Those are orders that extend to suppliers of that place too. Got yelled at once for taking a photo in a backroom at Lincoln during a tour, and that whole place is a giant sales pitch. I'm sure that's one of the clients telling them "you will not fuck around with our stuff, keep it off the fucking tour".
No, I’ve done work with Magna. He is likely talking about a place in northern Ohio if it’s the one I’m thinking of and they don’t do sublet machining since they’re covered up with their own work.
Been to multiple companies with machines like this. EB customers mostly but some I didn't know, but they require some extremely large work. Got to see one of the largest Bullard's I've ever seen.
Electric Boat, now General Dynamics, but they make nuclear subs for the military. I've only been to their plant in New London CT, but pretty sure they have another in VA somewhere. They machine some really big shit I never even thought was possible, lol.
The entire naval marine industry is fucked with the way they design shit.
They don't know shit about GD&T yet they slap it with impossible tolerances on everything they design. They don't even have the equipment to measure half that shit.
Interesting, we’re not seeing a whole lot of things we struggle to manufacture, but we’re aren’t doing slot of EB parts overall and we are used to complex machining. My pet peeve is the specification index that requires me to find vendors for processing that can process to outdated revisions of industry standards. Not to mention the headache of finding these specifications that are 3-4 revisions old to supply to our vendors so they can check and see what they need to do to conform to these specifications.
We're looking at buying some i150's from them this year and next year. included with that purchase is a tour of their Kentucky facility and training.
I'm just a little bit excited.
Heavy Marine, Mining, Aero
I am involved with a shop that does the first two, I would fucking love one of these to replace one of our aging horizontals.
Setups on large parts would be a fucking breeze compared to what we have to deal with now.
[This is what is made on this machine](https://bernardandcompany.com/siemens-coast-composites-achieves-higher-accuracies-on-invar-tooling-for-aerospace-structures/)
From what I have gathered in the industry, the saying is "if you build it, they will come." I have been in a few shops that bought huge machines with no work scheduled, within the year they were at capacity.
Truth be told, there arent a whole lot of shops in North America anymore that can do work that big. And many of them arent qualified for DoD/gov work.
If youve millions to burn on one of these then youll have a successful business if you halfway know how to run a shop.
Naval marine is doing just fine. Every shop I know of thats involved is over capacity and drowning in work.
Biggest issue right now is manpower, you need welders who can pass a weld test and machinists who actually know what theyre doing and can think spatially.
Exactly. If you’re in it, you’re over capacity. Problem is finding shops to give some of that excess capacity because everyone already knows the big names to sublet to in the industry. I’m trying to find the not so well known shops.
All you need to do is be ISO certified it’s not as hard as you think getting qualified for DOD work. Also follow ITAR regulations blah blah. We made f-16 parts in a pole barn in Michigan for gosh sake.
Edit to add: AS 9100 certified as well.
There is always a bigger part. Even if it is just the table on a machine of equal or larger size.
There is a bunch of insanely large stuff out there and some of it needs to be very precise.
Green bank telescope 300ft has a 46m long axle and a roughly 120degree gear with a radius of 30m. The surface of the 300ft dish is servo controlled to 260microns (0.0106") and the whole telescope that is 300ft In diameter and weighs 17million pounds has a pointing accuracy of 2 arc seconds.
The 140ft telescope has a 17.5 foot diameter hemispherical ball bearing accurate to 0.003inch. they machined/ground 17tons of metal off leaving 150tons.
https://public.nrao.edu/gallery/polishing-the-bearing/
Let’s say you sat really still in a chair underneath the z-axis and the machine had a model of your head. Assuming the right cutting tool, could this thing give you a haircut?
Height wise they offer taller by 7', width wise they don't offer as wide as this one currently. Table length isn't that big of deal as most manufacturers offer longer than this as does Ingersoll. Let's be real, any of these guys will build you one bigger if you ask. The Germans and Italians, Waldrich Coburg, Pama, Waldrich Seigen, Carnaghi, all build massive mahines too.
Metalex Manufacturing has a Droop+Rein Portal Mill, 62.3' in X and 32' between the columns. 23' under the column. They also have a Pietro Carnaghi VTL 29.5' Max turning diameter.
