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Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

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Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#11

Post by dymk »

legitster wrote: post #6

Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing. I've purchased the odd 3D printed or resin cast tchotchke from small operations a few times at this point. But it's still disappointing that if you need professional quality products, you still either need to pay out the nose…

It depends on what you mean by a renaissance of small-scale manufacturing. I see CNC and 3D printers much more often now in prosumer and small-business shops. People are making professional quality casts, with some work. Yes, it's effort, but it's going to be effort regardless of if you outsource the work, or learn how to do it the right way yourself. Plastic injection machines can be a few grand on eBay now. A very reliable 3D printer is $800, a Shapeoko Pro 4 XXL is $2.5k. Very much in the range of a small business, or even an enthusiast.

I started off with a 3D printer for my shop and that was great for making slipcasting molds for ceramics, and then jigs for woodworking. I bought a CNC for the shop for flattening, carving, and inlaying, and the two have a nice synergy with traditional woodworking methods.

"Maker youtube" has been popping off for years. People love small shops and DIY.

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#12

Post by datpiff »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #8

I think CNC machining is primed for developments that make it much easier to use for the home hobbyist. The tech is very close to what's needed for 3D printing but it has a few added requirements like the need for a sturdier frame and accommodations for a fairly large and powerful motor. Both are solvable with the right materials and the motor can be anything from a DC spindle to a repurposed wood router. The biggest…

> The tech is very close to what's needed for 3D printing but it has a few added requirements like the need for a sturdier frame and accommodations for a fairly large and powerful motor.

This is a huge understatement. You also need large investments in consumable tooling plus metrology tools to do anything useful with metal. The entire operation is really loud, slow, dangerous and throws chips everywhere.

The whole point of the linked article is that CNC machining is a pretty awful fit for a hobbyist! It literally recommends finding alternatives with stuff that's easier to have in a home.

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#13

Post by datpiff »

legitster wrote: post #6

Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing. I've purchased the odd 3D printed or resin cast tchotchke from small operations a few times at this point. But it's still disappointing that if you need professional quality products, you still either need to pay out the nose…

> Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing.

I don't think this was ever any kind of real goal. Way more emphasis was put on education and removing barriers of entry around design than anything to do with manufacturing.

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#14

Post by sokoloff »

legitster wrote: post #6

Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing. I've purchased the odd 3D printed or resin cast tchotchke from small operations a few times at this point. But it's still disappointing that if you need professional quality products, you still either need to pay out the nose…

Machining metal in general and, to an even greater degree, mold-making in particular is time and labor-intensive.

Consumers are used to buying injection molded parts at $1/kilogram, with the mold costs largely ignored (by virtue of being 500K parts).

They're not used to paying $1-2 per part for just the short-run "soft" mold for a run of a few thousand parts.

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#15

Post by jehb »

pyb wrote: post #10
legitster wrote: post #6

Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing. I've purchased the odd 3D printed or resin cast tchotchke from small operations a few times at this point. But it's still disappointing that if you need professional quality products, you still either need to pay out the nose…

I also hold this unpopular opinion : the maker movement has ultimately failed. I am not fully certain why, but think social factors are partly to blame. What I saw (in the UK) was that the new generation of middle-class, hobbyist makers weren't interested in engaging with and learning from the historical, working-class manufacturing sector.

Would you mind expounding upon this comment? Against what goal did it fail to deliver?

I think I was more hopeful a decade ago than I am now that we'd see more decentralized manufacturing and more home-grown innovation, but I'm not sure that these were ever realistic expectations.

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#16

Post by legitster »

datpiff wrote: post #13
legitster wrote: post #6

Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing. I've purchased the odd 3D printed or resin cast tchotchke from small operations a few times at this point. But it's still disappointing that if you need professional quality products, you still either need to pay out the nose…

> Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing. I don't think this was ever any kind of real goal. Way more emphasis was put on education and removing barriers of entry around design than anything to do with manufacturing.

I largely agree. But I thing the goals should expand.

