CNC Trade Secrets: A Guide to CNC Machine Shop Practices (Volume 1)

An excellent set of insights from someone who's been in the business for decades. A lot of good information for someone just getting started in CNC machining.

A typo in the first sentence put me on guard, but the rest of the book was excellent. It delivers on its promise of lots of succinct tips. The pictures may not always be necessary, but I'm the kind of reader that appreciates having something relevant to look at while the information slowly sinks through my thick skull.If I were to make a change for the 2nd edition, I'd drop the CAM section and focus more on manual gcode. I'd really love to see how the offsets are setup to maintain appropriate contact with the radius of the hog nose mill while contouring. Or have both sections, but the CAM field is quite diverse these days, and unfortunately CAMWorks is the 7th most popular CAM package in the last survey I've seen. HSMWorks might be a better bet since it's easy to get an academic version of, and it was #2 in that survey.I'm nitpicking though. I wish there were more of these books. These are the kind of tips folks might get in big shops, but I miss out on because I'm essentially a one man shop. This really helps me fill in the gaps.

This book has a lot of simple, but VERY useful tips. If you are new to machining, you will find a lot that is useful in this book. If you are an old pro, less so. The book was more useful to me in explaining better ways to set things up. Things to avoid are very useful to be aware of since they mess up work and can be dangerous. If any of these tricks turn out to be useful they will probably pay for the book. Solid help with machining that wasn't in the machining text books from a guy who obviously knows what he is doing.

This is the book I was looking for. Lots of "real world" details from someone who has real world experience. Highly recommend for some one looking for that kind of information. Don't expect a list of commands and what they do. Expect commands (G codes), what they do, when to use that command, when to avoid that command and which command to use instead.

This would be a good read for someone who had recently been hired at a CNC shop. It includes many very familiar problems that arise and offers good advise on how to deal with them. I also like the short tutorial on computer modeling, and there are plenty of good quality illustrations. The whole book is well organized.I was really looking for more technical information. It would be nice to find a book like this with something about the dark arts of feeds and speeds and different types of steel and tools and inserts. This book, like most others, shys away from anything not cut and dried. If there were a few less glossy photos and a few more pages I think there would be room for some reference topics which would make it more valuable over time.

Book has a decent mix of tips and tricks, but unfortunately not a lot of info that a more experienced tech wouldn't already know.I'd recommend it for anyone getting started with CNC, not so much for the well-experienced.

I've been working in a small job shop for about 6 months now...such a vast field with countless ways to do a job, it's nice to get another point of view on how to do a few basic machining operations from an experienced machinist. Overall a good purchase for any beginner machinist!

If you want to learn about it & use what you learn, this will help without actual hands-on

Not many secrets that anyone who has operated a CNC machine wouldn't already know about.... bu it has a few interesting chapters.

I'm quite new to CNC machining and I still didn't learn much from this book.

Good book to dress the fondamentals of cnc.