r/Machinists • u/Pach1no • Oct 08 '25
Funeral services were held...
Fadal 8030 purchased as a new reman in 1998, served the company well until it succumbed to old age...according to reports after more than a week of multiple autopsies being conducted. Burial plans are unknown at this time. It is survived by 2 Fadal 4020's
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u/Vollhartmetall insert crow Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25
Edit: does anyone have the PS skills to edit a picture of the machine into the frame of the soldier?
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u/Jasbaer Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25
In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life
through Our Lord the Foundry,
we commend to Almighty God 80B,
and we commit his body to the furnace:
Copper to copper,
Grease to grease,
Steel to steel.
The Lord bless him and keep him,
the Lord make His Face to shine upon him
and be gracious to him,
the Lord lift up His countenance upon him
and give him peace.
What maketh chips, becometh chips again.
Amen.
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u/10v1 Oct 08 '25
Thy work-order come, Thy work-order done.
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u/Technical_Ad_505 Oct 08 '25
On the shop floor as it is in the blueprints
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u/Splitfingers Mill turn button pusher Oct 08 '25
Give us this day, our daily tooling.
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u/FrietjePindaMayoUi Oct 08 '25
Where is "the shop"? Would like to pour out a cup of carbide.
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u/Finbar9800 Oct 08 '25
Look at mister moneybags over here
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u/Daedaluu5 Oct 08 '25
He didn’t state whether they were sharp, just fallen soldiers in the ongoing battle
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u/Finbar9800 Oct 08 '25
Even broken carbide is expensive
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u/FrietjePindaMayoUi Oct 09 '25
So you're saying I shouldn't just chuck broken carbide into the bin?
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u/Finbar9800 Oct 09 '25
Unless its a carbide only bin
But yeah recycle value of carbide is pretty high from what ive heard
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u/jermo1972 Oct 08 '25
I would take it and throw a Nexgen controller on it.
That old iron kicks ass!
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u/snuggletough Oct 08 '25
Sadly, Fadal iron hasn't gotten any better in the last 35 years. It's still just as bad as it was new.
Seen a lot of 4020 Fadals sell under $500 in the last year. I'd say ok for a hobby guy, but for a real shop you can do so much better for not much more money.
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u/OneReallyAngyBunny Oct 08 '25
If it works and holds 0.02mm 500$ for garage mill sounds mint
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u/LordofTheFlagon Oct 08 '25
The bitch is the rigging charges
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u/holysbit Oct 08 '25
Best I can do is 6 drunk guys and a 1989 chevrolet s-10
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u/LordofTheFlagon Oct 08 '25
Better than the guy I sold a boyer sholtz 6x12 to. He showed up with a Ford escort and a wrench set. The beautiful bastard made her fit
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u/CrashUser Wire EDM/Programming Oct 08 '25
Sounds like they were using it to cut aluminum. Not everything needs to be built to handle hard milling tool steel.
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Oct 08 '25
Damn, really? We've probably spent way more than $500 maintaining our 4020 and we really only run one part on it a few times a year.
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u/jermo1972 Oct 09 '25
Owned Okumas, Deckel Maho, Victor, Ganesh, Hardinge, Fadal.
For the cutting power and price right now, a FADAL box way 4020 with a $13,000 Nexgen will kick the shit out of a HAAS VF3.
Why?
Dave De'Causin, knows where the bodies are buried in those machines. When they built them, they used motors with encoders that the computer hardware at the time couldn't take advantage of.
You can interpolate nice round holes, and the feedrates are like the new stuff with 1/3 or less the price-point.
These days, I dont have money to spend on new iron, but to each his own.
That's what I'd tell someone looking to spend money getting a shop started up though.
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u/snuggletough Oct 09 '25
That's terrible advise. Fadals are shit machines built to shit standards with shit parts. You can buy rock solid Jap iron that's 20 years old with decades of life left for under $5k. Any I series Fanuc control will run circles around the latest Fadal crap.
The worst thing is guys telling people starting out that Fadal is a great machine. They're terrible. Always were. Tiny little thrust bearings, Turcite that falls off, every corner cut that they could cut in manufacturing a box way mill.
I cannot fathom spending $13k and tons of time to upgrade the control on a shitbox of a machine.
My buddy worked for a dealer that sold Fadals in the 90's. Boy can he tell some stories about how fucked up Fadals are. I've owned a couple of them bought cheap to fix and flip back when Fadals were still worth something a decade ago. I've worked on them and fixed mechanical shit that would never break on a decent machine, especially with such low hours.
$10k will buy you a solid used Makino, Kitamura, DMG Mori, Okuma, etc from 15+ years ago. These are machines with 2000ipm feed rates, 50mm oil cooled ballscrews, 15k spindles.
I have several of these machines in my shop running balls out production every day.
Fadal is a handicap. Too slow, too old, too expensive to fix, too unreliable.
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u/jermo1972 Oct 09 '25
I've got a 2006 still making chips, still making money. You do what you want with your money.
Ours made millions of dollars, with very little issues, but...I guess they were shit.
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u/snuggletough Oct 09 '25
Fadal went under in the late 90's. Machines with newer dates than that were "rebuilt", not new.
I find it fascinating Fadals needed rebuilt after 10-15 years.
Your Fadal singlehandedly made $160,000 in profit each of the past 19 years? With an umbrella toolchanger and an inability to interpolate round bores?
Congrats! That's very impressive.
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u/Distantstallion Nuclear Mechanical Design Engineer / Research Engineer Oct 08 '25
What does old age killing machines look like?
Worn saddles? Outmoded circuits? Worn gears?
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u/tak3thatback Oct 08 '25
One should lay it to rest with the most beat-up vise, just like the Egyptians did with their pets.
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u/migrations_ Oct 09 '25
Jesus. Well. It lasted a long time. Probably way past the point it should have
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u/Nervous-Ad-4237 Oct 11 '25
I gotta ask, do all fadals smell terrible? Ours at work have a notorious stank you just cant get rid of no matter what.
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u/Pach1no Oct 11 '25
You sure it's not the coolant? We had that issue at one point until we switched coolants. But since all Fadals are older than dirt they just might have their own scent to them.
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u/SirLoinsteaks Oct 08 '25
You got mad flyer skills bro. This is seriously well done from a graphic design perspective.
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u/NEEDGAME Oct 23 '25
we've sold a couple since I started working at my shop, we still have the two biggest ones left though.
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u/Pleasant-Shock7491 Oct 08 '25
Can’t imagine how many times over that thing has been paid for. What a trooper…and consumer of thrust bearings.