I build wood helmets. Yep. You can check em out at Coyle Treepieces.
Anyway, I build them on a leased Shop Sabre with a 7 hp spindle and 7 inches of travel. I need to build more, faster and am shopping for something with higher capacity. I have a year of CNC routing under my belt but no professional background so I am looking for any feedback that can be offered. I understand only some CNC jargon and rely on the guy I lease from to figure out most of the stuff related to the CAM software, controller etc. I would like to get something with two or three heads (or something that can handle this). Generally I am using big bits (1.25 inch diam. right now) to hog out blocks of hardwood that are 12"x10"x7"(deep). Takes nearly two hours at 100 - 150 IPM on the current setup (12K RPM). My assumption is that I want a heavy steel frame, and a lot of horse power and rigidity. I would love to cut a couple,three helmets at a time at 300+ IPM.
Anyone have experience with fast/large material removal applications and what would work best?