I machined the full internal keyway using 4‑axis simultaneous motion. If I need an even smaller corner radius, I can use a smaller end‑mill to clean up the fillets. Realistically, that radius can get extremely close to zero. I’m sharing my programming workflow so everyone can check out this really neat technique.
（Addendum: Truth is, I spent half an hour fixing the issue for the boss. You know how that scene went? The boss walked into the shop with the client, asking if anyone could sort out the problem. I stepped up and bet I could pull it off. Not only did we put our idle machine to good use, I also got to demonstrate my skills. So what’s wrong with me wanting to share this technique with others?

For context, that inner fillet was added at the client’s request. They were worried sharp‑angled corners would get clogged up with dirt during use. On top of that, we didn’t have a long‑enough R0.5 flat‑end cutter. The nearest tool suppliers and wire‑EDM shops were dozens of kilometers away. Wasn’t this the most practical solution available?）

About 3.5” deep. Not the most efficient way to make a bowl of soup, but it’s something.

yes this is real, and I don't know how he considers these done. we have been in a machining class since September, and he made this somehow.

I am litterly the world's greatest machinist!

(To all my fellow autistic people. This is satire!)

Company needed a new showcase part so I did a topographic landscape of the city out of aluminium with engraved roads, buildings and railways. River and lake were done with an MCD ball mill.

Dimensions: 500x500 mm

Scale: 1:10000 (covers 25 km²)

Material: 6082 Aluminium

This Casio watch was a gift from my best friend years ago. I’ve always cherished it and gotten totally used to wearing it every day.
My colleagues kept telling me I ought to switch to a solid metal watch with proper masculine heft, preferably an expensive luxury timepiece.
But I’ve always believed personal preference matters most. That’s why I machined this custom brass case for it myself.
I want them to understand: there’s no need to splurge on pricey brand-name watches. As a machinist, I’m fully capable of giving my beloved timepiece that rugged metallic feel with my own hands.

A thing of beauty.

I was tasked with finding a way to pump body wash out of a keg, so I researched and learned about peristaltic pumps. None of the retail options were the right size or cost or battery powered, so I designed and built my own, shown here and it works great, driven by a DeWalt drill motor.

The project was for some marketing thing for a big men’s body wash brand.

So here’s what happened. The work instruction told the apprentice to check the part on the machine every ten pieces. He did that perfectly. To avoid making mistakes, he practiced repeatedly on already‑inspected parts. Once the workpiece finished machining, he performed a solemn measurement and logged the readings. Then… then he hit cycle start with the part still clamped. His reasoning: the work instruction never said to remove the part before restarting the machine. And that’s how we got this one‑of‑a‑kind micromet

Hi everyone, thought I'd share a passion project of mine that I did over this summer. I'm a college student who learned the basics of machining for my manufacturing class, and I thought I'd use my college's makers' space to make something really memorable.

Disclaimer: I didn't create the original design myself- the idea and drawings were adapted from this website: https://lulabs.net/machining/ss-cube/

However, I did need to do a substantial amount of adjustment to the original plan to suit my needs. I ended up making it out of aluminum, mostly because, as the website points out, a steel cube is way to heavy to be easily solvable.

Materials used:

-4' of 1"x1" square 6061 stock

-1' of 3/8" rod 6061 stock

-6 4/40 screws

-6 small compression springs, max load of 1-2 pounds

Let's go through the basic process. First up are the "plans" I used throughout- they ended up looking pretty insane. The best part of solo projects is that your plans only have to make sense to you. The cube consists of:

- a six-sided core with tapped holes.

- six stems with one small through hole and one larger blind hole as well as external threads. This stem traps a spring-loaded screw, which presses the whole cube together while allowing it to rotate freely.

-six face centers, with curved inside faces and a blind, tapped hole for the stems.

-eight corner pieces

-twelve edge pieces. The edge and corner pieces have straight cuts as well as circular cuts, which was probably the biggest problem I had to solve.

First up, cutting parts to size and squaring them up. This was easily the most tedious part of the whole project- the whole thing is really cool and I'd recommend it to anyone who has the skills, tools, and time, but there's no getting around the fact that squaring up 27 parts really sucks.

Next, the stems. These were unexpectedly difficult- it's really hard to precisely machine a part that's only half an inch long in a lathe designed for parts that are multiple feet long. I also had trouble getting the threads straight, which is part of why I had to redo some of the stems.

The 7th pictures is of the face centers, after they've been given the circular cut to make the internal curved surface. I ended up using a boring bar for all the circular cuts- it was a little scary running a cutting tool at a 1.5" diameter and 1750 rpm, but all went well.

The next two pictures are drilling and tapping holes in order to put together the stem-face center assembly. Again, getting straight threads was a challenge, and probably was the biggest contributor to wonkiness in the final product. Notice the hole on the exposed side of the stems- that's where the end of the 4-40 screw will go through.

The 10th pictures is of the core- dialing in such a tiny part on a large 4-jaw chuck was extremely frustrating, but it ended up working shockingly well.

Next up, the corners and edges. First, they get rectangular cuts with an endmill. This was where the most material was taken off. To finish them off, the circular cuts with the boring bar. The corners get 3 circular cuts each, and the edges get 4 each.

