Also known as how to dig yourself out of your own grave.
I posted another thread awhile ago about a job that was absolutely kicking my butt. It chewed through tooling faster than anything I have ever seen, and I have a lot to learn, but I've machined some nasty stuff. This was bar none, the worst material (short of hard milling) that I have ever run in a mill.
There were a lot of good suggestions, and I did a fair amount of experimentation, and learned a few things. I was surprised to find out that torque seemed to effect tool life more than run out. I was able to scrape through the job, digging out and using a myriad of endmills in my drawer, and wound up absolutely getting my butt kicked in terms of losing copious amounts on the job.
So of course, when the company said they were happy with my work and wanted me to make another, even larger batch, I of course submitted a quote! And got it. Wooo....
In the first batch, for a finisher I ran a 7fl Helical 5/16 which lasted about 30 parts. After I burned through all of them that I ordered, I started experimenting with other endmills. Cheapo Melin's 4fl lasted about 20 parts, at the same cpt but nearly double the sfm to keep up. (from memory) A relatively expensive YG1 that I use for hard milling A2 lasted a jaw dropping 2 parts. Which I was so dumb founded by, I put a new cutter in, which lasted 2 parts.
A friend of mine, who is a spoiled little brat who works in a beautiful R&D lab, only uses Schunk hydraulics, and recommended I give them a try. Maritool has hydraulics now, so I added a 3/8 and a 1/2 (so I can run a 5/16, would be great if they made a 5/16) to the cost of the next batch. Any efficiencies I learned in making the first batch of parts was chewed up by the nearly double the tooling I ordered. In the end, it meant that I still didn't make any money.
With the 1/2 hydraulic from Maritool, with a 5/16 sleeve, the first cutter made it FORTY parts!!! Wooooo!!!! Now we are getting somewhere. One cutter managed to make it 44 parts, but most so far have been 36 to 40.
I've far from conquered this job, and have lots of improving to do. Drills are driving me insane now. One will last 300 holes, one will last 200 holes, one will last 5 holes, one will last 360 holes, and the next 100.
Changeover time thanks to Orange Vise pallets is down to 3 minutes, which means the 8 minutes it takes to change over the parts on the pallet, the spindle can be running.
Fusion may yet make me insert my face into a pedestal grinder. I slightly altered a drill's feed rate on monday morning, which then for some reason made the program a whole minute longer. I found out that between friday and monday, something in fusion changed, that decided dwells were needed at key points in the program, so the endmill would just sit and rub. No idea. Absolutely no idea. I had to delete all the tool paths and start over. The previous 120 parts didn't run that way.
So it is a slow crawl out of the grave. It is not an easy job. It's a challenging job. It's a challenging customer. It's also a bit of a gamble. But I think, I hope, by the end of this job, I'll have a good basis for the next. Who knows, maybe one of these I'll make some money! But the moral of the story in this case, hydraulics rock. Maritool is fantastic. Orange vise is fantastic. Thank you guys, sincerely, from a little guy, I couldn't do what I do without you!
Oh, and of course. Brother's are awesome.
I posted another thread awhile ago about a job that was absolutely kicking my butt. It chewed through tooling faster than anything I have ever seen, and I have a lot to learn, but I've machined some nasty stuff. This was bar none, the worst material (short of hard milling) that I have ever run in a mill.
There were a lot of good suggestions, and I did a fair amount of experimentation, and learned a few things. I was surprised to find out that torque seemed to effect tool life more than run out. I was able to scrape through the job, digging out and using a myriad of endmills in my drawer, and wound up absolutely getting my butt kicked in terms of losing copious amounts on the job.
So of course, when the company said they were happy with my work and wanted me to make another, even larger batch, I of course submitted a quote! And got it. Wooo....
In the first batch, for a finisher I ran a 7fl Helical 5/16 which lasted about 30 parts. After I burned through all of them that I ordered, I started experimenting with other endmills. Cheapo Melin's 4fl lasted about 20 parts, at the same cpt but nearly double the sfm to keep up. (from memory) A relatively expensive YG1 that I use for hard milling A2 lasted a jaw dropping 2 parts. Which I was so dumb founded by, I put a new cutter in, which lasted 2 parts.
A friend of mine, who is a spoiled little brat who works in a beautiful R&D lab, only uses Schunk hydraulics, and recommended I give them a try. Maritool has hydraulics now, so I added a 3/8 and a 1/2 (so I can run a 5/16, would be great if they made a 5/16) to the cost of the next batch. Any efficiencies I learned in making the first batch of parts was chewed up by the nearly double the tooling I ordered. In the end, it meant that I still didn't make any money.
With the 1/2 hydraulic from Maritool, with a 5/16 sleeve, the first cutter made it FORTY parts!!! Wooooo!!!! Now we are getting somewhere. One cutter managed to make it 44 parts, but most so far have been 36 to 40.
I've far from conquered this job, and have lots of improving to do. Drills are driving me insane now. One will last 300 holes, one will last 200 holes, one will last 5 holes, one will last 360 holes, and the next 100.
Changeover time thanks to Orange Vise pallets is down to 3 minutes, which means the 8 minutes it takes to change over the parts on the pallet, the spindle can be running.
Fusion may yet make me insert my face into a pedestal grinder. I slightly altered a drill's feed rate on monday morning, which then for some reason made the program a whole minute longer. I found out that between friday and monday, something in fusion changed, that decided dwells were needed at key points in the program, so the endmill would just sit and rub. No idea. Absolutely no idea. I had to delete all the tool paths and start over. The previous 120 parts didn't run that way.
So it is a slow crawl out of the grave. It is not an easy job. It's a challenging job. It's a challenging customer. It's also a bit of a gamble. But I think, I hope, by the end of this job, I'll have a good basis for the next. Who knows, maybe one of these I'll make some money! But the moral of the story in this case, hydraulics rock. Maritool is fantastic. Orange vise is fantastic. Thank you guys, sincerely, from a little guy, I couldn't do what I do without you!
Oh, and of course. Brother's are awesome.
