Looking back on the year

Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
She is good at feigned anger.
I just need to keep spending under control on this stuff. I might blame Rick for some of it?
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
with a CNC he could mill many molds.
I happen to know a guy in Finland that can program them.
and I happen to know where AL gets his 'cherrys' for his CNC machines.
 
Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Oh, I feel pressure. Just not here.
Making moulds? Might be a nice thing to play with. Sell em? Heck no, I want it to remain a hobby. Selling stuff makes it a job, I have a job.
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Before I had a clue it used to baffle me that a 30-second machining operation would cost 2-3 hours shop time. Had a machinist explain it to me like this: "We make chips for free. We get paid for figuring out how to set it all up".
 
Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Exactly. Knowing what to do is one thing, knowing HOW to do it is another.
 
KeithB

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
It's definitely the setup time that makes one piece jobs so darned expensive. Yes, I've run parts that took more than half a day to set up and five minutes to do the actual machining. But it wouldn't do any good to do the machining in the wrong place, would it.

And unless you plan on CNC machining sculpted surfaces or use 4+ axis machines programming CNC code really isn't that hard.
 
smokeywolf

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
Can't tell you how many times I've spent 2 hours on a setup to mill one feature or surface, that took a total of 15 minutes actual machining time.

A lot of times with milling setups, you have to think "outside the box".
If you have to pull the vise off the table and mount an angle plate, add 20-30 minutes.
Need to mount a dividing head? Add 20-30 minutes.
Need to swing the mill head off vertical to drill a hole on a compound angle? 45 minutes minimum. As, once finished, you have to return the head to vertical and tram it back in.
 
KeithB

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
All true, Smokey. Machining is not the best profession for impatient people. Darned satisfying profession, but not for the short tempered. Even the most even-tempered machinists have been known to fling a tool across a shop while saying things they wouldn't want their children to hear...
 
Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
I find it a good place to work on problem solving skills. Figuring out the order of operations that lets you do what you need without impossible setups. It does require a fair bit of forethought so you don't work yourself into a corner.
I'm learning that I should have paid a bunch more attention to trig in school.
Watching YouTube videos fascinates me as I look at setups and say "So that is how they do that".
 
358156 hp

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
I feel the same way Brad. Some people have come up with ways to make seemingly complicated operations almost simple. A lot comes from getting greater insight on the way things are made.
 
smokeywolf

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
The vast majority of shop trig that I do is to calculate tapers or beginning and ending diameters and coordinates of tapers. Also to convert polar coordinates to rectangular coordinates so I can drill bolt circles without having to mount the rotary table on the mill.
Shortly after my apprenticeship I started cheating and doing the trig on the calculator.
 
Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
A drawing makes such a difference too. I find that this helps me visualize what I need and makes the calculations much easier.
I need to get the daughter to use her design skills to make me dimensioned drawings in CAD.
 
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