[CadRhino]

Who on this site has cut their teeth on a Tormach and then transitioned to a larger VMC/mill.
I really enjoy my Tormach and have been learning so much about machining and am curious how much knowledge transferred.
Thanks,
Nathan

[WOTDesigns]

I'm not sure exactly what you would like to hear, but I did exactly what you're referring to. Cut my teeth on an X3 I built. Then after learning while making fun stuff and starting to do production parts for a few companies via referrals I designed Omni-Cruise (OMNI-CRUISE: Universal Motorcycle Throttle Lock) and I made the first 1,500 of them (top, bottom, pivot nut and delrin slide) on the X3.

That paid for the Tormach 1100, March 2013, I had been dreaming about for almost 2 years! Sales continued to increase and a few customers grew as well and doing production for some of their parts and it was obvious I was losing $1500/mnth by not having time for all of their work. So April of this year I moved out of my one car garage, + chicken shed, +another small shed, + utility room in the house and into a 2,000 sq/ft shop with 3 phase, leased a Haas TM2P, an Epilog mini 24x12 Co2 laser, and hired a buddy on full time.

HAAS factory outlet gave me a 4 hour (paid) training session and I read the manual cover to cover. I had parts coming off that first day it was delivered so it's safe to say a lot transfered over. Really from my experience 90% of machining is programming /planning and work holding. The individual mill is just a matter of speed, accuracy and convenience. The HAAS control rocks! I absolutely love it. Very logical (to me) and we'll laid out.

I'm very happy with my purchase even though I practically had to fight the sales rep to convince him I didn't need a 30 HP spindle and much smaller work envelope for more money. They were sure I needed a VF series. I went TM2P added 20 station tool changer, chip auger, renishaw wireless probe and tool setter, 4th axis ready, high pressure pump, $1200 jog handle (waste of money) and a few other software options like rigid tapping. All total it was $57K. Best damn money I've spent next to the parts tumbler I bought last week.

Work holding is work holding. Doesn't matter if it's a drill press or a VMC the concepts transfer over. The big difference is work envelope, speed, HP (love having 7 HP), and surface finish. Tormach needed hand finishing or tumbling on most of my parts, but the HAAS sends parts out smooth as glass.

That said, I LOVE my Tormach. The tormach hasn't been powered down in 6 days until last night and has been running 18-24 hours a day the whole time, and the week before. I use the spindle speeder for production and another main part is roughed out using a 1/4" EM in 6061 and it creates 20 gallons of chips a day with a 1/4" em. That impresses me.

As far as transferring goes I can manipulate code from the Tormach and use it on the HAAS. Vises go back and forth, tooling goes back and forth. Heck the only big difference is the size and UI. I'd rather do manual jog machining on the Tormach because it's jog wheel beats the crap out of a "real" jog handle interface. The HAAS on the other hand can drill 8,000 letter H holes in 1.25" plate without stalling, pecking or a belt change which used to kill me on the TORMACH. even with a custom peck cycle it would slow and growl after a few hundred holes. On the HAAS I can run the same code without peck and get all 8,000 holes with one drill bit.

Not sure if any of that helps, but I tried.

To date I've made/sold 7,000 Omni-Cruises and just now finally signed with a distributor so we have to ramp production up, change packaging, start advertising finally and get ready to grow =)

Happy to answer any more specific question I can.

Brian
WOT Designs

[SCzEngrgGroup]

The biggest difference between any two machines is going to be the control, not the machine itself, or the basic skills/knowledge required to operate it. The basic machining skills - design, CAD, CAM, feeds/speeds, etc. - are 100% inter-changeable between any two machines. How long it will take a person to adapt to a new control will mostly depend on how easily that person learns new things - everyone is different. For one person, it may be a matter of hours, for another days, or even weeks. But, no reason almost anyone could not be doing useful work within a few days, and learning the rest as time goes on. Getting the most out of a more capable machine can be expected to take a while, as there is a BIG difference in capability between a modern commercial VMC and smaller. more hobby-oriented machines like Tormachs, Novkakons, etc. Bottom line, if you have enough business to justify the up-front cost, you should probably go for it.

Regards,
Ray L.

