10 Ways Engineers Can Improve The Machinability Of Their Parts

[ChooChooMike]

10 Ways Engineers Can Improve The Machinability Of Their Parts

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10. Double check your drawing. Often the default on some design software is actually a very difficult feature to make. Do you really need a bottom tapped hole?

9. Spend a few days with the QA department the first time they qualify your new part. It will be eye opening.

8. Can you explain concentricity, how it affects the bore on the axle you are having made, and how QA should measure it? If not, take a class on Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T). (tip: This is a tough thing to learn without Q&A, but here is a good book: Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing for Mechanical Design: A Self-Teaching Guide to ANSI Standards)

7. Walk through your design with a machinist, and explain your intention behind major decisions. This will help him identify features you can adjust to improve machining efficiency.

6. Parts that don’t fit together are a lazy engineer’s fault. Don’t always blame the machine shop. Double check your tolerance stackup, and then check it again. Visualize it. Then, write it down. Don’t just use your calculator.

5. If the material isn’t crucial, choose the easiest to machine. Machining time is usually more expensive than the material. (Check out 12L14 Ultra Machinable Carbon Steel)

4. Ask a machinist which features of your part are the most challenging to machine, and then go simplify them.

3. Tell your machinist which features are absolutely necessary and which can be tweaked. He’ll have some good suggestions to improve the machinability.

2. Spend a few days helping a machinist make one of your more complex parts. You will learn things you never even thought of.

1. Encourage feedback from the machine shop and get as much of it as you can. Don’t be the engineer that takes offense to suggestions regarding your designs.

 

[vlmarshall]

Perfect. So very true...gotta love things like four-place tolerances on threaded hole locations and bolt-head counterbores.

 

[rake60]

Those 10 points would be a machinists dream!
It will never happen, but we can still dream.

Machinists are typically dirty, greasy little men who shave once a week.
They crawl around machines on the shop floor like ants on a Popsicle stick.
They wear stained jeans and tee shirts with holes in them.
How could they possibly contribute anything? :-X

Rick

 

[vlmarshall]

Those 10 points would be a machinists dream!
It will never happen, but we can still dream.

Machinists are typically blah blah blah

Rick

Thpthpthpthpthptphtphtph!


;D

 

[kf2qd]

Engineers seem to have a requirement in their lodge... Practical experience not required, or even discouraged. I have a degree in Engineering Technology - used to harrass the engineering students when they would come ask for help in the Machine Tool Lab - I'm not an engineering major, I'm a technology major - I'm going to be able to do something when I get out of here. Helped that I'd had 10 years experience as a general machinist before I went back to college...

 

[Kermit]

I'm the guy stuck in the middle...

I have to come tell you to do it over or scrap it and start over. OR, I have to go present the problem to the engineer in charge of the job, and beg exception, then go tell you to do it over or scrap it. :big:

Sucks to be me, sucks to be you and I bet the engineer would sing a song of woe is me should we be inclinded to listen.\

Whatcha gonna do? ??? :


Hey it's 5:00 O'clock. See ya suckers!
Kermit 8)

 

[putputman]

Sounds like you guys have worked with this guy.

THE CRAFTY DRAFTSMAN

The designer sat at his drafting board
A wealth of knowledge in his head was stored
Like, "What can be done with a radial drill
Or a turret-lathe or a vertical mill?"
But above all things a knack he had
Of driving gentle machinists mad.
So he mused, as he thoughtfully scratched his bean,
Just how can I make this thing hard to machine?
If I make the body perfectly straight,
The job had ought to come out first rate.
But 'twould be so easy to turn and bore,
That it would never make a machinist sore.
So I'll make a compound taper there,
And a couple of angles to make them swear.
But that's too easy to work, I fear,
So just to make the machinist squeal,
I'll make him mill it from tungsten-steel.
And I'll put those holes that hold the cap,
Down underneath where they can't be tapped.
Now if they can make this, it'll just be luck,
Cause it can't be held by dog or chuck.
It can't be planed and it can't be ground,
So I feel that my design is unusually sound.
And as he finished, he shouted in glee,
SUCCESS AT LAST!!
This gosh damn thing can't even be cast.​

 

[Jared]

Kelly Johnson of Lockheed Skunk Works fame required his engineers to work in offices on the ground floor right off the assembly area so they would be close by in case the guys putting together the prototype airplane had a problem with a part.

 

[Maryak]

sex, (kiwi speek for six :hDe, munfs ago I cudn't spel injuneer, now I are won. ;D

 

[rake60]

Machinists do pick on the engineers.
Many times it is justifiable, but 80% of the time the engineers will agree
that they hadn't thought of "THAT" being an issue.

A good engineer will work with the floor people to gain a positive result.

As for the 20% who refuse to work with the floor machinists, beware.
They may be coming to YOUR shop after being relieved of their current duties.

Rick