I know what you’re thinking. Why should you bother milling everyday, boring plastics when you have a Tormach mill or lathe that can cut any metal you can imagine?

We recently had a customer ask about the PCNC 770 and its cutting capabilities. After some conversation about the machine’s ability to cut anything that you can put under the spindle – it all just depends on feeds, speeds, and how long it takes to cut – the customer cut to the chase: “Can it mill Tantalum?”

When working with metal, we’re exposed to a variety of raw materials and alloys. While every metal has its perks, we’re quite fond of steel for a number of reasons.

Workholding is a vital piece to any machinist’s arsenal of knowledge. So much so that there is an endless list of books solely dedicated to workholding design – like the two we have available, Jig and Fixture Design Manual and Basic Fixture Design. Some corporations even hire engineers to do nothing but design more efficient ways of keeping work in place.

Aluminum is often the first metal that new machinists experience, and rightfully so. Its versatile, economical, and forgiving when it comes to feeds and speeds. But all those pluses come with a few compromises as well.  So, here’s our list of four things everybody hates about aluminum.

Tormach's new PCNC 440 may be a small machine, but it can produce big results. This demonstration shows the PCNC 440 cutting 6016-T6 Aluminum and Hardened 4140 Steel for some upcoming projects.