Hi All, I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I would go with something a little crazy.

Is anyone here familiar with Watt Tooling? It's pretty old school stuff for making not round holes (square, hex, etc.) with non-CNC equipment. The company is still in business, Watts Brothers Tool Works in PA.

From what I have read the system uses odd number fluted cutters, such a 3 flutes for square hole, 5 for hex, and a plate with the appropriate shaped hole to guide the cutter. The cutter sort of wobbles around the hole in the plate and ends up cutting the proper hole.

So my weird idea is that one of the super smart programmers here on the board could figure out the proper tool path for a cutter to follow the same path that the plate makes the Watts cutter follow.

The disadvantage of the Watts tooling is you need a different plate and cutter for every shape and size you need to cut, but the only need for the CNC version would be different diameter end mills for different sized holes.

Anyway, that's my idea, so feel free to fire at will!

Terry