The Cutting Edge: Knife Artisans Look to Affordable ‘Personal CNC’ for Automatic Tooling
One of the biggest technological developments for custom knife makers in more than a decade has been the development of “Personal CNC” machines. CNC, which is short for computer numeric controlled machining, is essentially automatic cutting through the use of computerized CAD files. Although CNC has been around since the 80s, the scale of mills missed the mark for bladesmithing. Desktop-sized machines could be automated through a PC, but lacked the power to accurately cut blade-quality steel. The other alternatives – large industrial sized mills used in mass manufacturing – were out of the price range and the skill set of an individual artist.Enter the PCNC mill from Tormach. After three years of research and development, Tormach founder and CEO Greg Jackson carefully balanced size, rigidity, spindle velocity, and price to make the perfect mid-size CNC for prototyping and short runs of production, regardless of the type of material. Jackson coined the term “personal CNC” in the same sense that computers became personal 25 years ago. When a machine becomes easy enough for the average person to understand, powerful enough to be effective, and affordable for the individual, then it becomes a personal tool. BLADE has interviewed four original knife makers who have put personal CNC to the test:
The Production Boost - Steve Woods, Rock River Iron
When
Steve Woods is not running his 75-employee
Dallas-based catalog photography company,
Steven Michael Studios, he is in the
shop making his own custom knives, sold
through his second business, Rock River
Iron, LLC (www.rockriveriron.com).
The six-year-old company’s most popular item is the Hide Fighter tactical blade, a knife that Woods designed through collective input from an online forum for long-range rifle enthusiasts. For many of his specialty creations, demand quickly surpassed production.
A year and a half ago, he purchased one of the first Tormach PCNC 1100 milling machines. Thanks to the automatic cutting, Woods can produce 50 knives in a month in his spare time, rather than 50 per year.
“CNC milling raised me to the next level. My production has gone up immensely,” says Woods. “I’ve got knives all over the world because of the Tormach. I’ve got customers serving in several branches of the military, including law enforcement. I’ve got customers serving in Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, all over the U.S., with the homeland security stateside.” Woods is now able to create a consistent line of favorites and produce enough to keep up with demand.
Beyond the specialty sniper blade, Woods creates a wide variety of designs, ranging from other fighting and hunting knives to foldable pocket models and designer kitchen cutlery. Woods’ process is simple. He draws a new idea for a knife in a 2D computer drafting program, AutoCAD, and exports the file to software called MasterCAM. The MasterCAM software automatically converts the shapes into machine commands for the Tormach CNC. Lastly, the Tormach CNC cuts a blade profile in less than fourteen minutes out of one of the toughest steels around (the Hide Fighter is made out of cpm s30v, a knife-grade steel made by Crucible).
Woods removes the blade part and manually grinds the knife’s bevel edge, while the Tormach runs the cuts for the handle parts at the same time. Woods then cuts his logo on the blade using the Tormach’s high-speed spindle tool after heat-treating and before final assembly.
“The efficiencies are just enormous. I could probably produce 15 to every one with the old method,” Woods estimates. His old method, one still used by a vast majority of custom bladesmiths, involves cutting the pieces manually with a band saw, which takes considerably longer. “Basically, band-saw cutting the material never gets you an exact fit and size for the parts. Each knife was inconsistent.” In the past, Woods would have to adjust the abnormalities of a band-sawed profile by grinding it down to match the intended design. If he ground down too far, the material was wasted.
Not only does the equipment enable consistent short-run manufacture of Woods’ more popular models, he says the automation also is a big leap forward for custom commissions. “Being able to do one-offs – quickly making a prototype from a customer’s drawing and have it come out exactly like the concept – is very important,” says Woods. “I have customers who say, ‘what if we do this?’ Now I can we make that ‘what-if’ right away – just chuck the steel up on the mill and actually have the piece in your hand within minutes.”
