Built up welded engines sound real good. From my experience with
machining welded stainless (high vacuum physics gizmoes) I can see the
added costs. The welds change the hardness of the metal and you end up
with soft and hard spots so it is hard to set your speeds and feeds to
not break up your tool bits. The cure is to re heat treat the whole
welded assembly before machining. The process is called normalization
IIRC. I never was involved with the economics of the process, I'm sure
there is a break point on costs though. It would involve you doing some
specking out as I don't think any one shop would do it for you as it is
in their interest to charge you for the added costs of slow machining.
You might have to get separate bids from a shop with annealing experience.
Can you do CNC with the plasma torch? Bolt the torch to an arm
bolted to your CNC mill's table, Use the mill's control system, this
could really work.
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........ Alex Fraser N3DER .........
......... [EMAIL PROTECTED] .......
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