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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | Just saw a commercial for this last night and wow!!!
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00921754000P?vName=Tools&c...
Craftsman CompuCarve Computer-Controlled Compact Woodworking Machine $1800
You could program this to punch out carved baits in no time. Imagine what you could make with this for a through wire lure. This monster can cut out your internal cavities out of one side of the wood and then turn the wood over and it will carve out your lure blank. Not only that but I think it will do a bunch depending on your piece of wood. Has anyone seen this work first hand? This would make my little garage into a full factory for one! I bet you could cut out about 50-100 lures a day and a little sanding and they are ready to seal, put in your through wire, weights, glue the two halve together, sand again, seal again, prime, paint, clear coat clear coat clear coat and wallaaaa DONE! #*^@, forgot the hooks!
If anyone has used something like this let me know what you thought of it. I know it is a mini CNC machine (kind of) but it won't cost me $100k and it will fit in my garage.
Thanks,
James
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Posts: 619
Location: Verona, WI | James,
I've seen this in person at Woodcraft (they sell a higher end model) and I have often wondered how many guys on this board that make the ultra-lifelike baits could use something like this. It's a small investment when you think how much time you could save.
Shane |
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Posts: 680
Location: Muskoka Ontario,Canada | I think it would be awesome but to be honest with you the selling point for many of us here is that our baits are hand crafted and each is somewhat unique. That being said I'd be more than happy to own that machine! |
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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | Snax, 100% agree. If I were a collector I would never buy a CNC made carved bait for my collection. I was thinking more for the guy who makes 100 a year carving by hand but wants to make 500 of one of his desings but does not want to carve them all by hand. Snax, kind of like art... Make your original "Snax" and then get Wild Wings to make 750 prints that you just have to sign  |
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Posts: 64
Location: st clair shores, MI | I saw that machine and would love to see a demo.But like snax said it would take away the handcrafted selling point.I still could find a place in my shop for one and i would never be able to quit my carving hobby. |
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| Woa that thing could definitely be a plus to have in the workshop! |
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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | Nate, I would love to see what you could punch out on that in a day. I can imagine so real cool elaborate designs for under some foil baits too. Like I said above, once you get the right design you can punch them out again and again. For someone like me who can carve or paint to save my life but can make cool designs in a computer this looks like a nice tool. Anyone have $1800 I can borrow??? |
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Posts: 910
Location: Hastings, mn, 55033 | From the salesman I spoke to there isnt a bit for this designed for cutting through an object, like you'd need to cut out lure blanks. The available bits are for carving into the surface of an object, which would work for grooving a slot for thru wire on a bait made in 2 halves.
Of course a lot of these salespeople dont have a clue what they are talking about so a little more research cant hurt! |
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Posts: 457
| Neat little "cnc" rig, but it won't do anything more than about 3/4" thickness with any reliability, nor will it handle a depth of cut that is really reasonable for building baits.
I own a festool 2020 CNC, and it's nice, but wouldn'tput it to use for baits, by any means. Even if I were able to plug all the coords in, the machines of this nature just aren't made for part manufacturing. They are intended for surface carving. I'm not saying that they wouldn't do it, but I am saying that you certainly wouldn't be a machine that you are going to run in a sort of production status. It just can't handle the capacity. You'd end up burning through bits left and right, and the motor wouldn't last more than six months if you were using it constantly.
I use my festool a lot for cabinet mouldings and such, and that's about all it wants, and it is a bigger, more powerful with more capacity, machine than the craftsman. @$1800 bucks, you'd be much better spending that money on a couple of router templates to run baits in mass quantity by hand. |
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Posts: 619
Location: Verona, WI | The Sears machine is actually a Sears-branded version of the CarveWright system sold through high end dealers. Here's a link to the video to see it work: http://www.carvewright.com/cms/video.
Shane |
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Posts: 680
Location: Muskoka Ontario,Canada | I noticed that there are dimensional limitations (7" long minimum)to consider but you can always link the baits together end to end and separate them manually afterwards. |
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| Trust me, you would be wasting your money on this machine if carving baits are what you have in mind. You need a multiple axis cnc machine which is far more capable of carving 3D objects. Like stated above it's for face carving wood panels and such. Jeff |
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Posts: 680
Location: Muskoka Ontario,Canada | Thanks for your input Jeff. |
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Posts: 27
| If any of you guys are interested in getting some of your baits cut by a cnc machine pm me. I cut some of mine out using a cnc machine. My neighbor built the machine and its amazing. He can put any shape into it and it will cut it the same time and time again. Unlike the machine at woodcraft this one can rotate the bait 360 and also the bit. I have worked with him many times using this machine to cut baits. He is willing to cut baits for anyone he only charges for his time. There is no set up fee for programming or anything like that. He is also able to cut custom lexan lips. One of these days I'm going to film it cutting a bait and I'll post it because it’s really neat to see. pm me for more info.
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | I would hesitate to buy anything from Sears. We bought a new high end wash machine less than a year ago and the thing quit, not big deal right? Well we called a repair guy out and they told use three weeks! Three weeks goes by, the guy shows up and says he doesn't have the parts, so we wait another two weeks! Another guy shows up, puts in the new part and find that a second part is broken also! So now we have been without a wash machine for 6 weeks, laundry stacked to the ceiling and they finally got the thing fixed yesterday. No more products from these folks for me.
Jed V. |
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Posts: 457
| I used to build duck calls, still do turn some by hand, but I had my acryllic calls turned on a cnc. It IS an interesting process, for sure. |
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Posts: 513
| Hey Guys,
As a musky fisherman and not a bait maker, I figured that I would throw in my two cents, which is about all it's worth, into the discussion especially in regards to the 'hand craftsmanship'.
Personally, it would be my guess that to learn all of the ins and outs and abilities of such a machine / tool would be an art in of itself. Whatever pattern, shape or style you choose to cut, it is still your vision and creativity.
One should not forget that the weighting, action and paint detailing is where the real meat and potatoes of the craftsmanship comes into play, in my opinion.
If you guys can find a way to double, triple or more, your output, I'm all for it! Then it wouldn't take 6 mos. for me to get a bait (ha ha ha ha).
Think of it this way, is a handpainted bait somehow better or worse than one where someone used expert airbrushing?
It is the result that counts! Be creative and if you can improve the speed of your creative process, why not?
My Father has done some wood carving in the past. Some parts by knife and some with a small tool that I believe is made by Dremel. It would seem that it takes time and skill to become facile with either and whether someone used one or the other or both to complete a great product I'm not sure matters that much. By the way, I'm not sure that my Father is 'facile' with either
I mean, we're still not talking assembly line here, right?
Just my thought.
Curious to know what you think. |
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Posts: 27
| tmag
In a way you are right. If I owned this machine it would take a lot of time to figure out the 3d drawings. You need to fully understand autocad to be able to program this machine. Which is a lot of work from what I have seen. It takes some kind of talent to get these machines to cut what we want you can't just throw in a block of wood and get a result. Also I think the action of the bait is more important then how it was made. It might not be to the collectors but I'm in it to catch fish and maybe collect a few baits on the side so no matter how you build it if the action is good and it triggers fish... Thats my biggest concern. |
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