With enough spare time, Woods hopes to manufacture 300 blades in 2007, well over four times his old output. As worldwide demand for his designs spreads, Woods can now keep his customers satisfied.
With an investment in hardware and software that add up to under $10,000, individual knife makers now have the benefits of CNC milling within their reach. Tormach has not only re-engineered a machine to optimize cutting power and flexibility, but has re-designed a sought-after technology to now be in the realm of economic feasibility. “The Tormach machine will pay for itself,” Woods says. “Mine has paid for itself in the first six months. I’m going to be working on this machine for years and it’s going to do nothing but making me money now.”
The Robotic Apprentice - Steve Hulett, Seldom Seen Knives
Steve
Hulett has been making his own knives
for 15 years, which he sells in his
own retail craft shop Seldom Seen Knives
(seldomseenknives.com),
located a few blocks from Yellowstone
National Park. “I only have so much
time because I also have to run the
store,” says Hulett. “I have been probably
making 40 to 50 knives a year.”
Last year, Hulett contemplated buying a CNC mill to boost production and quality in his blades, but looked into the investment cautiously. “Of course, I don’t even know how to spell CNC,” he jokes. “I didn’t know the first thing about it.”
One option for the individual machinist without the $100,000 or more for new industrial-sized CNC equipment, is to buy a used model. Without support or instructions on an old machine, Hulett felt it was too big of a risk. “It’s hard to trust a used mill for 30 to 50 grand,” he says.
Instead,
the West Yellowstone bladesmith stumbled
upon an ad for the new Tormach personal
CNC mill. He carefully researched the
product, browsing many online discussion
boards for user comments. “The Tormach
fit the bill for me price-wise. It’s
only six or seven thousand. I checked
out the online forums, and nobody had
a bad thing to say about Tormach. From
what I understand of the market, there’s
the tiny hobbyist CNC machines that
sit on desk or workbench, and then there’s
the giant on the floor. Until Tormach,
there’s never been the middle of the
road.”Hulett says his experience learning CNC on the Tormach has been very “comfortable.” Although it takes a while to learn the requisite software, he has enjoyed easy step-by-step CAD tutorials from Alibre Design, a popular value-priced solid modeling application, and is now making his designs in 3D CAD. He also received generous support from Tormach on the hardware. Hulett’s works has been enhanced “with consistent clean lines” by using the Tormach PCNC 1100.
“I have every intention for the mill to be my employee. It will take over all the mundane tasks of knife-making.” Hulett likens use of the Tormach to the hiring of a bladesmith apprentice. The apprentice assists on the routine preliminaries, rather than the artistic finishes. In the same way, he says, a robotic apprentice doesn’t take away from the artistry. “What is handmade? Do you actually have to smelt the ore?” laughs Hulett. “Or can you get away with doing something mechanical? If you do something from your mind, it’s your design. Anything or anybody who assists you is not going to change that.”
The 3-Axis Mastery - Randy Williams
Randy
Williams of Arlington, Washington is
by no means a novice when it comes to
CNC. A CNC machinist for the past thirty
years, he’s worked many industrial-grade
machines. Recently he turned his knife-making
hobby into a fulltime job. “The way
I design knives is the CNC way – I never
did do this with belt sanders and drill
presses. I was never a hand-craftsman.
All my designs came from the computer.”
One of Williams’ more novel designs is a folder that has 3D sculpturing on the blade. “The 3D part is a problem for most knife makers because the contours have to be hand ground. Well, the CNC can do that. I basically designed a folder with handles that have palm swells, flairs, rib texturing, finger grooves, or I can also place on there sculpturing, logos, anything you want on that 3-dimensional surface. For me, this was an additional little niche. Most knife makers don’t have the CNC programming background for the full 3D sculpturing.”
