The expensive way to miter tubes.

[customfab]

From the Co-Motion tour that BikeRumor did. I don't know what this exact machine would run. But the live tool lathe that some of my parts are made on was a ~150k machine USED.
Shop Tour: Co-Motion Cycles Part 2 – CNC Machining - Bike Rumor

[pvd]

I'm in love.

[G-reg]

What? You don't drill your h2o boss holes that way?

[adarn]

Wow! that is awesome!

[Clockwork Bikes]

This stay bender is pretty awesome too.

[TrailMaker]

Neat stuff;

Our recently very occasional forum friend Peter Bungum (Whipsmart Fab) works there.

Re: the Stay Masher;

What occurs to me is to think about all the prototyping necessary to make dies that mashed the stay just right, accounting for spring-back, variations in material properties, etc. Like myself when bending this stuff, I wonder if they shoot for slightly over bent, and "set" it back from there?

[compositepro]

if you have a live tool mori seiki stood doing nothing fine

but an absolutely ridiculous waste

they actually make machines with a lazer beem that does that in seconds

[febikes]

The cheap way to do things is to have an expensive machine do the work. My guess is that the expensive machine is cheaper on a per tube cost as compared to humans provided you have enough volume to justify the equipment.

[shandcycles]

from about 1:10

[compositepro]

from about 1:10

Thats the way we were going to do it

wont bore you with why its not possible in the UK

[DWF]

I'm torn. The Mori is awesome. Using it for mitering tubes makes me cry, but hey, whatever blows their hair back. But what I really can't understand is rubbing their way through parts like this, I mean holyfukkin'changethecutterandfigureoutyourspeeds&feeds, Batman!

[unterhausen]

I can't believe that machine in the OP is economic for that purpose, don't they start at $250k or something like that? Seems to me that you could be making something more interesting.

[customfab]

if you have a live tool mori seiki stood doing nothing fine

but an absolutely ridiculous waste

they actually make machines with a lazer beem that does that in seconds

If the quotes are an indicator of how expensive it is to laser cut tubes that machine is more expensive than the live tool lathe Co-Motion is using.

For all we know they bought that machine at auction for peanuts. If it were truly a bad decision they probably would have gone out of business by now.

DWF, your right about those dropouts, they look like haggard hell.

[car bone]

Its actually not that expensive. 250k is what you would expect to pay for a non taiwanese high quality machine. The japanese machines love you looong time, thats what you pay for.

that machine seemed to be the EXACT right tool for the job. but you could do almost the same thing with a cheap 3axis (+ indexed active 4 axis roundtable) mill.
Around here 3 axis machines with no tool magazine is practically free. cheaper than manual mills because nobody wants them.

also laser?? I was at this place applying for a job, they mostly did laser, and to be honest, lasered thin sheet looks like hell. jagged wavy edges, yuck.
Waterjet cut tubes would probably look a lot better, if they are that thin.

You wanna see some badass machines? look into Citizen's swiss lathes or whatever they call them, these are ultrahigh precision machines used in watchmanufacturing, and they have live tools and live spindles coming from every god damn direction you can think of.

I prefer milling machines though, and preferably Heidenhein, its ****ing awesome. Especially when working multiaxis (4 or more) jobs, since you can still easily program this in the machine, as opposed to iso/fanuc crapola (imo), well it goes faster for me at least.

anyway very nice vid!, thats how its done, to 0,01mm tolerance

[car bone]

I'm torn. The Mori is awesome. Using it for mitering tubes makes me cry, but hey, whatever blows their hair back. But what I really can't understand is rubbing their way through parts like this, I mean holyfukkin'changethecutterandfigureoutyourspeeds&feeds, Batman!

Yeah i agree, looks like A lot of overlapping cuts there, to no use at all. Execpt for wearing out tools as fast as possible.

[swift]

Sweet! Thanks for sharing.

[VenMod]

I am not the greatest chip maker - won't belittle machinists by calling myself one, but it looks like the put some plate in with a box of rats and had them gnaw those parts out.

Oy - I do like the machining center, would not complain if one of those followed me home. Alas, a Bridgeport and file are still my tools of choice.