Several hitherto unrealized advantages would follow if each shop floor machine could compile its own machining database autonomously. This paper focuses on CNC turning to develop a shop floor friendly method for determining the cutting force component normal to the machined surface as well as the lumped static stiffness parameters of the machining set up solely from onmachine part inspection data gathered immediately after machining. It is shown that one can also estimate the shear and chip flow angles as well as the tangential and feed forces by combining this method with a suitable predictive model of the turning operation.