With a purchase of a personal CNC mill, Williams could do his advanced 3D carving without breaking the bank. “The Tormach was essential because it’s a full 3-axis CNC. Before that I was doing it on a little Max NC Desktop mill, that can do the 3D, too, but it’s not very beefy. It doesn’t cut steel very well. In fact, I blanked about 40 blades on that thing and completely wore out the lead screws. So I needed a bigger machine. When the Tormach CNC came out, it was really the only machine that was between a $3000-$4000 desktop, and a $30,000 Fadal or Haas tooling mill. There was this big gap in there. The Tormach came in at $6800 –which is a good number. It’s real tough to justify over $30,000 in a mill just to build knives, but you can drop about 10 grand in equipment and make that back.”
Somewhat of a CNC aficionado, Williams was impressed with the tool making innovation from Tormach – both for its power and its flexibility. “It’s probably most comparable to a Bridgeport except that the Tormach has a full third axis. EasyTrak is an old Bridgeport mill that has CNC capability, but it’s what you call a quill machine. The Z-axis is only available on the quill. The Tormach CNC’s a head machine – it has 17 inches of Z travel. The whole head moves up and down – that is the preferred method because it’s much stronger. It’s basically designed like a regular higher-end CNC mill. It has the ball screws, a reasonable array of travel and feed rates. Sixty-five inches per minute rapids is OK. Most machines these days will do 100-120 inches per minute rapids, but they burn up the ball screws pretty fast doing that.”
One
of the trade-offs between cost and capability
in the Tormach CNC mill design is that
of slower speed than the hefty industrial
CNCs. In a mass production setting,
an operation that takes a minute longer
would quickly add up in a fast-paced
assembly line. For building one-of-kind
prototypes, experimental parts, or small
batches of product, however, very high
velocities are not as crucial.“Greg Jackson’s CNC has some limitations, but he’s done a real good job making a machine that will run on 220 single-phase, so you can just plug it in to your dryer outlet. And at 1200 lbs, the Tormach CNC is no real lightweight. It’s all cast iron. You have to have cast iron to cut steel. These desktop machines that a lot of the knife makers are using are mostly aluminum, and they wear out too fast. Cast iron has the ability to take the loads. The 1.5 horsepower spindle on it is about the same as a normal Bridgeport. You could cut anything with it. He has an interesting little Tormach tooling system that allows you to just put in one collet and change tool holders without having to completely unscrew the drawbar – which makes tool changing a little bit faster.” Williams plans to unveil several of his new pieces at the Oregon Knife Show in Eugene.
The Large-Scale Manufacturer - MIL-TAC Knives and Tools
Craig
Sword founded MIL-TAC Knives and Tools
(www.mil-tac.com)
in Wylie, Texas in 2005. MIL-TAC focuses
on manufacturing affordable knives and
tools for the harsh environments that
the military and law enforcement personnel
face on a daily basis. MIL-TAC carries a wide array of catalog items including knives, tactical pens, and firearm grips. The operation is not small. “Last year we sold thousands of knives – hundreds per month,” estimates Sword. For MIL-TAC’s big production, its shop is equipped with a large Haas tool room mill, as well as a CNC lathe.
For the last six months, MIL-TAC has augmented its CNC capabilities with two new Tormach personal mills. While blade production remains on the larger, high-speed spindle mill, Sword can open up his production schedule by using the two Tormach machines for cutting accessories and peripheral parts.
“We’ve
made our fixed bladed and folding knife
handles and some other components out
of G10 epoxy glass composite on the
Tormach CNC,” says Sword. “It’s been
a very good CNC machine thus far. We’ve
also made a G10 EOD mine probe, various
kinds of pistol grips, including our
very popular 1911 and Browning High
Power grips on this machine, as well
as limited production runs of knife
blades.” For Sword’s tool room, the Tormach provides greatly expanded production for little investment, taking over smaller jobs that used to be handled on the large industrial sized mill. “Already the Tormach mills have cut out thousands of units of products for our customers,” says Sword. “Overall, the Tormach has been a great value for the money and has been a pretty reliable system. We’ve been pretty pleased.”