[BAMCNC.COM]

Cool Story Brian. I could be in the same boat but choosing to stay where I'm at as far as sales go, etc. "budweiser" had me design a bottle opener for them, and wanted me to make 5 or 8000 of them after they loved the design (picture attached) and I ended up turning them down because... well, I want to have fun at work, I love what I do and don't want it turning into a pain in the butt.
Attachment 257464

I turned down many retail opportunities aswell because retail wants to get the product for 40-70% cheaper. So to make as much money I have to make that many more pieces.. in the end.. the moral of my story is.. Stay small to do what you love, or grow and become rich but hate everyday.

[mountaindew]

Do you also upgrade all the back office to push the high end machines and tooling?
Change from 4k lt versions of cad to 8 k full versions?
Change from entry level 2k cam to full high end stuff like master cam at 8-10k?
Change from 1k over counter computers to 3k dedicated workstations? with 1k high res monitors?
I would want good tools to drive the good tools
md

[Steve Seebold]

Cool Story Brian. I could be in the same boat but choosing to stay where I'm at as far as sales go, etc. "budweiser" had me design a bottle opener for them, and wanted me to make 5 or 8000 of them after they loved the design (picture attached) and I ended up turning them down because... well, I want to have fun at work, I love what I do and don't want it turning into a pain in the butt.
Attachment 257464

I turned down many retail opportunities aswell because retail wants to get the product for 40-70% cheaper. So to make as much money I have to make that many more pieces.. in the end.. the moral of my story is.. Stay small to do what you love, or grow and become rich but hate everyday.

That last statement is so true.

I have my PCNC 1100 in my garage and I work when I want to and if I don't want to work, I'll load some boats in my truck and go down to the pond for the day. Or maybe I'll go fishing, or go watch my grand son BMX race. Or maybe I'll sit on my a$$ and watch drag races.

I call my shop Mid Day Machining because I seldom start before 11:00 AM and most days I'm finished by 5:00 or 6:00 PM. If I get a customer who tries to pressure me on a job, I have been known to pull their job off the machine and give it back to them. Working under deadlines at 70 years old is just not worth it. I did it for 50 plus years and I'm not going to do it any more.

When I started my shop, I tried making some after market motorcycle parts for Harleys, but that was in 2001 when the economy tanked and every machine shop in the country started making Harley parts just to survive. Some were making parts and using their chip money as their profit.

It appears Brian has come up with a part that motor cycle riders want and he did it the right way. I applaud him for that.

I have a customer here in town that I get some prototype work from, and that's really all I want to do. Ya know, Mid Day Machining.

I'm a TV junkie too. I have 46 inch TV on a bench next to my machine. I did that mostly because I hate quiet. I also have an internet connection next to the machine. Sometimes, I'll even go out in the garage and play on the internet all day.

[CadRhino]

Hi Brian,
Thanks for taking the time to lay out your success story and transition - I learned quite a bit.

That is very impressive and I remember seeing a video of your work a while back. Very cool. You are an innovator not to mention savvy business person and machinist. Congratulations on the new distribution. That is big-time.

Best,
Nathan

I'm not sure exactly what you would like to hear, but I did exactly what you're referring to. Cut my teeth on an X3 I built. Then after learning while making fun stuff and starting to do production parts for a few companies via referrals I designed Omni-Cruise (OMNI-CRUISE: Universal Motorcycle Throttle Lock) and I made the first 1,500 of them (top, bottom, pivot nut and delrin slide) on the X3.

That paid for the Tormach 1100, March 2013, I had been dreaming about for almost 2 years! Sales continued to increase and a few customers grew as well and doing production for some of their parts and it was obvious I was losing $1500/mnth by not having time for all of their work. So April of this year I moved out of my one car garage, + chicken shed, +another small shed, + utility room in the house and into a 2,000 sq/ft shop with 3 phase, leased a Haas TM2P, an Epilog mini 24x12 Co2 laser, and hired a buddy on full time.

HAAS factory outlet gave me a 4 hour (paid) training session and I read the manual cover to cover. I had parts coming off that first day it was delivered so it's safe to say a lot transfered over. Really from my experience 90% of machining is programming /planning and work holding. The individual mill is just a matter of speed, accuracy and convenience. The HAAS control rocks! I absolutely love it. Very logical (to me) and we'll laid out.

