Sent Home From Work to Work

[rake60]

I'm setting up a secondary machining division where I work.
It's kind of a "figure it out as you go venture" but it's coming along.

We needed to make some spring loaded mandrels to insert the raw parts into
the machine collet from the turret of these old production machines.
So, I was sent home from work this morning to work in my hobby shop,
AND get paid for it!

Parts turned out fine with no remakes.

I still need two more heavy washer, but the machining is all done.
The assembled overall lengths are all within .004" I can live with that.

I knew these were coming up so I had ordered a new QCTP and proper parting tool to do them.
Those will be here next Monday, a little too late... :

The parting tool I had to use is kind of rough.
It was hand ground from a piece of 7/16 tool steel about 3 years ago.

I didn't sharpen it, just shimmed it to center and used it.
It parted off 9 parts right to length every time.
It was pretty noisy at times and the finishes needed some polishing up, but I was impressed.
Now I'm wondering if I can figure out how to use a "REAL" cutoff blade when it gets here.

Rick

 

[MachineTom]

Yeah, a Great reason to be sent home. Back in the day when I worked for a large corporation, I'd get an awful call. Tom, Hans somebody has called, he just flew in from Germany, and wants a tour of the nightspots in NYC. Yeah, somebody had to do it. ;D

 

[substandard]

When I was working at a factory there were a couple times I got to go home to get to work.

I was running a CNC punch press that decided to break down during our busiest time. After waiting a week the high dollar part shows up, a flanged ring with a few slots milled in the flange. Of course the OD of the ring is a few thousandths to big. A few months earlier the plant manager had the lathe from the maint. shop removed and set outside to rust. "Taking up space and we never have a use for it..."

Now management is running in circles trying to find a machine shop that will do the job "RIGHT NOW". I made the comment that it was an easy job and it would take longer to dial the part in on the lathe than to make the actual cut. The shop foreman eyed me and asked if I had a lathe, yep, what would it cost us for you to go home and do it right now?????

Being a true hobby machinist I smiled and told him I would require some time digging through the scrap hoppers. They got their part and I ended up with 20 pounds of free bar and round stock pieces.

 

[steamer]

That's a beautiful story Sub!......I think Im going to cry....only because my plant doesnt have any scrap bar.... :-\


Dave

 

[tattoomike68]

At work the machine tools are big so when I want a small part I go home and do it there. My small machine is way better for small parts. Plus I can chug a beer and take it easy with the dogs. ;D

 

[rake60]

I had another home shop project today for the machines at work.

The parts to be machined are held in a collet.
After they are machined the collet opens and an ejector pops them out and they roll
down a chute as finished parts.

The standard ejectors have a button that is too small for the parts, so a larger button is in order.
I started with 1" stock and ended up with the part in the left of this picture.

(It's very helpful having parts from a previous shop to "reverse engineer" for the basic idea.)

After the new buttons were made I found a couple other problems.
There wasn't enough travel in the adjusting nut so I moved the back counter bore in the
adjusting nut up about 1/2". It looked good.

Now the spring was too short and weak to be effective so off to the hardware store.
With the heaver springs in place it looked even better.

Assembled in the collet, it works perfectly!

I made two of those modified ejectors this morning.
First one took almost an hour.
The second one took about 15 minutes.
I'm sure new ones in the future will be a little quicker.

Rick

 

[rake60]

I spent another day working out of my basement hobby shop.

Having another go at those parts loaders.
The die springs just didn't work out so we went back to using the Belleville Spring
washers.

I made three sets of these today. Of course the washers and screws were purchased.

They fit together.

Tomorrow we'll see how well they work.
I'll try to get a video of them running.

Rick