I know many of you have lots of machine shop experience - I have none, 
but was getting curious about what's useful for mouthpiece work, beyond 
hand files and a Dremel.  Specifically, after making about a dozen (very 
good) mouthpieces from blanks, I was wondering how much of the "roughing 
out" work could be done with the right milling machine setup (if that's 
even the right machine to use!).  My guess is that it:

1- could get the table nearly flat, but would have to finish it by hand
2- thinning rails, getting a good facing, minor baffle shaping, etc. 
would require CNC
3- CNC (in addition to the cost of the machine) requires creating 
complex digital files to tell it how to cut these complex curves.

You get the idea...  Can anyone give me a short intro/primer (even 
"Geez, you've got this all wrong and here's why"...)?  Thanks.

Dan T

Hi, I have some experience, I will try to answer some of your questions:

1) Yes but you have to finish it by hand (at least with my machine which is very precise 0.01 mm). Often the used material reduce the precision to a more reliable 0.1 mm until you work on metal... you won't save time by using a cnc
2) No, nothing will change with a cnc. Only you can do your mpcs alone experimenting on them as you like more...
3) Softwares are very expensive too (thousands of $). Sometime they can be more expensive than the machine itself. You need a good CAD for the 3D drawings and a CAM to convert them in a file the machine can understand :). The program which directly controls the machine is cheap but not easy to use. Moreover you need a 3D digitizer to start with some very nice vintage model until you are a wizard of 3D drawing .
Ah... if you have enough money use a 5 axes cnc, it will help in working the inside of the mpc adding for example nice scooped sidewalls (which according to the most recent tendencies are not useful at all). In any case a fouth axes cnc will help you a lot in making your mpcs much more symmetric and save time.
All the best,

DannyG


> 1- could get the table nearly flat, but would have to finish it by hand
> 2- thinning rails, getting a good facing, minor baffle shaping, etc. 
> would require CNC
> 3- CNC (in addition to the cost of the machine) requires creating 
> complex digital files to tell it how to cut these complex curves.
> 
> You get the idea...  Can anyone give me a short intro/primer (even 
> "Geez, you've got this all wrong and here's why"...)?  Thanks.
> 
> Dan T
>