So my father owns a small manufacturing business, Van Werkhoven MFG. The long and short of things is he has an old CNC Milling Machine in pretty good working order that he is going to donate to the Hackerspace in exchange for a 5.2 Surround Sound upgrade for his home Theatre.
He is pretty busy with work at the moment. He will let me know when he’s ready for it to be moved, as he needs to take out a wall to move it, probably a few months. And the Hackerspace will need to organise and pay for the truck, a Webber with a 6 tonne crane should do the trick, upwards to $1k.
Several members have trailers that may work instead of renting a truck (if need be I can tow a tandem axle trailer down, but I’d rather not as its >300km round trip so its basically another $50 or so). The crane is trickier, how much roughly does this mill weigh? And is there any possibility to partially disassemble it (eg you can often take the the gantry off its rails ect)?.
Thats nice… but what if the member’s don’t want another miling machine? Things like this ought to be taken to the group to vote on… or at very least to the cause/s and cause-leader/s for the digital fabrication and metalworking areas…
It might be a donation in your mind, but if we have to incur $1000 just to get to the space, and $unknown ( maybe thousands more? ) to get it into full working order and with a full set of tooling, and a dedicated area to run it in… then it’s not a donation to be accepted lightly.
Also, in the event that HSBNE finds ourselves having to relocate or close, it’s just added another $1000 to the costs we incur there… meaning we have to permanently hold an extra $1k in the bank so that if/when we wind-up or relocate, we can cover those costs.
If we can get it to HSBNE without huge cost, then worst case is it sits in a corner till we move, then we sell it for some much needed capital at that time (its listed as $6.6K, so its not like we’ll fail to get shipping back). On the other hand if members do want to see it used (which I think they will) then they can fix it using the existing mills, or buy tooling themselves or under cause budgets. I still think it needs raising at a meeting, but mainly because it’l allow us to rally what resources we have to move it\set it up, I see almost zero reason to turn this down.
It weighs 4.8 tonne. It is fully working except for the manual winding handle, which isn’t an expensive fix, and not strictly necessary for the running of the machine anyway, as you can jog it, and use MDI mode. It takes BT40 shanks, which is what your existing mill takes. You are paying less than a grand for a working machine, but I dare say if you needed to dump it someone would pay you a few dollars for scrap metal.
I think it’s potentially a great donation, however as @buzz says because the donation will incur us a significant financial investment to acquire it is something that will need to go to membership vote to approve.
This will likely mean the meeting the fortnight after the AGM as we need 5 days notice for financial items. Can someone who is keen on this coming to the space please work up a hiring quote for a truck capable of shifting it to bring to the meeting?
Whelp, its actually a little to heavy for my largest trailer. Is there any possibility to take it apart? If not he are up for hiring a light ridged truck, and something to put it on\off the back as no crane that may come mounted on such a truck will do the trick, and while possible, jacking\blocking it all the way up to back a truck under sounds slow\dangerous.
@nogthree I think it’d be worth seeing if somebody can contact bear about this item, he has bought\sold lots of this gear so may know good compaines, prices ect for both parts and transport.
Can it do a full sheet of plywood? I have some ideas about things that require this capability. If so I am willing to provide some funds to get it to the space.
Its a metal mill really, so its build area, motor gearing ect wasn’t really designed for large ply work. On the other hand with the correct bit there won’t be any issues cutting any wood that fits, but I think for your application you may be better off making a simple 2d CNC router than trying to work in sections that small.
I’d gladly throw in some extra funding to help get it to the space. The fact that it is the same taper as our current mill makes it an even more amazing.
I know someone who owns their own tow truck and is happy to give some pretty massive discounts. I call them when every other towing company quotes me $160, they quote me $50.
Should I call and ask?