Gantry System
I agree! i've been using a Techno for about 10 trouble free years (trouble free for the Techno gear). I went through several spindles until recently set it up with dual spindles, the precision one I use for inlay work and engraving and a laminate trimmer I use for tapering and anything work where I need more torque than precision.
That's what I really like about the gantry systems over "cue machines" . It took me much longer to learn what I was doing with my machine, but I have it set up with a 4th axis to hold and rotate the cue for pocketing, trimming inlays, even shaft tapering. I can wrap inlays around the cue and do engravings wraped around the cue. even take photos and make line drawings into engravings similar to scrimshaw. All this is done on the 4th axis which I have in the front of my machine. behind that I have a vacuum table that I use for the inlay parts. I also have my machine set up to inlay sights in pool table rails and work with a couple of small custom table makers inlaying sights and making name plates and small parts for them on the CNC. The gantry system gives you more versatility. I knew a cuemaker who got out of the business because he got too busy making parts for some manfacturing companies. He bought a Techno gantry to build cues but planned to offer his services with it to his old employer (a canoe manufacturing company I think) to make some plywood braces that they had made "out of shop". He'd recently retired from the canoe company and had been doing some cuemaking as a hobby before retirement. He planned to make cues in his retirement (that's a laugh!) and set up the cnc to make these braces for his old company and let his son run that as a second shift job. Well the tail ended up wagging the dog and they got so busy making those parts and some others that people had commisioneed him to make, that he no longer had time for cuemaking and was running his CNC machine 3 shifts, just about 24 hours a day making plywood parts, cabinets, and some other projects he found lucrative.
I made up a bunch of Cocobolo Outlet electrical covers for a designer once and plan to do my entire home with custom woodwork I can do on the gantry system while I'm busy doing other operations on cues. My cnc sit's idle except for maybe 25-40 hours in a month. I don't mind being able to take in side work, other than cuemaking, once in a while. helps pay the bills!
just more hot air!
Sherm
skins said:
I agree! i've been using a Techno for about 10 trouble free years (trouble free for the Techno gear). I went through several spindles until recently set it up with dual spindles, the precision one I use for inlay work and engraving and a laminate trimmer I use for tapering and anything work where I need more torque than precision.
That's what I really like about the gantry systems over "cue machines" . It took me much longer to learn what I was doing with my machine, but I have it set up with a 4th axis to hold and rotate the cue for pocketing, trimming inlays, even shaft tapering. I can wrap inlays around the cue and do engravings wraped around the cue. even take photos and make line drawings into engravings similar to scrimshaw. All this is done on the 4th axis which I have in the front of my machine. behind that I have a vacuum table that I use for the inlay parts. I also have my machine set up to inlay sights in pool table rails and work with a couple of small custom table makers inlaying sights and making name plates and small parts for them on the CNC. The gantry system gives you more versatility. I knew a cuemaker who got out of the business because he got too busy making parts for some manfacturing companies. He bought a Techno gantry to build cues but planned to offer his services with it to his old employer (a canoe manufacturing company I think) to make some plywood braces that they had made "out of shop". He'd recently retired from the canoe company and had been doing some cuemaking as a hobby before retirement. He planned to make cues in his retirement (that's a laugh!) and set up the cnc to make these braces for his old company and let his son run that as a second shift job. Well the tail ended up wagging the dog and they got so busy making those parts and some others that people had commisioneed him to make, that he no longer had time for cuemaking and was running his CNC machine 3 shifts, just about 24 hours a day making plywood parts, cabinets, and some other projects he found lucrative.
I made up a bunch of Cocobolo Outlet electrical covers for a designer once and plan to do my entire home with custom woodwork I can do on the gantry system while I'm busy doing other operations on cues. My cnc sit's idle except for maybe 25-40 hours in a month. I don't mind being able to take in side work, other than cuemaking, once in a while. helps pay the bills!
just more hot air!
Sherm
