Nah, it's easy....it's because you guys make these:
And I make these:
On what is basically, the same machine. Mind you, mine takes a LOT longer to make...that's probably a good 50 hours of machining to make those, all told
Neither is better or worse, and for many good reasons, I'd never even attempt an inlay, but I'll machine for tapped holes and filets and chamfers all day long. They just have different expectations and needs. Cutting lots of wood, you'd never for a moment doubt the need for a dust boot. Cutting metal on the other hand, quite literally requires a chip BLOWER to be successful. I looked, but didn't find one in their store. I didn't find a LOT of things in their store that would make their machines a LOT better, even for people using it like they originally expected.
If you're gonna achieve what you set out to do, most times you have to do what's gotta be done. At some point, every single solution did not yet exist, and had to be invented. That's an open opportunity, just waiting for someone to race in and claim it as their own. That's how products are made, and markets won...with the big caveat that they won't ever go anywhere if they are fundamentally inviable as a product. That's why a lot of the things needed for doing what I do, on a machine like this, aren't available off-the-shelf. There are just too few people willing to pay what it would take, in time, effort, or money.
That's also why there's almost zero chance anyone would ever pay me the couple-grand in time it would take to make them one. Even the online services will be quoting in the thousands (spindle clamp part was already quoted: $830) Nope, this is for my own use, and so has all the things **I** want.
Imagining there's some philosophical difference between how we do or don't use (or abuse) our machines is a distinction as meaningless as race. Did you guys update the firmware to use the new control panel software? The installation instructions required it. How is that not a "modification"? Because it's authorized by The Man? Where's the purity in that? You bought a machine they claimed worked! Why should you update it? Heck, why'd you even take it out of the box? Those nylon-inserts in the nuts will never be the same again....(reductio ad absurdum)
I am always inspired by the breadth of inventiveness we see in forums like these. Any one of us, driven by a desire to accomplish something, will always find a point where we're willing to violate the original-ness of a device to make it better. It's how we got pointed sticks, after all
. It's what makes this place great (again...sorry...hahahah
).
Cheers! (And man I can't WAIT to start cutting that cage).
Thom