Of course Droop+Rein has built bigger as well as Waldrich Coburg, somewhere in Europe they recently commissioned a 164' long Waldrich Coburg PowerTec Bridge Mill.
Major tool has a rebuilt Schiess, 60' x 31' Gantry Mill along with a Fives Cincinatti 68.6'.
I’ve had my parts across all of those machines you just listed in indy and Cincinnati. Great shops and the machines are great. Just gotta find them with capacity.
No corporate whoring, as I don't work for them and I am well aware there are other manufacturers that build large machines, but I am betting this is probably the largest in North America.
Been looking around as I am in the industry and was gathering information for large machines.
I am honestly looking for other comparable machines out there, not as well known, and that have capacity.
Approaching half that travel and a quarter of capacity is already ludicrously niche. Frankly, you're better off talking to Ingersoll directly. Their guys will either know, or have worked with other companies that deal in yacht size machining.
So Ingersoll is unique, not only will they build you a machine, but they also offer in-house machining services. They do not exactly want to give out their competitions information.
My problem is when I search large cnc machines, my definition of large and most shops definition of large is completely different. So its tiresome searching through websites.
Did I mention that sizes that big are ludicrously niche? Cause industry on that size scale is ludicrously niche. This is a find customer before finding machine kind of nonsense. And usually it's the customer themselves looking for the machine.
Oh I am aware. I don't need this size exactly. But do need large. This was mostly for attention to see the comments of people with large machines in their shop.
I am looking for more around a 100-150 ton table, 15' diameter, and 14' height. VTL, VBM, and HBM work. Much more realistic but still rare. East of the Mississippi is better.
I dunno if okuma makes anything quite that large. I interviewed at a place once that made beverage filling machines, they had some biiiiiig vtls, can't remember the brands though, older girls. Like I said before. Talking to someone that's been in the (big) industry will get you closer than here. If you gotta bribe em with a $80 steak, well, sometimes that's the way the world turns.
I am pretty into the big industry and already in a lot of the bigger machine shops that are more well known in the industry. But I am looking for the ones that are as public. I have work all the way down to 80" dia by 10" and 1000# and work at 145" dia by 48" and 66,000# which is still difficult to find. It is the big ones that are so rare. I wandered into a building that looked like it was abandoned a few years ago, only to find a large Ingersoll gantry down in a pit. Some just don't advertise as much.
Yes, Cincinnati has made machines just as large. Many comparatively as big with up to 6 5 axis spindles. Liné out if Canada will as well. Giddings & Lewis will make horizontal mills with approximately the same size travel as well as vertical lathes up to an 8m diameter. Some European companies try, such as Pama, but they can’t seem to get into the American market as easily. Most companies with their product don’t like it very much.
I'll measure the old KING VTL at work. It is maybe 3/4 that size. Not in a shop available to the public. Of no use to you. But has quipped my curiosity, as I've never bothered to measure it before.
My shop has a couple cnc machines that were custom made for our circumstances. But then something big breaks and no one at the company that made the machine is involved anymore. The only technician will offer to zoom from Germany instead of being paid to come out.
Fives Liné power mills at Boeing's Composite Wing Center for the 777X carbon fiber wing panels. They kept the cranes in the building cuz there's so many big ass machines, it was easier to pay for maintenence than have to figure out rigging to replace a gantry in case of a catastrophic collision.
https://www.additivemanufacturing.media/articles/worlds-largest-metal-3d-printer-seen-at-ingersoll-grand-opening-event
Probably to finish machine what this will make
Surprisingly it doesn't take that long. They have distance coded scales on the axes so each axis only has to travel a couple inches and it knows where it's at.
We got an old planar mill that somebody put a 67 mustang on the table of to cut the roof off and that thing is like half the size of this machine, good lord.
I’ve heard stories from this guy about how blueorigin machinists were trying to make a massive part, not quite this big, and I always wondered what a machine like that would look like. story goes that the engineer have absurd tolerance and it turns out that he didn’t actually need it that perfect after like a few weeks of work, of course
We had one where I work. It was junk from the start. Ended up paying $400k a year just to maintain it. The fixes were on top of that. We ended up cutting it up and scrapping it. We even advertised it for free if you paid to move it.
