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Well, let me try again.
Hey woodenspoke--Do you mean 90 degree adapter? I doubt that the Proxxon would have enough power to drive a saw blade of any consequence especially thru ebony.
I have one and am impressed with it's quality--just not sure about the max power.
Nelson

[QUOTE=npalen]Well, let me try again.
Hey woodenspoke--Do you mean 90 degree adapter? I doubt that the Proxxon would have enough power to drive a saw blade of any consequence especially thru ebony.
I have one and am impressed with it's quality--just not sure about the max power.
Nelson
[/QUOTE]

I have no idea if it will work. Someone mentioned a fret slot blade setup and I threw the attachment into the conversation. The adapter as an add on product. Finding info on the Proxon line is a difficult thing. The true 90 deg Proxxon seemed like the body was too close for mounting and attaching it and a blade to your CNC.

Honestly I would just use either a table saw and fretting blade; my personal choice, or find a speed and straight bit that works to route fret slots on the CNC machine. So many variables using a CNC for fret slotting.Remember you are programing a CNC machine it can take passes at thousands of an inch depths, so dismissing the whole Proxxon fret blade idea may be premature. Would I do it no.

The Proxxon itself has gotten a lot of hype and thumbs up on the CNCZone forums. 

With a 1/2 " router bit you can blast through a piece of wood, With inlay and such speed and depth of cut will be important factors. The material is what dictates the setup, you cant just dismiss ebony because it is hard , so is steel but with the proper setup that may work too.

Yeah, I was afraid that my post would be construed as "dismissing" but that was not my intention. I'm a guy that loves to try new things and agree, for example, that multiple passes would be an option with a slitting saw.
I do my fretslots with an endmill taking a couple rough passes to depth and then a finish pass to clean out the shavings. (It's amazing how tight ebony shavings will pack in a fretslot) The program travels in an arc same as what the f'board radius will eventually be. The rpm is at about 20,000 with a feedrate of approx. 20 IPM. The f'board inlay cavities are done on this same setup which utilizes a tilting vacuum fixture. The tilt allows cutting the inlay cavities on each side of centerline at a slight angle so that the inlays don't sand thru later when the f'board radius is done on an edge sander setup.

Has anyone used one of wolfgangs spindles in a bigger cnc mill? I use the Haas VF-3 at my work, but I am somewhat limited by the 7,000rpm spindle. I just wondered if anyone had a similar set up I could look at. Could one of these spindles be driven by something like a rotozip?

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Jeremy Vonk

I'm coming in on this thread rather late and the link to the spindle on the first post doesnt work any more on eBay. I also tried going to WolfgangEngineering.com, and that doesnt work either.

Can someone point me in the direction of these spindles so I can have a look at them?

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Reguards,

Ken H

Hey Ken,

Here is a link to Wolfgang Engineerings Ebay store.

http://stores.ebay.com/Wolfgang-Engineering

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Jeremy Vonk

He has some YouTube videos on their now which really show off what this thing can do! A guy cuts a pcb board with a .005" bit! He didn't snap it. Very shallow passes, but the speed was pretty quick. If it can do that in metal plate, then think about how nice it will work in pearl and wood. I have the TB-350S and am excited about getting a chance to use it. Back to work on building the cnc....

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Thanks guys! I'm going to have to take a hard look at one of these.

I bought an air driven spindle on the last OLF swapmeet and havent had a chance to do any testing of this yet. I have a good air supply and was hoping that this would do the pearl work.

If the air driven one doesnt pan out, I know where to find somehting better.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Ken,

Give John Watkins a shout too...he has one of these also, which he is driving with his regular spindle. He may have used it by now even after the big move. He may be able to give you the best critique of using it with pearl.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

What kind of air-driven, Ken? The industry standard is air-turbine spindles, so you'll probably do OK unless it's RPM or runout inappropriate.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

This is actually an air grinder, 56,000rpm, made in taiwan. I really dont see why it wont work but I havent even tried it to see if there is any runout or not. If there is, it has to be minimal and acceptable for doing inlay work.

I'll let you know more when I get that far.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Hey Ken, I use a little grinder like that at work all the time...It will be interesting to see what you come up with and whether it works or not.

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Jeremy Vonk

I bought an air spindle just like that off eBay. It supposedly even had upgraded bearings. What a piece of crap! I chucked a bit into it and tried to cut some MOP. The bit immediately broke. I chucked up another bit and turned it on to try to get a look at what was going on. The end of the bit was visibly wobbling. The tool had something like 1/32" of runout! It was totally unusable. First time I have ever thrown a new tool in the trash.

I replaced it with a small air spindle from Air Turbine Tools out of Florida. Much more expensive, but you get what you pay for. The Air Turbine spindles appears to have zero runout. During operation, the shaft of the bit looks and feels like it is not even spinning.

Yeah I chucked my little air grinder up in a V-block yesterday and I put an indicator on it. It seemed to have .003 to .005 runout. Not as bad a 1/32 but still not good enough for tiny microendmills

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Jeremy Vonk

The Wolfgang TB-350S boasts a typical rounout of .0001", and a max runout of .0004".
I think that should do it...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Yeah Don, those wolfgang spindles look like a sweet way to go. Right now I'm trying to figure out the best way to use it in my machine.

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Jeremy Vonk

I just ordered wolfgang system. I'll figure out how to mount it when it gets here. I'm tempted to just pickup a small dedicated machine for it though.

Build one!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I'm tempted, but I know myself too well. It would wind up stuffed in a corner half-done

Well...I understand that far too well!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

John--I'm needing to cut some Abalam so really curious how you got along with the spindle.
Thanks
Nelson

I received the wolfgang spindle last week. It's finished beautifully. I haven't checked the runnout yet, and mounting it to my existing system is going to be a challenge. Abalam cuts like a dream though. You should have success just with your existing router.

I'll give it a try, Sheldon.
I would like to buy one of the high speed spindles just to get away from the router motor noise, though.
Nelson