Last week we showed you a video of a CNC mill creating and engine block from a billet of aluminum. This week we move up a step both on the engine and in the complexity of work with the video below. You are going to watch another billet of aluminum get turned into something and this time it is a head. A four valve, bad ass, cylinder head complete with ports, bolt holes, and basically everything but the valves and valve train parts. When you see the mill work it’s the same things in this video that impressed us about the last one. First and foremost speed. Watching this thing race over the metal and create shapes and forms at a lightning quick pace is pretty stunning.
The accuracy of the machine is obviously amazing but the movements are what really get us. For instance, watch how the tool and the mill work together to form the ports. Port shapes are pretty sexy general speaking. They need to be nice and fluid, they need to have gentle curves and the right texture to their walls. When you see this video you’ll understand why people hand ported heads for a billion years. The movements are intricate and well, human. Wild stuff.
This looks like a bad ass head. We have no idea what it fits or if it fits anything at all. The CNC mill company could have just produced this piece to show off the capabilities of their product rather than to fit onto a race engine. Either that or someone has a bad ass head on their car right now and while the car is not famous, the head certainly is!
As much as CNC and computer design improves modern manufacturing what talented craftsmen could do in the past is even more amazing. My dads lifelong friend, a patternmaker, did all of his work in his basement shop with no more tools than I have. Some of his patterns were used for the first lunar lander in 1969.