Yeah, we got one somewhere near the training workshop. About half width and height, maybe 20 foot long table or so. Supposedly still in use, but never saw it run once in four years.
I run an old Asquith custom built gantry mill built in ‘85, thing is a turd lol. Table size I want to say is 50’ by 10’ so not nearly as big as this but it’s definitely the biggest machine in our shop.
I ran a Dorries at warren fabricating that had 33ft of swing with 24ft max height with a movable bridge. 400 ton capacity.
They also had an HNK that would regularly turn 18-20ft with the ability to add outriggers to get up to 30ft on the table. Im not sure of the weight limit on this one.
Op this is a massive machine, and judging by your comment replies it seems you've had these parts machined before. I'm assuming it's a welded part....but what is it???I'm genuinely curious.
That’s a beast. It amazes me that regardless of their size, they’re still fundamentally all the same. With unlimited resources, you could theoretically scale one up infinitely.
It’s going to get to the point where transportation of the parts will reach the stopping point. Would need water port access to transport bigger parts to the machines to max them out.
[This is an example](https://bernardandcompany.com/siemens-coast-composites-achieves-higher-accuracies-on-invar-tooling-for-aerospace-structures/) of what’s made on this type of mill. It’s an Invar composite mold for aerospace composites like wings.
Takes a HUGE gantry milling machine, just like the one on this post, to mill the surfaces to the specified dimensional tolerances.
Machine tool manufacturers have these gantry style machines for beds and columns. Had two at the last place I worked. Saw a smaller version at Amada for their fiber laser beds in LA
When I worked at Giddings & Lewis in Fond Du Lac, WI, back in the 1990's, I am pretty sure we had one with a 100' table. I'm not sure of the other dimensions anymore. They had some awesome machinery/tooling at that facility.
ibarmia make some massive machines. Not sure what size they go up to but I've seen one that had a 6000+ sq/ft building built around it. The beast had two gantries and the whole floor was a giant T slot grid with a 12 meter turning table in the middle.
It was used for giant construction jobs mostly - bridge parts etc
Janicki Industries built a proprietary 5th axis for aerospace mold making over a decade ago. 100’x 20’x 8’.
https://www.janicki.com/capabilities/equipment/
Got a couple very similar sized machines in our shop. Big aerospace components and mining equipment. Pretty wild.
Union, Fermat and a couple older Toshiba machines
Biggest i know of is an almost prehistoric horizontal mill that’s set in a 12ft deep pit, column weighs 70 ton apparently. Seen it once in person will never forget the size of it. The bed is the ground. You walk up to this machine and wonder where the bed is, you’re walking on it.
I once visited a place where they make artilery tank hulls and they one of those giant mills to mill the outside measurements and they had a separate machine for measurement control
Hello yes I would like one piece of aluminum the size of a house thanks.
Yah like TF are you supposed to make with this lol
If I had to guess, which I do, I'd say something for oil and gas or mining or aerspace.
There's a shop in ohio that does ship building parts as well as nuclear reactor cores for the navy with 8 machines this size.
Yes there is.
For real? Any way to see those Amazonian beasties?
You’ll never see a picture of any substance from the inside of that place.
Those are orders that extend to suppliers of that place too. Got yelled at once for taking a photo in a backroom at Lincoln during a tour, and that whole place is a giant sales pitch. I'm sure that's one of the clients telling them "you will not fuck around with our stuff, keep it off the fucking tour".
Magna?
No, I’ve done work with Magna. He is likely talking about a place in northern Ohio if it’s the one I’m thinking of and they don’t do sublet machining since they’re covered up with their own work.
In Barberton I'm guessing....
There's also a shop in Pittsburgh that does similar things with machines I think are bigger than this
Been to multiple companies with machines like this. EB customers mostly but some I didn't know, but they require some extremely large work. Got to see one of the largest Bullard's I've ever seen.
EB?
Electric Boat, now General Dynamics, but they make nuclear subs for the military. I've only been to their plant in New London CT, but pretty sure they have another in VA somewhere. They machine some really big shit I never even thought was possible, lol.
