As the host of the CNC Router Tips podcast, Bill Griggs is well-known in the world of CNC routers, but now he’s taken to machining harder materials with his PCNC 1100.

This week we celebrate turkey day, or Thanksgiving for those who prefer more classical phrasing. While we all love our families and are thankful for good health and good food, there are some things that machinists seem to be specifically thankful for. I’m sure I missed a few things here, but here’s my shortlist of what machinists tend to be thankful for…

Next week is the International Manufacturing Trade Show, IMTS, which is the world's largest manufacturing trade show event. The week starts on Sunday (9/9), when I will be hosting the Manufacturing Entrepreneurship Summit at mHub, which is right down the road from IMTS. Then it's on to IMTS! This show is huge, and the days can be long. There is so much to see that you don't want to miss anything. So, here are some tips on how to survive IMTS 2018!

PathPilot has helped a lot of Tormach users use their machines more efficiently and learn new ways of machining easily. For instance, PathPilot's conversational programming has been a game-changer for many makerspaces, educators, and even everyday machinists.

These are things I hear over and over again talking to CNC’ers. There are some better ways and some better answers that can really improve your feeds and speeds practices, if you’re open to them. Fixing your feeds and speeds is one of the easiest productivity hacks you’ll ever make.

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.