It is definitely as time consuming as pushing glass. I may even end up spending as much time on the machining as the mirror for my 10" (just for the mirror mounts, etc).
> While you are right about buying a mill/drill and a lathe for not a lot
> of money (4-6K for Taiwaneese stuff). But buying all the tooling is
> another story. (vises, drill bits, end mills, endmill holders,
> shellmills, arbors, dial indicators, digital calipers, rotary tables,
> clamping sets, indicator holders, tool bits, face mills, parting tools,
> rotary indexers, feeler guages, countersinking tools, drill chucks,
> drill chuck arbors, table power feeds, files, marking guage, hight
> guages, boring tools, boring tool holders, taps and dies, marking fluid,
> cutting fluids, setup blocks, center punches, squares, t-nuts, grinders,
> angle plates, reamers, boring heads, chamfering tools, deburring tools,
> hole guages, centering guages and collets.) Basic tooling could easily cost
> the same as the outlay for the mill and lathe. But I'm not really sure.
> I never have enough tooling and I'm too scared to add up what I have spent
> so far.
It is true you can easily spend as much on the tooling as the machines, but you can get by without a lot of this stuff and only buy it as you need it. There are some really creative and simple ways to do some amazing things without tons of tooling.
> I dont think ATMs should start machining to save time or money. I would
> recommend machining because its fun. But it also takes time away from
> pushing glass.
>
Agreed, good advise. I find machining to be a lot of fun. You are really only limited by your imagination.
Bob