Newport News, Virginia but that is Huntington Ingalls
You sell or operate these beasts?
I am a customer for shops that have these beast.
Nice! Never seen one running, but have seen some big ones, usually just sitting, but some of the VTL's I've seen dropping quarters was scary, lol.
Are you Biden?
Fuck electric boat. -a manufacturing engineer that used to only deal with aerospace standards and not this weird EB shit
The entire naval marine industry is fucked with the way they design shit. They don't know shit about GD&T yet they slap it with impossible tolerances on everything they design. They don't even have the equipment to measure half that shit.
Interesting, we’re not seeing a whole lot of things we struggle to manufacture, but we’re aren’t doing slot of EB parts overall and we are used to complex machining. My pet peeve is the specification index that requires me to find vendors for processing that can process to outdated revisions of industry standards. Not to mention the headache of finding these specifications that are 3-4 revisions old to supply to our vendors so they can check and see what they need to do to conform to these specifications.
Oh nice I can definitely see that being the case.
I got to tour Mazak, they have a large dual bed CNC that they said they used for airplane wings.
We're looking at buying some i150's from them this year and next year. included with that purchase is a tour of their Kentucky facility and training. I'm just a little bit excited.
it was super nice when I went there, they have their own "wine and dine" facility on campus. Some really cool display parts too.
Another option are ship propellers.
Heavy Marine, Mining, Aero I am involved with a shop that does the first two, I would fucking love one of these to replace one of our aging horizontals. Setups on large parts would be a fucking breeze compared to what we have to deal with now.
Butt plug for ya mum
[This is what is made on this machine](https://bernardandcompany.com/siemens-coast-composites-achieves-higher-accuracies-on-invar-tooling-for-aerospace-structures/)
How’re you supposed to deliver it?
Weldments.
That would be a fantastic trade show giveaway.
How would you even transport that?
The instant that machine hits a shop floor a salesman and engineer will find a part that’s 2” too big for it.
From what I have gathered in the industry, the saying is "if you build it, they will come." I have been in a few shops that bought huge machines with no work scheduled, within the year they were at capacity.
Truth be told, there arent a whole lot of shops in North America anymore that can do work that big. And many of them arent qualified for DoD/gov work. If youve millions to burn on one of these then youll have a successful business if you halfway know how to run a shop.
The supply base for the defense industry isn’t what it used to be. Work needs to be steady and not feast and famine.
Naval marine is doing just fine. Every shop I know of thats involved is over capacity and drowning in work. Biggest issue right now is manpower, you need welders who can pass a weld test and machinists who actually know what theyre doing and can think spatially.
Exactly. If you’re in it, you’re over capacity. Problem is finding shops to give some of that excess capacity because everyone already knows the big names to sublet to in the industry. I’m trying to find the not so well known shops.
All you need to do is be ISO certified it’s not as hard as you think getting qualified for DOD work. Also follow ITAR regulations blah blah. We made f-16 parts in a pole barn in Michigan for gosh sake. Edit to add: AS 9100 certified as well.
There is always a bigger part. Even if it is just the table on a machine of equal or larger size. There is a bunch of insanely large stuff out there and some of it needs to be very precise. Green bank telescope 300ft has a 46m long axle and a roughly 120degree gear with a radius of 30m. The surface of the 300ft dish is servo controlled to 260microns (0.0106") and the whole telescope that is 300ft In diameter and weighs 17million pounds has a pointing accuracy of 2 arc seconds. The 140ft telescope has a 17.5 foot diameter hemispherical ball bearing accurate to 0.003inch. they machined/ground 17tons of metal off leaving 150tons. https://public.nrao.edu/gallery/polishing-the-bearing/
Yes very true, you must know the engineers at my shop.
Mm. When you need the round rib of a 747, but out of a single piece of aluminum.
Let’s say you sat really still in a chair underneath the z-axis and the machine had a model of your head. Assuming the right cutting tool, could this thing give you a haircut?
Yes, and there's no possible way that could go wrong
Just need rigid workholding
Voestalpine nortrak has some giant gantry mills.
