130Phone: 516-328-3970www.technocnc.comCNC ArticlesIronwood Designs, a manufacturer of wooden gun stocks, has increased production 200 to 300 percent after replacing a manual pantograph with a four-axis Techno CNC router. Previously, the company used the pantograph to carve out inlets and other areas in the gun stocks. It was a back-breaking process that was both slow and inaccurate. The four-axis CNC machine can carve the cutouts in about one-fifth the time it took to do them by hand. And since the machine can automatically reposition a part and cut all sides in one operation, it can run unattended. This lets one employee to do the work of two. In addition to being faster, the CNC is much more accurate than hand carving, giving Ironwood Designs a reputation for quality work. The Techno machine has boosted the volume of our business by letting us take on jobs we didnt have time for, or couldnt do accurately enough in the past, says Matt Shuster, President of Ironwood Designs. Ironwood Designs, located in San Jose, California, designs and manufactures replacement gun stocks. The companys products, made of high-quality hardwoods, are purchased by individual gun owners, gun dealers, and fi rearms manufacturers to replace the inexpensive plastic or softwood stocks of many imported military guns such as the FN-FAL and the AK-47. Ironwood Designs sells a four-piece wooden set that includes the butt stock, pistol grip, and an upper and lower hand guard. As one of the few companies making replacement gun stocks for these weapons, Ironwood Four-axis CNC Machine Boosts Gun Stock Production 200% to 300%Designs has a thriving business. The companys previous production process had a bottleneck, however, that needed to be eliminated so they could grow.Keeping up with BusinessIn the first step of making a gun stock, a Zuckerman copy lathe is used to automatically carve a wood block into the desired 3D profile. A Zuckerman machine is the gold standard in the industry for profi ling; it is the same machine that shapes the necks of Fender guitars. This part of the production process, which was handled by an Ironwood Designs employee, needed no improvement. The next step was the problem. After parts are cut on the Zuckerman machine, they need further cutting to carve out the inlets where the stock fi ts into the rifl e and areas where parts such as the swivel and the butt plate are later attached to the stock. After running the parts through the copy lathe, which was located in the companys shop, Shuster took them to his home workshop where he used a manual pantograph to make these additional cuts. The pantograph had four spindles so four parts were cut at once.One problem with this approach was the sheer physical labor involved. Shuster did this work himself. It took an average of 15 minutes to complete the carving process for four butt stocks. If Shusters hand slipped, four parts were damaged at once. He estimates that he had a loss of between 10 and 15 percent due to carving error. A desire for a faster, more accurate carving process led Shuster to look at other options besides the pantograph. He had researched the technology and knew that a CNC machine could be programmed to automatically cut the shapes he was then cutting by hand. One option was to purchase a heavy and expensive CNC machining center primarily designed for metalworking and adapt it for working with wood. He had heard of other woodworking companies doing this, but the $125,000 to $250,000 price tag of these machines was prohibitive.At a woodworkers trade show, Shuster found a better alternative, a four-axis CNC router machine from Techno Inc., New Hyde Park, New York, designed for production routing and drilling on a wide variety of materials including wood, plastic, MDF, solid surfacing materials, and nonferrous metals. This machines complete system was affordable; it has two 5 HP Colombo spindles with dual rotary stations for high production, and can cut two identical parts at the same time. Shuster also appreciated its robustness, which included steel stress-relieved bases with hardened steel linear ways, ball screws, and One step of the process in creating a wooden gun stock.