John Kleinbauer

Start small and cheap. See if CNC is for you. Having an expensive machine that you don't know how to operate is very common You could start off by downloading the FREE version of TurboCAD and see if you can draw what you want in CAD. Just drawing an outline of a fish in CAD is hard. There are ways to draw and scan and then put the drawing Corel clean it up and then save as a DXF. Most people run out and buy expensive motor systems. That is backwards. You should decide what you want to do with the machine and then build from the cutter out. A Taig or Sherline would do about six lures at a time. I would design the lure in two halfs. You will find 3D drawing programs expensive and hard to use. The time required to learn CAD and do CNC programming could be used to make tons of lures.

A lathe makes round parts. A mill can do other shapes including round.

CNC means Computer Numeric Control. It boils down to a milling machine or router is controlled by a computer.

Funny, Stay clear of an older CNC machine. Just moving them can be big money. Start small and do lots of reading. Many people have a Bridgeport sitting in the garage or cellar waiting for someday! CNC is much harder than learning computers. John

An estimate of the cost of the plan? Most plans are $36 Most machines can be built for under $150 not counting motors or controllers and software.

redg8r, The problem with a Forth axis is software. Ideally you want to draw something and have the software do the rest. There is no cheap 4 axis software out there. TurboCNC will run 4 motors but you need the software to convert the 3D drawing to GCode that will run the 4 motors. My forth axis was designed to be cheap simple and easy to build. To run run it you need to write the GCode using a text editor or Edit a existing GCode. Cutting out the Lures as two halfs is the way to go. Putting a hop and skip in the cut will keep the part in place while it is being cut. This leaves tabs on the part. The part is than cut free with a razor knife. For more info on building a simple CNC machine read this thread http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62920&page=1&pp=1 For more info relating to Lure cutting ask right here! Thanks for the plug John

Gang, I sell plans for making cheap homemade CNC machines. I am getting alot of Emails asking about cutting out Lures using a CNC machine. If you go over to one of the RC groups you will see I helped people understand how to build a CNC machine and cut out RC planes. I did this because my mailbox was getting loaded with people asking if it could be done. Now there are lots of people cutting out Balsa planes with CNC. So in order to help out I will answer some basic CNC questions here. Please keep each message to one question. I am not here to sell plans I am here to connect the hobby of CNC to Lure making. I never made a Lure using my CNC machine. But I have made Lures out of quarters in my younger days. I know what a lure is and I know just how much work is involved to make one. Ask away. John Conrad Kleinbauer