The trouble with building a business around selling low-margin widgets is that you have to find a way to make a lot of them to make it worth your while. And if the widget in question is labor-intensive to make, you’ve got to find ways to reduce your inputs. That sounds like a job for industrial automation, a solution that’s often out of reach of small shops, for all the obvious reasons. Not if you’re clever about things, though, as this fully automated CNC lathe work cell shows.
This build comes to us from the woodshop of [Maher Lagha], where he’s making wooden honey dippers. Wooden dowel blanks are dispensed from an infeed rack and chucked between centers on the headstock and pneumatic tailstock. A two-axis stage in front of the workpiece moves a tool against the spinning stock, carving out the honey dipper in just a few minutes. When the lathe work is done, the spindle stops, the tailstock pulls the honey dipper back off the headstock, and a pneumatic piston unceremoniously whacks the almost-finished part — it looks like it still needs a little manual post-processing — into a bin. Lather, rinse, repeat, profit.
[Maher] doesn’t provide many details, but just looking at the work cell shows a veritable feast of industrial automation equipment. The spindle and tailstock of the lathe sit on a bed made from a massive slab of aluminum extrusion, and the X- and Y-axes use linear rails and ballscrews. And mindful of the effects of wood chips on delicate mechanisms, [Maher] did a good job of containing the mess with a host of acrylic guards.
As we said when we saw [Maher]’s wooden coaster work cell a while back, the wood widget business must be pretty good to justify automation like this. What’s nice with both these rigs is that they look like they could be quickly reprogrammed and retooled to create other products. Pretty impressive.
Love the use of toggle bolts for the feed mechanism.
Thank you!!
Having used a wood lathe a few times, I’m impressed by the chip containment.
Thank you!
Also, since no hands will go there, it is easy to contain the dust…
Beautiful and impressive setup !
It’s kind of ruthless though, how the cylinder kicks the very nicely cut part out of the lathe. Can you install a pneumatic reducer to slow the piston down ?
haha, yes it will be a smoother kick, I will install and try one. Thank you for the tip!
Hi Maher.
Cool setup you have.
I have a need for a CNC lathe that does something similar to what you do here with your honey dippers, but for a completely different product.
Can I pick your brain?
Hi Cam,
yes sure, email me.
The bed is more likely machined cast iron. Aluminum would wear and get sloppy pretty quickly.
That’s true, aluminum is not strong enough. I am thinking of using steel bed, but boy, it will be heavy!
What moving part is interacting with the aluminium extrusions so they would wear?
I think its totally adequate for what it does.
Thanks, will see the test of time!
Nicely done, it’s just sad less and less people pay for physical stuff.
Thank you! That’s true. People buy these honey dippers for their kids to paint…I will try other items, maybe I can sell them for higher price….
chess pieces!
Add one of those forestry robots to bring it logs and you’ve got the beginnings of an Autofac from that Phillip K. Dick story. One that makes infinite chess pieces and honey dippers. Super cool work btw, very nice.
Thanks! Yes that robot will be a nice addition, haha. Chess pieces is actually my next item on the list! Thanks!