Has anyone seen this madness?
Someone chucked up the work piece in the spindle and used stationary cutters on the cnc to turn a bishop on the cnc.
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Seen it plenty on manual machines…have done it on my Bridgeport mill in a pinch. Haven’t seen it done on a hobby CNC. Cool!
I’ve heard it said that a lathe is the only machine that can make an entire machine shop because it can be turned into a mill by chucking up the tool.
But this is definitely a nice alternative.
My lowest speed is 12,000 rpm on the Dewalt , 10,000 rpm on the Kobalt, and balancing a block of wood or acrylic at that speed would be a little scary I think.
I think this would require a spindle so you can lower the speed to around 5000 rpm. It looks like most lathes spin up to around 2000-3000 rpm for 2-3in pieces, so 5k is sort of in the ballpark.
I’ve seen people do this with a drill press and manual lathe tools. It is on my list to try someday.
You are right that balance is a key consideration for safety, but for small diameter stock (and that’s all you will fit in a spindle collet anyway) you may need the high rpm to keep the surface speeds up, depending on what you are trying to cut.