I’m looking at getting a 3 axis 4x8 machine for making wooden saddle trees. They are made from 4 parts. Then covered with fiberglass. Any input would be appreciated. Looking for something around 15k

First off Joey, welcome to The Patriot Woodworker (TPW). A great place to hang your hat (well saddle too) and call home. I'm no SME in this arena but we do have several who can give you input and help you spend your money

 

Second, thanks for the pictures of what you want your end product to be. That always helps and we love pictures of projects. Very nice work BTW.

 

Hopefully one our SME's ( @honesttjohn, @difalkner, @4DThinker,or @MEBCWD )  will be along soon to help and ask more technical questions. Looking forward to your participation here. Thanks for choosing TPW to ask for assistance.

 

Hi Joey,

 

For 15k or less you might contact Len (at) Probotix.com.  The last I talked with him (He is the owner of that company) they had been working on making a 5x9 machine for a client, and although their prices may be higher now the last quote I heard for one of these large machines was right around 10k. 

 

4D

 

 

I don't think you will have a problem finding a CNC in your price range that will cut your parts but from what I am looking at your main concern would be to make sure the machine will have plenty of Z axis height and a gantry that  can handle the weight of a large spindle because you will need to use some large tooling to make it cost efficient.  

 

This project will call for 2 sided machining.  Once you create modes for the parts you might also want to make some fixtures to hold the blanks for machining and alignment when the blanks are turned over to carve the back side. 

Edited March 16, 20188 yr by MEBCWD

Welcome aboard Joey, glad to have you here.

So do you think a 7” z axis would be enough? I’ll post pics of one made up just in wood and also the 4 peices

So do you think a 7” z axis would be enough? I’ll post pics of one made up just in wood and also the 4 peices

Pictures of the individual parts will help us  picture the orientation of the parts on the CNC bed.