I'm very happy with my purchase even though I practically had to fight the sales rep to convince him I didn't need a 30 HP spindle and much smaller work envelope for more money. They were sure I needed a VF series. I went TM2P added 20 station tool changer, chip auger, renishaw wireless probe and tool setter, 4th axis ready, high pressure pump, $1200 jog handle (waste of money) and a few other software options like rigid tapping. All total it was $57K. Best damn money I've spent next to the parts tumbler I bought last week.

Work holding is work holding. Doesn't matter if it's a drill press or a VMC the concepts transfer over. The big difference is work envelope, speed, HP (love having 7 HP), and surface finish. Tormach needed hand finishing or tumbling on most of my parts, but the HAAS sends parts out smooth as glass.

That said, I LOVE my Tormach. The tormach hasn't been powered down in 6 days until last night and has been running 18-24 hours a day the whole time, and the week before. I use the spindle speeder for production and another main part is roughed out using a 1/4" EM in 6061 and it creates 20 gallons of chips a day with a 1/4" em. That impresses me.

As far as transferring goes I can manipulate code from the Tormach and use it on the HAAS. Vises go back and forth, tooling goes back and forth. Heck the only big difference is the size and UI. I'd rather do manual jog machining on the Tormach because it's jog wheel beats the crap out of a "real" jog handle interface. The HAAS on the other hand can drill 8,000 letter H holes in 1.25" plate without stalling, pecking or a belt change which used to kill me on the TORMACH. even with a custom peck cycle it would slow and growl after a few hundred holes. On the HAAS I can run the same code without peck and get all 8,000 holes with one drill bit.

Not sure if any of that helps, but I tried.

To date I've made/sold 7,000 Omni-Cruises and just now finally signed with a distributor so we have to ramp production up, change packaging, start advertising finally and get ready to grow =)

Happy to answer any more specific question I can.

Brian
WOT Designs

[CadRhino]

Spoken like a real artist, Brad. Keep a low overhead and keep doing what you want.

Cool Story Brian. I could be in the same boat but choosing to stay where I'm at as far as sales go, etc. "budweiser" had me design a bottle opener for them, and wanted me to make 5 or 8000 of them after they loved the design (picture attached) and I ended up turning them down because... well, I want to have fun at work, I love what I do and don't want it turning into a pain in the butt.
Attachment 257464

I turned down many retail opportunities aswell because retail wants to get the product for 40-70% cheaper. So to make as much money I have to make that many more pieces.. in the end.. the moral of my story is.. Stay small to do what you love, or grow and become rich but hate everyday.

[RussMachine]

I actually did the opposite.
I've been working in Machine Shops for 20 years, running 'Big' CNC machining centers and lathes.
Then bought my TORMACH for my own personal use.
I had to learn to take it easy, slow down, use lighter cuts because of the lower horsepower.

90% of 'Big' machines will read G-Code exactly as written for the TORMACH (Mach3).
Sometimes you'll run into quirky G or M-codes that are specific to THAT machine.
And there's Conversational Controls like Dynapath, or MAZATROL for Mazak's.
But generally speaking, G-code is pretty universal.

[jid2]

Brad, why not outsource and mark up the parts to Bud? Thats a nice waterjet to rough, machine to finish part.

Brian, your parts would go fast in production on something like a pallet changer Brother R450X. Id guess a single pallet machine would be 3x-4x more productive. If you get to a point where you are selling much faster than you can build them that TM has some speed issues. If you are loading a huge table with the door open then the spindle isnt running. But maybe you have pallets that you pull and load/unload out of the machine? Anyway, those are great problems to get to solve!

I started with a Tormach sized machine. Learned tons, its hard to loose on learning new stuff. When you need more machine you typically know it. And no matter what... you are never done buying tooling.

[WOTDesigns]

Hi Brian,
Thanks for taking the time to lay out your success story and transition - I learned quite a bit.

That is very impressive and I remember seeing a video of your work a while back. Very cool. You are an innovator not to mention savvy business person and machinist. Congratulations on the new distribution. That is big-time.