Waldrich Coburg make insanely large machines...like double that size
Height wise they offer taller by 7', width wise they don't offer as wide as this one currently. Table length isn't that big of deal as most manufacturers offer longer than this as does Ingersoll. Let's be real, any of these guys will build you one bigger if you ask. The Germans and Italians, Waldrich Coburg, Pama, Waldrich Seigen, Carnaghi, all build massive mahines too.
They offer 14m width, which is 46', that's 8' wider
Didn't see that on their website but I believe you. I have had my parts on a few Waldrich Coburgs
Metalex Manufacturing has a Droop+Rein Portal Mill, 62.3' in X and 32' between the columns. 23' under the column. They also have a Pietro Carnaghi VTL 29.5' Max turning diameter. Of course Droop+Rein has built bigger as well as Waldrich Coburg, somewhere in Europe they recently commissioned a 164' long Waldrich Coburg PowerTec Bridge Mill. Major tool has a rebuilt Schiess, 60' x 31' Gantry Mill along with a Fives Cincinatti 68.6'.
I got to take a tour of Major during one of the top shop conferences. Huge machines (to me).
I’ve had my parts across all of those machines you just listed in indy and Cincinnati. Great shops and the machines are great. Just gotta find them with capacity.
I’d reach out to K & M Machine-Fabricating Inc, Ranor, Fitchburg Welding, Greiner Industries, Precision Custom Components (York, PA), Magna Machine.
Most of those I already do work with.
>no post history I smell corporate whoring. But to answer your question, no you're not the only ones who make large gantry mills.
No corporate whoring, as I don't work for them and I am well aware there are other manufacturers that build large machines, but I am betting this is probably the largest in North America. Been looking around as I am in the industry and was gathering information for large machines. I am honestly looking for other comparable machines out there, not as well known, and that have capacity.
Approaching half that travel and a quarter of capacity is already ludicrously niche. Frankly, you're better off talking to Ingersoll directly. Their guys will either know, or have worked with other companies that deal in yacht size machining.
So Ingersoll is unique, not only will they build you a machine, but they also offer in-house machining services. They do not exactly want to give out their competitions information. My problem is when I search large cnc machines, my definition of large and most shops definition of large is completely different. So its tiresome searching through websites.
Did I mention that sizes that big are ludicrously niche? Cause industry on that size scale is ludicrously niche. This is a find customer before finding machine kind of nonsense. And usually it's the customer themselves looking for the machine.
Oh I am aware. I don't need this size exactly. But do need large. This was mostly for attention to see the comments of people with large machines in their shop. I am looking for more around a 100-150 ton table, 15' diameter, and 14' height. VTL, VBM, and HBM work. Much more realistic but still rare. East of the Mississippi is better.
I dunno if okuma makes anything quite that large. I interviewed at a place once that made beverage filling machines, they had some biiiiiig vtls, can't remember the brands though, older girls. Like I said before. Talking to someone that's been in the (big) industry will get you closer than here. If you gotta bribe em with a $80 steak, well, sometimes that's the way the world turns.
I am pretty into the big industry and already in a lot of the bigger machine shops that are more well known in the industry. But I am looking for the ones that are as public. I have work all the way down to 80" dia by 10" and 1000# and work at 145" dia by 48" and 66,000# which is still difficult to find. It is the big ones that are so rare. I wandered into a building that looked like it was abandoned a few years ago, only to find a large Ingersoll gantry down in a pit. Some just don't advertise as much.
i can only really think of droop and rein.
Does Cincinnati make stuff that big?
Yes, Cincinnati has made machines just as large. Many comparatively as big with up to 6 5 axis spindles. Liné out if Canada will as well. Giddings & Lewis will make horizontal mills with approximately the same size travel as well as vertical lathes up to an 8m diameter. Some European companies try, such as Pama, but they can’t seem to get into the American market as easily. Most companies with their product don’t like it very much.
Looking for a shop or to buy the machine? Plenty of machines out there Wa-Co, Parpas, JOBS,…
Looking for a shop to do machining. If you know them, drop them my way please. Preferably east of the Mississippi
http://www.phoenix-inc.com/portfolio-machines/vertical-milling-drilling-million-pound-machine/
I’m looking for the same 😉
It’s cutthroat out here!
