Is this Adjustable Angle Plate ( Precise 10" x 15" SKU: 202-169 ID: 347297 ) worth it?

[Rough-cutter]

more like this

 

[L Vanice]

That looks like a part designed for 3D printing or possibly investment casting. Milling from solid, not really.

Larry

 

[Rough-cutter]

so now we see. I can clean up the floor and have sharp corners on the post. Because I am tilting the entire part so the post will be parelle with my end mill and the plane they sit on will be perpendicular to it.

 

[Rough-cutter]

That looks like a part designed for 3D printing or possibly investment casting. Milling from solid, not really.

Larry

I agree. good candidate for metal 3d printer. But we don't have one and these design engineers never seem to learn. They just want what they want. They say the entire plate needs to be bolted to this fixture. This fixture will be bolted to a horizontal table and the plate has to be 10 degrees off of that horizontal table. They do not ever think about how to do it. They just draw something up and that is that no changing their minds about it.

I have found that the older engineers are much better. It is like we need to train the new engineers. But in this case. I want to show off a little. Because in this case. They could not get the part made outside the company. So now time to prove my worth and just make it happen. Even if it is a bad design and a dumb idea.

Thanks for the brain storming. This sort of thing really helps. In a shop all by my self with no one that understands the least bit about this stuff. I find my self having these discussions with my self in my own head.

 

[Houdini]

Or maybe I should ask for a 5 axis mill.

I asked myself for that this year, Santa said wait for the economy to crash in the next 6-18 mo. then well see

 

[Houdini]

Yeah, I'm used to seeing stuff like this also, and radii have to be added just so it can be cut.



but some of what I have been seeing has a compound angled block with the pillars perpendicular to the top plane.

 

[toolmaker96]

Those angle plate tables are absolute junk. Bought one several years ago, used it a couple times & tossed it in the corner.

You are much better off with something like this.

BRIDGEPORT MILLING MACHINE TRI SINE ADJUSTABLE ANGLE PLATE MACHINIST TOOL LOT B | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for BRIDGEPORT MILLING MACHINE TRI SINE ADJUSTABLE ANGLE PLATE MACHINIST TOOL LOT B at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Rough-cutter]

Those angle plate tables are absolute junk. Bought one several years ago, used it a couple times & tossed it in the corner.

You are much better off with something like this.

BRIDGEPORT MILLING MACHINE TRI SINE ADJUSTABLE ANGLE PLATE MACHINIST TOOL LOT B | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for BRIDGEPORT MILLING MACHINE TRI SINE ADJUSTABLE ANGLE PLATE MACHINIST TOOL LOT B at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Looks good. Just so small.

 

[Mtndew]

Im sure someone has already covered this so forgive me for not being able to find it. I have some parts that require strange counter bores and embosses that are 10deg angled from rest of the part and it is on a large 10" X 17 " plate. I think I could clamp it to this and just over hang. What do we think before I ask the boss to buy me one.

Question: Is this Adjustable Angle Plate ( Precise 10" x 15" SKU: 202-169 ID: 347297 ) worth it? https://www.penntoolco.com/precise-10-x-15-adjustable-angle-plate-202-169/
View attachment 417936

Had pretty much the exact same one many years ago for a wacky job.
It's complete trash. I wouldn't give it to my worst enemy.

 

[toolmaker96]

Looks good. Just so small.

That was just a quick example of what I could find on Ebay, they make them bigger.

 

[Mud]

Have you looked for used tables? I sold a 12 X 24 american made table a few months ago for $100, had it for 20 years and hadn't used it. Took 2 men to move it.

 

[Houdini]

At this point in this thread, I would have machined jaws already, haha
I machine jaws, even for the compound angled parts we do.
we us Orange vises though, so we can just throw in a big piece of Carvesmart, and have a uni jaw without having to make it.

 

[Rough-cutter]

So are we saying I should look for a large sine plate to put directly on my mill table? I always wondered if those sine plates were rigid enough. ??

 

[toolmaker96]

So are we saying I should look for a large sine plate to put directly on my mill table? I always wondered if those sine plates were rigid enough. ??

We do it everyday

 

[implmex]

Yeah, I'm used to seeing stuff like this also, and radii have to be added just so it can be cut.


View attachment 418068
but some of what I have been seeing has a compound angled block with the pillars perpendicular to the top plane.

Hi Rough Cutter:
You wrote:
"But we don't have one and these design engineers never seem to learn. They just want what they want."
You do know, I'm sure, that if your friendly clueless engineer really REALLY wants to make these without fillets it IS possible.
The magic tool is the ever so expensive sinker EDM.