Best,
Nathan

Thank you, but I'm a terrible business man. I am about as big now as I ever want to be with the exception of hiring someone I can trust to do the books and paperwork garbage I hate/suck at.

Regarding doing what u love and never work a day in your life... I just slept for 4 hours which was my first sleep over an hour in 96 hours. I absolutely freaking love it! I love making things, designing new fixtures and working out inefficiencies. Plus... I like toys =) just bought a BurBench 2016 that has been a dream come true!

Just overcame the whole no-double-station-vises fit the Tormach table in Y problem too. I'll post a pic in a new thread.

I get to design and make new parts and toys while my employee stands at the machine and does the crap I don't want to. What more can I ask for!?

Brian
WOT Designs

[BAMCNC.COM]

I couldn't afford to outsource that many parts. Bud pays in 120 days, that is INSANE for a little guy like me.

As of yesterday I now have a Part Time Employee

[BIG IGG]

I love to hear stories like that. How you started and how things are goings

[WOTDesigns]

I couldn't afford to outsource that many parts. Bud pays in 120 days, that is INSANE for a little guy like me.

As of yesterday I now have a Part Time Employee

Congrats! It's nice to say "Please pull all the vises off the table, clean them, clean all the chips from the machine and I'll be back in an hour" =)

Right now my helper, who happened to be a friend first is driving my truck from SoCal up to Seattle for their International Motorcycle show tour. I definitely make more if I go, but I have parts to make and look at it as free advertising.

The hardest part was getting workers comp insurance. They wanted to murder me on the price!! I finally explained he doesn't run machines, just assembles parts and cleans.

Brian
WOT Designs

[WOTDesigns]

I love to hear stories like that. How you started and how things are goings

Thanks BIG IGG . I kind of wish more people were comfortable sharing their stories on here. You see people who obviously started from nothing and built a business with just an idea and overwhelming determination and self sacrifice, but I think the fear of trolls and judgement scares that off.

Brian
WOT Designs

[slowtwitch]

Wow, this thread hits close to home Just thinking that few years ago, I never saw a CNC machine. Then I develop a simple linkage system for aircooled VW's, Then I had to spend hours and hours learning about my CNC mill, as well as completely rebuilding it. Then there's the cad/cam stuff... I've also rebuilt two Emco cnc lathes (120p and a 220). Now, I'm thinking about getting a Brother TC S2C, to keep up with orders

Like some other posts here, I'm also going to keep things small..business wise. I just turned 63 and I want to take it easy ...if it's possible

[popspipes]

My story is Tuned exhaust systems for rc model gas boats, made a couple kit systems for myself to have something to do in my retirement years as my profession was tig welding, and it took off from there, bought a Tormach with some of the proceeds to learn cnc machining, I always wanted to learn it and never had the time. That was about 3 years ago, and at 75 I am still enjoying it, and still going, maybe a bit more slowly these days ha!

[Steve Seebold]

My story is Tuned exhaust systems for rc model gas boats, made a couple kit systems for myself to have something to do in my retirement years as my profession was tig welding, and it took off from there, bought a Tormach with some of the proceeds to learn cnc machining, I always wanted to learn it and never had the time. That was about 3 years ago, and at 75 I am still enjoying it, and still going, maybe a bit more slowly these days ha!

Hey Mike, you can always tell folks "I'M NOT AS FAST AS I ONCE WAS, BUT I'M AS FAST ONCE AS I EVER WAS".

[popspipes]

Hey Mike, you can always tell folks "I'M NOT AS FAST AS I ONCE WAS, BUT I'M AS FAST ONCE AS I EVER WAS".

I have slowed down quite a bit the last couple years, too much sitting on my rear trying to learn software ha!
I dont get to the lake much anymore either, and thats not a good thing.........

[tmarks11]

I'm not sure exactly what you would like to hear, but I did exactly what you're referring to. Cut my teeth on an X3 I built. ...To date I've made/sold 7,000 Omni-Cruises and just now finally signed with a distributor so we have to ramp production up, change packaging, start advertising finally and get ready to grow =)

Thanks Bryan. That is an inspiring story.