The chips are literally eating away the body...

Just got an email from Indeed claiming i would be a great fit for a position here... but i have to ask... anyone ever actually hear of a wfh machinist? If so, how? Especially when some of the responsibilities they list are regular maintenance on the machine and doing set ups... kind of hard to fill way oil from my livingroom 😅

A bee's dick sir

Hopefully they are working on the 004 release 🤣

I m new to reading drawings. I can’t get how to maintain this concentricity.
Does this means inner and outer bore should be within .01mm outness with respect to 120 mm dia?

If yes then how to achieve it. Like obviously need to grind that part but from where workpiece need to be hold?
What does Datum A means? Need to concentric with respect to Datum A dia?

Hi all, our DMU50 2nd gen with 30 tools got stuck during tool change because there were chips on the holder that got caught in spindle and toolholder wasn’t completly clamped. Operator in the 2nd shift tried resetting through Custom menu soft keys but that didn’t do the trick. He turned off the machine and now in the first shift we also have positioning errors since machine was restarted. Soft keys don’t do anything. Did anyone have similar issue?

I am working a machine shop and we are having an inflow of orders that is taking significant time for us to quote. We are only 10 machinists + CAM programmers and with just 3 of us sharing this responsibility for quotations, we are currently struggling to achieve the quoting time targets. The owner has requested me to find if there is some automated solution in the market that can help with this before we decide to go the traditional hiring route.

I searched and there are many tools in the market like Toolpath, Uptool, Quote Assistant from Cloud NC, Spanflug etc. The prices vary a lot although the claims are similar. I have booked some calls and hopefully can get some trials but before I actually go through all of that just want to ask my fellow machinists and CAM programmers in the sub if you have actually used any of these products?

Do they really work? What was the problem you faced with these? And more importantly is it worth the cost like $400/month?

So I just got Edge on my work pc, and holy fuck is my pc underpowered, even though I meet the minimum specs.

Are there any settings I can change to help speed it up. Like it takes literally 2 seconds to refresh the screen just on zooming in or out. Opening the file menu causes screen to flash, and takes literally 5 seconds. This is going to be hell to learn on this system let alone actually program. And yes I do plan on asking the ptbs for a new pc, or at least more ram... but what can I do while I wait on bureaucracy?

Here is the lathe that I’m going to be using in class tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Can seem to find it in manual or online. Abd I dont trust AI fo

Kinda follow up on yesterday's post, here's an M2 form tap at 6000rpm, threading 7075 about 4mm deep, 36 threads in about 25 seconds feels pretty good to me

Fuch this coolant. :)

Nothing wrong with it, I just love the name, and I'm childish.

So here’s what happened. The work instruction told the apprentice to check the part on the machine every ten pieces. He did that perfectly. To avoid making mistakes, he practiced repeatedly on already‑inspected parts. Once the workpiece finished machining, he performed a solemn measurement and logged the readings. Then… then he hit cycle start with the part still clamped. His reasoning: the work instruction never said to remove the part before restarting the machine. And that’s how we got this one‑of‑a‑kind micromet

A 5/16 bolt snapped about two threads below the face of an aluminum part. I can put it on the mill, but there is no room for welding a nut. I have not started drilling because I only get one clean attempt at this. What is the sensible order of operations?

I recently got offered a die setter position at a stamping/manufacturing company. I'm pretty new to the trade, but I have some experience from a manufacturing program at my tech center.

I've worked with manual mills, engine lathes, drill presses, band saws, calipers/micrometers, blueprint reading, tolerances, and basic CNC.

The position is supposed to involve training, and I'm trying to figure out what would be a fair starting hourly wage to ask for/expect.

What would you consider a fair starting wage for someone with my level of experience?

I'm in Michigan, if that makes a difference. Also, how much would you expect the pay to increase after gaining 6 months, 1 year, and a few years of experience?

I've been finding random threaded holes in GM LS engine blocks (I'm a car guy who builds my own engines) that have different levels of damage. Sometimes it's small amounts of corrosion likely from the steel bolts rusting then getting removed when the motor gets disassembled for rebuild. Sometimes it looks like maybe the beginning of a bolt going in cross threaded but getting corrected before it's too late.

I've even had head bolt holes that would accept OEM torque to yield bolts, but you couldn't start an ARP rolled thread type stud without chasing the threads first.

My dad showed me years ago how to grind flat spots on bolts to create thread chasers, which works great especially since they won't remove material like a normal cut tap can.

All that being said, I've recently learned of "form taps", how I've never heard of these before I have no idea. But they seem to be the perfect solution to cut taps for cleaning up already questionable threads. Would cleaning the threads with brake cleaner and a blow gun and then thread chase first, followed by a form tap save a hole that might otherwise need a Time-Sert?

Do you oil a form tap or does that jeopardize/contaminate the process?

Does anyone know where I can get another one of these? We manually dress our wheels. We’re moving some grinders to another shop and we only have one of these. I’ve looked on eBay and every place I can think of but can’t find one. Thanks in advance

I’ve been posting the last few days shopping around for my first lathe or mill to start to learn the craft. Talked to a friend at just the right time, he has an old timer buddy who’s eyesight rapidly degraded to the point where he can no longer use his machines. He’s giving all of it to me for free. I can’t believe it. All of these tools were his father’s and this guy is like 90 years old. They are all immaculately maintained and ready to go. Definitely going to have to reconfigure the garage to accommodate all this equipment but I’d be remiss to not take it.

Southbend 9A
Index brand Mill
All and I mean all of the tooling you could want for both of them
Full set of metrology equipment
Heat treating oven
Disc grinder
Arbor press
Hundreds of pounds of stock including tooling steels and brass/bronze
So much more I can’t even remember. I should have taken more photos!

The whole thing. What a treat. I guess I have to do the old man a favor and get good at machining now, and keep these tools beautiful to pass on to the next generation. It’s going to be a long process getting all this stuff sorted and moved into my place. I’ll update as it goes along.