We have removed the barriers to design and we now have a huge collective competence in design work. But now we have a bottleneck in turning that education into progress.

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#17

Post by legitster »

thepasswordis wrote: post #9
legitster wrote: post #6

Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing. I've purchased the odd 3D printed or resin cast tchotchke from small operations a few times at this point. But it's still disappointing that if you need professional quality products, you still either need to pay out the nose…

You're wrong. There are massive 3D printing farms that are producing consumer products at scale in the united states now, and that is a direct result of the work that the maker community (both here and especially in China) has done on 3D printing.

Sure. But the vast majority of products are not ever going to be 3D printed.

Most of the things you are going to touch today are going to be injection-molded. Keyboards, keychains, car parts, cups, computer cases, etc.

There's a 3d print shop that sells at my local farmer's market. But they only sell tchotchkes. I am imagining a world where the same size business could also phone cases or mugs or even supply a local manufacturer.

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#18

Post by digdugdirk »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #8

I think CNC machining is primed for developments that make it much easier to use for the home hobbyist. The tech is very close to what's needed for 3D printing but it has a few added requirements like the need for a sturdier frame and accommodations for a fairly large and powerful motor. Both are solvable with the right materials and the motor can be anything from a DC spindle to a repurposed wood router. The biggest…

I love your optimism, and would absolutely love to have this capability in a garage. But as someone who designs physical products (and deals with all of the manufacturing techniques you mentioned above on a regular basis) I can't say I agree. There's a huge amount of knowledge and skill required to make machined/cast/extruded metal components, and a very steep learning curve before someone can do so safely.

Gamechanger? Yes. But likely mostly for the ambulance industry.

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#19

Post by rspeele »

legitster wrote: post #6

Semi-related: As an average consumer I'm disappointed that nearly a decade of the "makerspace" has seemingly failed to produce any sort of meaningful Renaissance in small-scale US manufacturing. I've purchased the odd 3D printed or resin cast tchotchke from small operations a few times at this point. But it's still disappointing that if you need professional quality products, you still either need to pay out the nose…

Another problem is that really good CAD software is expensive.

I have used FreeCAD. Its instability frustrated me. Not very rewarding to work on a part that needs a moderately complex feature like a loft, only to find out that after adding the loft FC crashes every few minutes so the part is essentially impossible to edit further.

SolveSpace is much more stable but it doesn't have those complex features at all.

You can use Fusion 360 for hobby stuff, but if you're attached to your work (as any creator would be), it's disquieting to have it hosted in a cloud that you're just being given permission to access. You're one corporate decision away from losing your files.

My dream is that one day some billionaire will buy out Dassault and make SolidWorks free as a form of philanthropy. Imagine what net good could be done for the world with freely available high quality tools for designing 3d objects. Or, to think of it from another angle, imagine how far behind we'd be in software if there weren't any free compilers for "real" languages and the commercial ones cost thousands (per year!)

Re: Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting (2015)

#20

Post by throwaway4aday »

datpiff wrote: post #12
throwaway4aday wrote: post #8

I think CNC machining is primed for developments that make it much easier to use for the home hobbyist. The tech is very close to what's needed for 3D printing but it has a few added requirements like the need for a sturdier frame and accommodations for a fairly large and powerful motor. Both are solvable with the right materials and the motor can be anything from a DC spindle to a repurposed wood router. The biggest…

> The tech is very close to what's needed for 3D printing but it has a few added requirements like the need for a sturdier frame and accommodations for a fairly large and powerful motor. This is a huge understatement. You also need large investments in consumable tooling plus metrology tools to do anything useful with metal. The entire operation is really loud, slow, dangerous and throws chips everywhere. The whole p…

I don't think it's that much of an understatement looking at the table top CNC machine that I got off Aliexpress and upgraded so that it could mill aluminum. Same stepper motors, same Arduino type board, moderately fancier bearings. The main things I had to do were just beef up the frame with some plate and replace the dinky spindle that came with it. I'm not making precision parts with it, just fun hobby things and artsy stuff.
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