When the engineers get a little too full of themselves, sometimes it's good to make them feel the pain of just how much their wacky design is gonna cost.
Every once in a while...
The guys I deal with most often have come around quite nicely, but it took a few eye watering invoices to get them there (I work cost-plus on contract for them).
Now when I ask them just how badly they want it exactly like the picture, I get "what do you mean?" instead of "just make it!".

I've been lucky there...they haven't given me the boot just yet, despite my efforts to educate the intransigent.
Unlike your experience, some of the old school, "mature" engineers have been the worst for attitude in this corner of the world...different culture, complete with briar pipes, white shirts, and neckties I guess.
But all are amenable if you give them the correct incentive.

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[Houdini]

Hi Rough Cutter:
You wrote:
"But we don't have one and these design engineers never seem to learn. They just want what they want."
You do know, I'm sure, that if your friendly clueless engineer really REALLY wants to make these without fillets it IS possible.
The magic tool is the ever so expensive sinker EDM.

When the engineers get a little too full of themselves, sometimes it's good to make them feel the pain of just how much their wacky design is gonna cost.
Every once in a while...
The guys I deal with most often have come around quite nicely, but it took a few eye watering invoices to get them there (I work cost-plus on contract for them).
Now when I ask them just how badly they want it exactly like the picture, I get "what do you mean?" instead of "just make it!".

I've been lucky there...they haven't given me the boot just yet, despite my efforts to educate the intransigent.
Unlike your experience, some of the old school, "mature" engineers have been the worst for attitude in this corner of the world...different culture, complete with briar pipes, white shirts, and neckties I guess.
But all are amenable if you give them the correct incentive.

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

Truth, I had the lucky position of not just being the injection mold machinist, but the mold engineer also,
So having the customers engineers come in to talk about my list of expensive, complex, you have to use an EDM, or inserts, stuff.
they quickly changed attitudes, and eventually, once they would hire a new engineer, for the first handful of of parts, they were sent down to talk with me
about the parts until they got the feel for proper engineered injection molded part design, especially trying to avoid EDM.

 

[implmex]

Yep, Houdini...your experience is just about the same as mine.
I'm grateful for my sinker...there are places where it is the only realistic way to get what the engineer truly NEEDS.
But like you, when I design a part for molding and design the mold, I will move heaven and earth to invoke the process only where it is truly needed.
I've found a lot of mold makers want to burn damn near everything...sometimes I get it, but sometimes it's just idiotic.

Small aside by way of example...I worked with a local moldmaker who ran his own business and bought a top-of-the-line Agie sinker for stupid money back in the mid 1990's.
He'd bought the toy (it just about put him under) and he was damned well going to justify its purchase.
I got back slides where he had burned the cam pin bores, and inserts where he had burned all the threads for the bolts to hold the inserts in the pockets and just all kinds of other truly ridiculous stuff.
He built good tools so he survived but Jeez...

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[Houdini]

Yep, Houdini...your experience is just about the same as mine.
I'm grateful for my sinker...there are places where it is the only realistic way to get what the engineer truly NEEDS.
But like you, when I design a part for molding and design the mold, I will move heaven and earth to invoke the process only where it is truly needed.
I've found a lot of mold makers want to burn damn near everything...sometimes I get it, but sometimes it's just idiotic.

Small aside by way of example...I worked with a local moldmaker who ran his own business and bought a top-of-the-line Agie sinker for stupid money back in the mid 1990's.
He'd bought the toy (it just about put him under) and he was damned well going to justify its purchase.
I got back slides where he had burned the cam pin bores, and inserts where he had burned all the threads for the bolts to hold the inserts in the pockets and just all kinds of other truly ridiculous stuff.
He built good tools so he survived but Jeez...

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

haha, yeah I actually tried to do the reverse of that guy, we had an older sinker, I hated it, when I watched the previous engineer use it, I knew I was going to try to avoid it like the plague/corona.

I actually tried to get molds so there was nothing done to it at all, the entire part was all machined in one shot, no inserts, nothing one plate, one and done.

if I had to do something, I hoped it wasn't a cosmetic surface so I could throw in a insert, I would rather throw in a insert than EDM, it was faster for me anyway.

I even had talks with Harvey tool engineers and designed some of the cutters they sell now, a couple times, just to avoid the EDM.

 

[Mtndew]

When the engineers get a little too full of themselves

So... everyday?

 

[Houdini]

So... everyday?

haha, Its nicer to work with big handful's of them from large corps., then at least you get to meet the more humble dudes also.
we hired one once, who wanted to try to be a machinist, bad idea,
I already knew the guy for years, already knew it was a bad idea.
He just wanted to check and monitor, and organize, and analyze, job shop shit parts, like dude, we just need to ge thtem done fast,
stop trying to engineer shit.
We had to let him go, he was extremely unproductive, and funny thing is he didn't understand that when we told him. haha