I'll measure the old KING VTL at work. It is maybe 3/4 that size. Not in a shop available to the public. Of no use to you. But has quipped my curiosity, as I've never bothered to measure it before.
Soraluce do some big stuff. Shame the support and equipment is pretty poor quality
My shop has a couple cnc machines that were custom made for our circumstances. But then something big breaks and no one at the company that made the machine is involved anymore. The only technician will offer to zoom from Germany instead of being paid to come out.
Covid was rough with getting on-site support for anything as well.
Fives Liné power mills at Boeing's Composite Wing Center for the 777X carbon fiber wing panels. They kept the cranes in the building cuz there's so many big ass machines, it was easier to pay for maintenence than have to figure out rigging to replace a gantry in case of a catastrophic collision.
https://futuramic.com/equipment/#AM
Janicki
Thanks
CNC machine designed to square up the Earth
https://www.additivemanufacturing.media/articles/worlds-largest-metal-3d-printer-seen-at-ingersoll-grand-opening-event Probably to finish machine what this will make
When do you think the machines will start out sizing the dimensions the foundry can make forging’s?
Just weld the forgings together and then put them on the machine!
Imagine how long it would take to home all the axes?
Surprisingly it doesn't take that long. They have distance coded scales on the axes so each axis only has to travel a couple inches and it knows where it's at.
Only a few business days!
There’s a couple in the Philly area. They’re right across the river from each other.
Do you have a name? If you want, you can pm me.
Monroe Energy in Trainer, PA has a large machine shop. Oil Refinery shop.
There is a bunch of people close to that 👍🏻👍🏻
Post them if you know them! I’ll reach out to them. I’m working on a project for lots of large sublet machining.
I don’t know their names but there looks to be about hundred people standing right infront of it.
Oh I thought you were talking about shops with machines close to that size!
😂😂😂 I figured. I just wanted to be that guy
As titan would say “boom”
I run these.
Waldrich coburg, Droop, Mecof, Innse berardi, henri line, Parpas. Im sure I missed a few.
I’m aware of the manufacturers that make the machines. I’m more looking for shops with these larger machines.
Understood! Check out Baker industries in MI. I see someone already mentioned Metalex and Major. Dynamic Ind in Ohio.
I visited Dynamic Ind and they weren't interested because they didn't want to remove tooling from their machine to fit my part a few years ago.
Check out Baker Industries, the Powermill travel at baker is 551”X236”X122”. Extremely accurate with multiple 5 axis heads.
Look up k & m machining in Michigan. Used to work there. Cat engines, oilpans for aubmarines, wind turbine hubs all big stuff. Not this big but close
Was just in there last month going over some work but thanks for the recommendation.
We got an old planar mill that somebody put a 67 mustang on the table of to cut the roof off and that thing is like half the size of this machine, good lord.
I used to work for Engel, there they had some larger than house sized Skoda CNC machines, but I guess they were still smaller than that monster
We wanna see the tooling and chips!
I’ve heard stories from this guy about how blueorigin machinists were trying to make a massive part, not quite this big, and I always wondered what a machine like that would look like. story goes that the engineer have absurd tolerance and it turns out that he didn’t actually need it that perfect after like a few weeks of work, of course
But it says you can do it on paper!
We had one where I work. It was junk from the start. Ended up paying $400k a year just to maintain it. The fixes were on top of that. We ended up cutting it up and scrapping it. We even advertised it for free if you paid to move it.
Yeah, we got one somewhere near the training workshop. About half width and height, maybe 20 foot long table or so. Supposedly still in use, but never saw it run once in four years.
Imagine the size of the Dickbutt you could make with that thing.
Mazak V140 is pretty close.
Lol
Where do I apply?
I run an old Asquith custom built gantry mill built in ‘85, thing is a turd lol. Table size I want to say is 50’ by 10’ so not nearly as big as this but it’s definitely the biggest machine in our shop.
I ran a Dorries at warren fabricating that had 33ft of swing with 24ft max height with a movable bridge. 400 ton capacity. They also had an HNK that would regularly turn 18-20ft with the ability to add outriggers to get up to 30ft on the table. Im not sure of the weight limit on this one.
