Customer Reviews

CNC: A First Look Primer

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As a home machinist, I was looking for a text that would take me into the CNC world
at the beginner level and step through the basic skills to transition from manually
controlled lathe and milling to computer control.

The author (William Luggen) clearly intended this to be used as a classroom text in
a vocational school setting as the first 100 pages covers topics such as jobs in
the CNC field, customer focus and the practice of "continuous improvement" in the
American workplace. This book was published in 1997 and is very out-of-date in
a couple key areas: Many examples of then-current industrial machines no longer
exist (Cincinnati Milacron no longer produces metalworking tools) and in terms of how
personal computers have become embedded in our daily lives.

One of the largest issues for this book is how the author stresses precision
and the detailed programming necessary for CNC program creation, but glosses over
key concepts and details in several chapters. For example, the command to retract the
drill bit from a hole before moving to the next location or that the tool feed
rate is critically tied to thread pitch, during threading operations.

Bottom line: While this book presents a good history and overview of the evolution of
CNC, and its impact to the manufacturing industry, being 15 years out-of-date with
technology is a killer.