"Othermill" looking to turn your desk into an arms factory

A lot of hubbub of late regarding a little plastic tube some guy fired a bullet out of.

I've never quite gotten the excitement over 3D printing myself and often come into the fray with something like "a mill can crank out real guns all day long so why get all upset at printed plastic ones?" to which the reply is generally something like "mills are expensive and hard to use."

The Otherfab desktop CNC mill seeks to nullify that expense and difficulty:

The Othermill is a portable, computer controlled, 3-axis mill that is specifically designed for use at home or in a small workspace. Our objective is to build a mill that is compact, clean, and quiet enough for use at home, yet is precise enough for high level electrical and mechanical prototyping work. The Othermill will be at home on your desk, in your workshop, or on your kitchen table.

Othermill Kickstarter

If a little plastic tube was enough to get people all over the globe huffy, bring the DoD down on some poor guys head, and even incite some politicians to fits of knee-jerk stupidity I can only imagine what this little box will do.

Of course at the price point we can all convert some mechanical mill to CNC but that gets us back to "it's too hard" (apparently the world is rife with lazy morons?) so this off the shelf weapon of mass destruction maker should create quite a little stir.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


PFFT thats awesome! Look at the tiny little mill hahaha. Good job and best of luck to those folks. I can see that in a small workshop or workroom right along side a 3d printer.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


I run 4 axis Cincinnati machines 3 of them every day. Trust me when I say you could not make a gun barrel with this machine. I think a receiver would even be a stretch.

reply to post by SubTruth


Obviously a barrel is a no go. They're a dime a dozen and like the rest of components other than the receiver dont require FFL intervention.

Finishing an 80% AR or 1911 lower should be no sweat for this box.

This is just the first step to taking CNC milling to the masses who are otherwise unable or unwilling to do the work with a real mill and lathe.

The 3d print jobs went from AR mag to lower to full gun and then some in just a couple of months and just yesterday a new P90 style AR lower was released.

What matters is widespread adoption of a tool or method. After that the progress is exponential.

I can finish an 80% lower with a drill press. You obviously can machine one proper. But we're not everybody. This sort of prefab package is for "everybody."

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


From what I gather, the specs indicate it is mainly for machining out wax and plastic materials, although it does say it can machine metal, I doubt it has much capacity past anything harder than brass.

Also, you are not going to make a barrel with a 3 axis machine.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
reply to post by SubTruth

 

Obviously a barrel is a no go. They're a dime a dozen and like the rest of components other than the receiver dont require FFL intervention.

Finishing an 80% AR or 1911 lower should be no sweat for this box.

This is just the first step to taking CNC milling to the masses who are otherwise unable or unwilling to do the work with a real mill and lathe.

The 3d print jobs went from AR mag to lower to full gun and then some in just a couple of months and just yesterday a new P90 style AR lower was released.

What matters is widespread adoption of a tool or method. After that the progress is exponential.

I can finish an 80% lower with a drill press. You obviously can machine one proper. But we're not everybody. This sort of prefab package is for "everybody."

edit on 22-5-2013 by thisguyrighthere because: (no reason given)

There is actually a lot of technical work to get a barrel just right. Also anyone can finish a 80% with a drill press. How expensive is a drill press compared to this.


This thing is a toy it is not for serious jobs where you are removing alot of material. Just think about the force tooling produces and then look at picture again.


I am very familiar with tooling........ endmills,drills,gundrills,reamers,form tools,taps,mills,inserted tools. This machine would not stand up to the removal of stock.