Additive and Subtractive Together, Including by Retrofit
The list of machine tools combining both additive manufacturing and subtractive CNC machining can now grow to include an existing machine that has the additive capability added on.
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This view inside the Hamuel Reichenbacher machine (seen in full below)
shows it performing a laser cladding operation on a turbine blade part.
I know of four companies supplying additive manufacturing machines that also incorporate CNC machining for “subtractive” operations. They are: DMG Mori, Fabrisonic, Matsuura and Hamuel Reichenbacher. The last of these is distinctive because it incorporates a system for add-on additive manufacturing capability that could also be added to an existing machine tool via retrofit.
Jason Jones, who helped to develop this technology—now marketed through Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies—says one of the promises of his system is that an existing, older machine in a shop could be made new by making it an additive manufacturing machine. Read more here.
