Originally Posted by
jasong
Hi,
I am very interested in either building or buying a benchtop CNC mill. I want it as a hobby to mill paintball gun bodies. I am not really interested in scratch building bodies from stock but rather making cosmetic and performance modifications via a mill.
A few of the things I am wondering about are. How hard is it to learn to use the mill/programs? The main thing I am wanting to do is add contour to squared paintball gun bodies. Alot of the bodies are squareish and have alot of excess material and can be milled down for looks and weight. I have attached a general outline of the body the side profile as a generic rectangle and a view from the end. There are 2 inner tubes that go through out the body. What I would like to accomplish is just milling down to the contour of the tubes as much as possible while still maintaining the structural integrity; they are made of aluminum by the way.
Would this be something I could learn to accomplish with one of the central machine mills from harbor freight? Retro fitted with one of the cnc kits I have seen on this site? I would really like to build something like the cnc conversion on hossmachine.com. I have been soaking up as much information as I can but I can only learn so much without diving in and getting my hands dirty. I just want to find out from the people who know best what direction I should go in.
Thanks,
Jason