CNC Cookbook: Our History
The CNC Cookbook is all about collecting Information for Machinists, and providing Software like G-Wizard to Machinists. Think of it as Digital Tooling.
In 2004, I started out CNCCookbook in an effort to clean up and organize a mess of notes, project logs, and other
machining information to make things easier to track down, and so others
can benefit. It's been quite a journey, and today, I have a decent-sized mill
I've converted to CNC, a bunch of time spent making things with the mill and lathe, a lot of time spent talking to other machinists
and researching a variety of machining topics, as well as time spent with
Fadal and Haas milling machines.
By profession, I am a software
engineer and entrepreneur. I've founded or participated in 5 software
startups so far. Inevitably, I have turned those skills to the Machining realm which resulted in G-Wizard,
my machinist's calculator, and the other products in the G-Wizard line. When calculating feeds and speeds, and
many other subjects, it's hard to do it all by hand, even if you've amassed
all the formulas and reference materials. There are just too many steps
to build it all in and get it done in a reasonable time. G-Wizard encapsulates
all that learning as software so you can get the benefit of all the rules
of thumb my research has uncovered just by entering a few simple parameters
into the calculator. It's available for trial on the G-Wizard page, and
I encourage you to give it a shot. It may just save you a lot of time
too!
BTW, my very first startup resulted in Quattro Pro, the spreadsheet, so I know a thing or two about Calculator software. If you're interested in the Software Business or in starting and running your own company, I also write a blog called Smoothspan that is devoted to that. One of the things I notice about the world of software for the Machinist, is that it isn't very up to date compared with mainstream software. With my G-Wizard software, I've applied my 26 years in the software industry across 5 software startups (not to mention several very large software companies) to reinventing software for machinists in some novel ways. I encourage you to read about how CNCCookbook's Software and Strategy are different in some very fundamental ways that will benefit its users tremendously.
CNCCookbook is organized into
the following sections:
- Blog: A collection of short
articles that cover interesting things I find on the web or what I'm currently
working on.
- Dictionary: A dictionary
of largely CNC-related terminology to put together as part of my learning
process.
- Cookbook: A series of short
articles and notes pages where I've recorded some of my learnings about
machine work and CNC. This is the theory and tips portion of the site.
- Workshop: My Home Shop Hall of Fame that chronicles some
really great shops others have built. You'll find ideas for organization
as well as just photos of lots of shops.
- Projects: Articles about
the things I've made in my shop as well as my "wish list"
of things yet to be built.
- Videos: A collection of videos about machining and about the CNCCookbook software. Once you get into CNC, video is key because things are
moving.
- Resources: Web links galore
for suppliers, individuals, and other useful information sources.
- About: You are here!
To learn the fascinating art
of the machinist, I used a number of resources
as well as practical hands-on experience. My learning and editorial process involves reading a number of online
machinist discussion groups daily, especially Practical Machinist,
CNC Zone, and many other sources. In addition, I will frequently go out
and do deep research on various topics that I want to write about in-depth.
I don't have time to write everything interesting I encounter up for the
blog or the other CNC Cookbook pages. When I find something interesting,
but don't write about it immediately, I add the link together with a description
to my del.icio.us page which has well over 1000 links as I write this. But, the most important source of information, aside from hands-on experience, is you, dear reader. I correspond with probably a hundred or so machinists on a regular basis. They give me my ideas for the software and keep me honest too. Feel free to drop me a note about anything you find interesting, to answer a question, or to comment on something I've written on these pages.
It is amazing what you can
learn if you put your mind to it. We live in a time when access to information
has never been easier. I want to thank the many individuals in the extended
Internet machinist's community, both professionals and amateurs, who facilitated
this process for me. I
hope you can benefit from the Information and Software for Machinist's provided by CNCCookbook.
Sincerely,
Bob Warfield
PS If you're in the Santa Cruz area and want to meet up, drop me a line. I love to catch a cup of coffee with interesting folks.