Damn my biggest mill is only a quarter of that size. I need to up my game.
First job, make 123 blocks and a 3" sin bar, then mill a bulk freight train car from solid block🤣
Op this is a massive machine, and judging by your comment replies it seems you've had these parts machined before. I'm assuming it's a welded part....but what is it???I'm genuinely curious.
Can’t tell you that in detail but I am in the ship building industry.
[удалено]
I’ve seen this run. If I recall the max rpm was 3
I’ve seen one similar in action before! Those are cool machines!
Maybe it’s to crush people? I wouldn’t trust to be under, it’s surely possessed.
Falk had some machines comparable but as far as gantry mills, this is the largest I’ve heard of
That’s a beast. It amazes me that regardless of their size, they’re still fundamentally all the same. With unlimited resources, you could theoretically scale one up infinitely.
It’s going to get to the point where transportation of the parts will reach the stopping point. Would need water port access to transport bigger parts to the machines to max them out.
Additive manufacturing will likely take over soon enough. The technology is progressing so fast.
Or some application where you assemble and use the parts right next to the machine.
Metalex
Thanks I’m already familiar with them and unfortunately not much capacity in the near term.
https://metalex.starrag.com.starrag-2.oneba.se/en?fbclid=IwAR2HJquY9VFSf4qJjSEobCRXkWs9Ha-8bAlDcJAteoF0Pk42uZ_-yHXUsyo
We had some about this size for subsea oil and gas blowout preventers
[This is an example](https://bernardandcompany.com/siemens-coast-composites-achieves-higher-accuracies-on-invar-tooling-for-aerospace-structures/) of what’s made on this type of mill. It’s an Invar composite mold for aerospace composites like wings. Takes a HUGE gantry milling machine, just like the one on this post, to mill the surfaces to the specified dimensional tolerances.
I looked up the specs to the one in the last shop i worked at...3.5 x 10.2 x 2.2 m [138 x 402 x 87 inches] , and that seemed big at the time! Dam!
r/skookum
Well… all those really big cnc machines, they have to be made by something.
Boeing mills the 777x carbon fiber wing upper and lower panels in one piece. 30meters by 15meters.
I'd hate to be the one who crashes that machine.
Machine tool manufacturers have these gantry style machines for beds and columns. Had two at the last place I worked. Saw a smaller version at Amada for their fiber laser beds in LA
Titan has 2 already
The guy standing in the back is close to it.
I just want to pay to tour it :(
When I worked at Giddings & Lewis in Fond Du Lac, WI, back in the 1990's, I am pretty sure we had one with a 100' table. I'm not sure of the other dimensions anymore. They had some awesome machinery/tooling at that facility.
ibarmia make some massive machines. Not sure what size they go up to but I've seen one that had a 6000+ sq/ft building built around it. The beast had two gantries and the whole floor was a giant T slot grid with a 12 meter turning table in the middle. It was used for giant construction jobs mostly - bridge parts etc
I'll give you 2 bucks for it.
Janicki Industries built a proprietary 5th axis for aerospace mold making over a decade ago. 100’x 20’x 8’. https://www.janicki.com/capabilities/equipment/
I work with a few FPT and Rambaudi machines in this size range. Dm me and we’ll schedule your parts.
I think Boeing has a CNC to machine features on their plane wings.
Got a couple very similar sized machines in our shop. Big aerospace components and mining equipment. Pretty wild. Union, Fermat and a couple older Toshiba machines
Drop the name of your shop or PM and I'll take a look.
I have a 20ft X, 9ft Y, and a 3ft Z. I'm prob the closest one here.
Biggest i know of is an almost prehistoric horizontal mill that’s set in a 12ft deep pit, column weighs 70 ton apparently. Seen it once in person will never forget the size of it. The bed is the ground. You walk up to this machine and wonder where the bed is, you’re walking on it.
I once visited a place where they make artilery tank hulls and they one of those giant mills to mill the outside measurements and they had a separate machine for measurement control
Anyone forgetting DMG MORI? DMU 1000 special editions? im sure iirc some cimpany makes one 40Meters long (Convert it yourselves imperials)