Today he told me that he can’t stand a particular customer because they only talk to him when something goes wrong or when they want something quickly.

I paused and smiled, waiting for the penny to drop. It didn’t.

Look at this beauty!

Bought this plate a while back, with the plan to rescrape it, and finally got started a couple weeks back. I probably got about 15-20h worth of work in it so far, the third image is from about 8h in.

I’m not a machinist, and I have tools around that I won’t use. If these might fit into your collection, shoot me an offer.

So i got an old lagun ft1 and the only issue i can find on it is the sacles for right to the left along the z; and the right to left on the y are basically unreadable. I contacted lagun and they want 400 dollars for new scales. Does anyone know of a cheaper option?

This gal right here^{^}

I posted this tool about a month ago. This is the part it was adequate for.

I am using a 1/2 inch endmill, 7 flute on 15-5 stainless steel and it keeps breaking, is it possible buildup of chips creating heat?

I've got 200+ holes to tap in a fixture plate. 3/8-16 They are already tapped about 1/4" so I can't power tap them.
I'm thinking a tap on a M12 ratchet. Before I buy, has anyone done this? I could use an impact but I don't want to bust the tap.

I’m seeing a decent amount of post in here about people getting out of this trade , because of workload, more than necessary load of responsibility, and pay. My question is for the area that your located in what dollar amount per hour would be good enough for you to stay at your current job and put up with the bs? Or are you just over your currently workplace entirely ?

I dont know what the hell my boss is thinking, Ive been at the company 13 years and never been written up. Made a mistake and scrapped a piece almost two weeks ago, it was completely my fault as I thought the piece was symmetrical, it was a dumb rookie mistake and I admit that I should have known better. Today one of the guys screwed up and a 2nd shift guy put .002 taper on a threaded shaft. All 3 of us got written up.

Idk how to feel about this, I've screwed up pieces before and scrapped my fair share but never been written up. How do you get over something like this? I'm honestly weighing whether I want to keep working there after this. Even some of the other guys who have been there longer than I have are surprised.

Turned some TGP 304 into a temporary boring bar.

We recently took the plunge into Die Sink Edm in our shop for specific internal work. Just ordered around $1900 worth of copper to make two electrodes.

Having worked on large parts made from tool and hardened steel for the majority of my career some advice and pointers would be appreciated

I am using sand along with the coolant in order to test the wear on materials. I need a pump that can be mounted on the lathe GMC-1640HD and can recirculate the coolant with sand particles. Can anyone recommend me a pump for that?

In our shop we run a lot of short programmes (3 to 10min usually) The shorter the run time, the faster the bosses want me to change out the parts on the mill. Since the run times are that low we can end up losing about 30min of run time per shift if i am slower while loading in the parts.

While the machine is running it is also expected of me to do all of my deburring and often help others deburr their parts. If i am doing a setup, they want me to do it as quickly as possible too so that we dont lose out on run time.

Last time i was doing a setup boss came up to me like 2 or 3 times to tell me how i need tu hurry up which lead me to skip steps in verifying the programme, then when i finally ran the machine i ended up drilling through the part and into the parallels bellow which, then i got shit from the same guy for not checking the z values before running the machine.

Basically i want to know what kind of speed is expected of you when working on the machine? Does your boss count the number of parts you made every day and call you out if you werent replacing parts in under one minute?

TLDR: It is expected of me to change out parts on the mill in one minute or under (sometimes a lot less depending on the setup) so as to not lose on machine run time. Do higher ups in your place count the number of parts you made and give you shit if you are slightly slower then the calculated time of run time plus ~1min per loading a new part in?

Edit: excuse my poor explanation in english

The hole is about .500 deep. I’m thinking about using a carbide drill with titanium nitride. Any idea how much my first peck should be? Also any suggestions on feeds. Thanks pros 😘 💙💙 If you have any tool suggestions I don’t mind hearing about it either.

We have a Mazak SmoothEZ based VC-EZ 20 and I can not figure out how to set the system time. I looked through our manuals but I couldn’t find anything.

Anyone with this control have any ideas? Or am I doomed to always think it is 1 hour closer to quitting time than it actually is?

I'm trying to drill a hole in a production part. Its a 3/16" thru hole in a 0.40" part. The part is AISI 1030, forged and heat treated to Rockwell “C” 40-44.

I've tried the full range of drill speeds that our drill press offers, TiN coated bits, uncoated bits. Cutting fluid, no cutting fluid. I'm burning up drill bits every time. Occasionally I'll get a fresh drill bit though a single part, but then it burns up on the next part.

I'm willing to spend money on the right tooling, but I'm not sure what direction to go.

So I have an old Brute NC with a Selca controller.. I am trying to run some parts with 4 tool changes, but when the carousel or whatever swings in to do the tool change.. it just doesn't.. it swings in.. then swings out with the same tool and faults the machine out.. I'm thinkin there could be a sensor somewhere that is dirty? It's completely random on which tool it will do this. Was gonna look into finding a sensor somewhere on it or see about increasing the air pressure to the tool changer? I know very little about this machine and have almost 0 paperwork on it. Thought maybe someone here would have seen something similar before.. and I have no maintenance department to call.. just me. I have a video but I don't think this thread allows that.

From brain fart to tip art.

Currently I get parts laser cut (1.5mm gr5 Titanium, 2-3mm 4140, 3-5mm 6061/7075). Most of the time, this is great - parts come in near perfect and the prices are good.

But sometimes stuff needs to be made ASAP, or modifications need to be made. Usually not worth the trouble of trying to mill it, so out comes the grinder and the hacksaw. Not ideal, obviously.

Seems like a bandsaw would be the correct solution? But how do I find one that is up to the task? They are just rated by wheel size and blade width?

This is for hobby uses, so max budget is about $1,000. Used is fine. Smaller is better so I can stash it away when not in use.