I asked them how much it cost

The cooperative products include S 240 Multiaxis Gantry Type CNC copy Milling Machine, 3 axis and 5 axis Radial drilling machine. "There's nothing about making pool cues that's easy," McDaniel says, "but one of the most challenging tasks is the inlay work. " The points, typically 7. 5 inches in length, are inlaid around the circumference of the 29 inch long butt. In the past, McDaniel's firm had to make a male pattern for the points themselves and a female pattern for the butt inlay, which took between one and three days depending on the complexity of the design. This process had to be repeated whenever McDaniel produced a new design, which occurred several times a month. "Once the pattern was completed, McDaniel's staff finally had the opportunity to check it against what they were trying to make. Because the process of making the templates provided no opportunity to check for errors, there were sometimes problems with the first one. Even after we were sure that the pattern was right, a considerable amount of tracing skill was required to achieve the required accuracy of a few thousandths. "Using the old method, producing points was a time consuming task, one where something could easily go wrong and ruin an expensive piece of birdseye maple, ebony, ivory or even gold, "McDaniel said."The company was using a Milling machine from Techno Isel," McDaniel said. "I took note of the fact that the ball nuts and ball screws on the machine were extremely accurate. I asked them how much it cost and when they told me about $20,000 I knew I had something that would pay for itself in a short period of time. I could have purchased a low cost mill that uses racks and acme screws for less but it would have been limited to low speeds and shallow cuts and probably would have suffered from vibration that would give unsatisfactory parts. The furniture company also had nothing but good things to say about the service and support for the milling machine provided by its manufacturer. Then I began doing my homework. I made the contact with the factory and was invited to the World Woodworker show that was held in Anaheim, California to see a complete demonstration of their milling machine.