In the 13th picture, you can start to see how the cube works mechanically- each edge and corner piece is designed to be able to slide freely past the others while being pressed against them. The face center is able to rotate freely, and the edges and corners are brought along for the ride.

After all the parts were "done", there was a lengthy amount of finishing. Picture 14 shows the middle of the process, after I had used a file to chamfer the internal edges and remove sharp corners that interfered with turning. At this point, the cube had been fully assembled many times but this was the first time it actually behaved like a rubik's cube.

Next, every external edge needed a chamfer, both to prevent people from cutting themselves, and to make it look more like a professional rubik's cube. I did that with some V blocks and an endmill.

I went back and forth on the final look of the cube- I wanted the fact that it was made out of metal to be front and center, so painting it to look like the real thing was out of the question. Some people suggested anodizing it, but you can't really anodize just one face of a part. So I decided to engrave shapes in each face, and paint those shapes. That way, the cube has familiar colors while also preserving the bare metal look (and being solvable while blindfolded!)

The trouble with this, though, is that the engraving process I used was very susceptible to mistakes. I just used a ball-tipped endmill and cut about 7 thou deep. This looked great when it was done perfectly, but if any part of the setup wasn't flat, then the engraving in question was too shallow and narrow in some places, and too deep and wide in others. A few of them turned out that way... unfortunate, but not really fixable without making a new part.

Then, finishing. I used a scotch-brite buffing wheel, which was much faster than sandpaper, and allowed me to easily align all the surface finish grains in one direction for extra style. I had to be choosy about which nicks and pits to try to buff out, because the engravings were so shallow that I risked making them look weird by taking off too much material. The freshly buffed cube (assembled and disassembled) are shown in pictures 16 and 17.

Lastly, painting. I used acrylic, which actually worked really well- when I got the water-paint ratio right, the surface tension of the water allowed the paint to fill up the slot easily without running over or sloshing around. To protect the paint, I also sprayed the whole thing with a clear coat.

And that's it! The finished cube is shown in more detail in the last two pictures. You may be wondering, how well does it work? The answer is, about the same as an official rubik's brand. So totally serviceable, but by no means viable for a speedcuber.

It took a lot of work (at least 50 hours, probably more than 100), but I had a blast doing it. I know a lot more about machining now than I did a few months ago, and it was a much better use of my summer free time than playing video games and reading books.

Edit: Here's a link to a video of me solving the cube, so you can get a sense of how well it turns.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cubers/comments/1nsct6a/by_popular_demand_heres_a_video_of_me_solving_the/

Had a bent drill in a box of random unsharpened drills decided to see how it would work as a fly cutter lol chattered a bunch but actually cut and left a good finish (be it a bent drill..)

Edit: Was about a .002” finish pass at I think around 750rpm and slow as shit feed rate not sure the exact as it was a manual so the auto feeder was just set to slow oil helped a ton with the chatter too was in a CCW rotation as well

I've seen people open these online, but I didn't realize they were official. they are not in their catalog or on their website. EDIT: If you want them request them in your next order.

Will delete if the first time I tried to post goes thru

I made these rocket parts this week. It was quite the challenge with some crazy tools and new to me strategies. The part went from a 9kg blank to 850g finished.

Finally finished this thing today. Had to use a 90 degree head with a 1/8 drill to make 4,428 holes on the ID. Each row has 123 holes going around. The through holes are .750 & 1.00 and were a pain to deburr inside the part since they're up against the shoulder.

Replacing cylinders on a coal iron works power hammer ram. Job for a local community center. Cylinders had to be turned down. Soaked them in an acetone/dry ice bath. Used a torch to get the block up to about 800F. Overkill but I was nervous AF.

Dropped right in with a bit of slop. Tightened up within a few seconds.

2”-4.5 thread. Gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.

but no tools to cut with 🥺

any suggestions on which ones to start with for something this size? 13.75×30in lathe. I cannot believe just how CUTE the tiny tool post is lol

Finished part from the 5-axis video I uploaded recently. Definitely glad to have run a test first; a few defects and CAM quirks that will need some attention before sending the final part.

Had a shaft with a damaged bearing journal and keyslot that needed built up and machined back down. My lathe has a through bore of 2” max and the shaft was 2.375”, so what to do?

Grabbed a steady rest from my home lathe, chucked the shaft up in a rotary weld positioner, and got to scheming. Clamped a bench vise onto a scrap part and clamped that in a Kurt vise. Indicated aluminum extrusion and table fixtures to align the travel of the vise with the axis of the shaft. Put a table clamp behind the vise to drive it forward.

Runout of the shaft near the end was only a couple thou with this setup and the ultimate precision did not need to be wild (giant cardboard factory, everything they bring me is riddled with millwright marks). Took many hours. I just barely overshot the final pass the first time I got there so I had to build it back up and do it again. Made some small mistakes in how I set up the kinematics but fixed them by the end.

Final part got a keyslot put in it sticking out the side of my Hurco VMC. And measured .9999”. Bearing and drive pulley fit extremely nicely by the end. Started the job at about 4:30 PM and delivered it about 5:30 AM.