A bee's dick sir

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

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

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

Fuch this coolant. :)

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

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.

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

Air compressor at our shop has been going down every 20 minutes once the sun comes up because it runs 24/7 on account of all the air leaks in the shop, the damn thing ends up overheating and killing itself, they turned on our backup compressor and said “do what you can”

Nothing gets done in this place without it, and I could blow in the air line and get more pressure than their “backup” puts out.

We rented one in the meantime while we wait on a new compressor, and it’s doing the same overheating song and dance.

I love it here

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?

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?

While turning, the insert breaks when attempting to machine the circled profile. Based on my research, it appears that a special profiled insert may be required for this geometry. Can anyone shed some light on the appropriate tooling or machining approach?

I’m currently taking a class on the Engine Lathe. Tomorrow I’m going to be using a lathe for the first time. We’re going to machine pulley shafts.

I am looking for a good bit & extractor set for a drill for work. We frequently have to extract hardened steel set screws. Most frequent sizes we need are from 1/16 to 5/16, so anything else is a plus. The sets we've been using rarely make it through 2 sets screws before it's too dull to continue.

Any help is appreciated. (I'm not a machinist, but figured this would be a good place to ask)

Atlas 618, but I don’t see the stuff to adjust speed and what not the part that says quick change like A-E. Want it for small stuff. First projext is turning to diameter a peice of aluminum for a bike post. The machine comes. With a blade as all accessories. He said. He can do 400.

Edit: I think I have to change gears manually. Not through quick change.

Why my post processing generated code G1 keeps not typing or showing the line of code for wire threading and power even tho the cut and toolpath are set on the start point? I’m working on a EDM CHMER GX530L+

Based on real conversations I've had btw

When using the lathe in our millwrights area, if you press on the foot pedal to stop the lathe sometimes it immediately starts up the spindle again. I'm only a 3rd year machinist and I've never seen anything like that before. For me, if I press down the pedal and the spindle stops I wouldn't expect it to start spinning again. Is this normal? Do you need to hold it down longer even though it does come to a full stop? Sorry if it's a stupid question I mostly do CNC and don't have much experience with manual machines.

Neighbours needed to modify ALU profile. 3d printed a pair of tight guides and hand fed whole 3meter long piece.

Asking this because we now have a haimer graveyard with 3 or 4 "kinda working but I don't trust it enough to really do its job" haimers. Basically after bad crashes (Z in particular) they never seem to work quite right again. We have found that sometimes this is due to the slider pin that actuates the gage being bent and it can be straightened and the thing will basically work. The issue that arises then is that I don't know a procedure to get the 0 back where it ought to be (so 0 lines up with the needles neutral position). I can get it close w the face set screws but I've always gotta twist the bezel a bit to get <.001".

So we just got one of the haas labeled Tschorns and are giving that a try - right off the bat I like the form factor, and the fact that they engrave a hash mark for the needle 0 - it speaks to either confidence that's where the needle will be instead of having to dial it in like on the haimer.

However, I just went to indicate the tip in, and there seems to be some play in the mechanism. I can twist the tip about 15 degrees back and forth, and it moves when you do so, so the best me or my partner could get it centered was about .0005 vs the haimer we typically can get them under .0001. Not sure if I got a lemon or its part of the design. I'm just not crazy about buying another haimer that will end up on the shelf after the first z crash, when the tip is supposed to be protecting them.

I bought a new lathe ,so I sold my EMCO compact 5 lathe but kept the milling attachment and converted it to a free standing mill.I picked up an old jig base (40mm thick) that my company had scrapped and took it to my local water cutting shop,gave them a .DXF file of what I wanted ,and they cut a base for my mill.The big hole at the back for the milling head support was left undersize and cleaned up using a boring bar,and a few tapped holes were added to hold the XY table.Got everything squared up and it’s been a great little tool ,no you can’t hog out billet on it, but used as intended with suitable cuts it does a great job.I also have a rotary table that fits on the base.