom pointed cue with sharp points.
Some day I just might show and tell.
When I do, maybe Mr. Mathew Staton could be the judge.
rock-on.....

blud

 

[Okie Al]

Blud and Cueman,
There is no need to defend your trade. The popularity of your products and the price they command in the market place speak for themselves.

I bought a lathe and inlay machine from Cueman along with the book and tapes. I already owned a table saw, jointer, bandsaw, etc. Having built furniture and turned bowls and pens, I thought cue making would be fairly easy to learn. I was wrong and stand humbled. There is a tremendous amount of art and skill that goes into the building of a cue (not to mention the expense of quality materials).

It's obvious that some people don't respect your work and are unwilling to understand it. I, for one, do, and appreciate the advice and tips freely shared on this forum.

Thank you and the rest of the artists and cue builders.

Alan Scrivner

 

[macguy]

You may not be aware of the time involved in creating an inlay program for a cue that works properly and has tight fitting parts. While it is true you spend less time at the machine you spend alot of time creating the cnc programs. Also you have the cost of the machine to recoup. My pantograph was $500, With all the cnc stuff added you are looking more like $12 - 15 thousand dollars.
If you do production work, yes the cues should be cheaper because you write 1 program and run it over ond over. I generally only do one of a kind cues. If you design a cue with 70 inlays you will spend alot of time writing programs to do that 1 cue. You have to charge enough to pay for the equipment, power, cutters, and all the other support stuff for the machine as well as pay yourself something for your time.
I am an auto mechanic in my day job. When you devide the time spent building a cue vs the money I make selling them. I generally make around 20 - 30% of my normal pay from my job. If I was to quit my day job today and only do cues I think I couldent make it. Doing custom cues for a living is something you do because you love it. I know when most people see a $2000 cue they think I am making a killing on it, If they only knew. My 2 cents

If a cue is one of a kind, that in it's self commands greater value. I was just objectively looking at the guys post and can see how he would look at a machine that turns 4 or 8 shafts or butts at a time and say it looks like a production shop is the quality production as well. Actually machines that free up the workers time from what is mostly mindless time consuming work and lets them concentrate on other parts of their job, will in the long run help him build a better over all product. I once was at a wood workers show and Tage Frid was there giving a lecture on joinery. He was considered the Dean of wood workers at that time. Some how during a question and answer the hand vs. machine thing came up he said something very interesting. When someone said something like "They don't have craftsman like you today who can do your kind of hand work" I guess trying to kiss his ass a little. he said, "That may be, but today's craftsman with today's tooling and machines do better work then I ever did." He said "The best furniture ever built is being built today". I think the same can be said about cues.