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Business of Machining - Episode 135
245 Plays6 years ago
Do you even lathe, bro?
“I LOVE LATHES!” - Not who you’d expect
As Saunders gets deeper into research for his potential lathe, he plays 20 (000) questions with Grimsmo. If you’re thinking about buying a lathe yourself, or you just need some basic lathe tips, this is the episode for YOU!
Get your notebook out, and let’s get started!
Quick tips:
“Get what you know you’ll need, and just buy more stuff later” - Grimsmo
“This is like getting an HD TV when you’ve been reading and brailing your whole life” - Saunders
“Stabilizing your tool can improve your finish” - Saunders
THE CONTEST CONTINUES
Submission Deadline: Tuesday September 17th, 2019. Winner announced on September 20th Episode!
Grimsmo and Saunders are now both using the project Saunders created: Proven Cut ("We break tools, so you don't have to!")
Meet up with Saunders on Oct 9th!
If you're in the mid-west, come check out the Haas event on October 9th. Pssst, they'll have a UMC 500!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Greetings
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode 135. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmough. Good morning. Good morning, my friend. How are you? I am excellent today.
Lathe Tool Setup Challenges
00:00:15
Speaker
Okay. I got questions. You keep four axial and three radial on your lathe, right? That's my notes. No.
00:00:26
Speaker
I keep four, what did you say, four axial? I did. Yeah, I have four pointing at the face of the part. Yeah, that's one on one side, three on the subside, and then only one radial. Okay.
Turret Positioning Strategies
00:00:45
Speaker
You own two more, but they're just not mounted? Yes.
00:00:50
Speaker
Would it, so that's what I'm trying to, I did the exercise of assigning tools to turret positions and thinking about the kind of tools that you would want, but it's a little bit hard. I've found that that's not always the way to actually, you'll still have some moments of realization and change. So what I'm trying to think about is you have sacrificed, you had 12 turret,
00:01:17
Speaker
half position, so 24. But the 24, the half positions are only helpful if you have two stick tools. How are you using half positions? I'm not actually. Nowhere. The only places for my pill bottle
00:01:38
Speaker
Okay, yeah, it doesn't count my parts catcher, but if you have like a triple boring bar holder Where you've got one and then one out in X and then another one drop down in Y You'd have you'd use the half position Triple wouldn't a double alone use it. Do you use only use X? Well, yeah, if they're two side by side. Yes, I
00:02:03
Speaker
I guess, let me ask it another way. Are there 12 cutting tools? Ignore the sub side, I guess.
Tool Positioning with Y-axis
00:02:10
Speaker
Are there 12 tools in your lathe or are there more? Yeah, there's only 12 blocks of stuff.
00:02:19
Speaker
No, but does any, so like, so you can do a half position turret could have two stick tools just stacked on top of each other, like they're half positions, but it could also be more of a Y-axis, sorry, I guess I'm asking the question incorrectly because you don't need the half index to use the Y-axis feature of having a, say a spot drill, you get two different spot drills that would be spaced away from the turret on like a long,
00:02:48
Speaker
a tall tool post. Do you do any of that? No, because if you did that, it would only still be an X. You don't need to have position. Yeah, exactly. You don't need to have position.
CapTo System Advantages
00:03:00
Speaker
Sorry. I'm confusing or I'm combining the two. Imagine if you had two stick tools stacked on top of each other like I do right now, but mine are coplanar. They're like one directly stacked on top of each other.
00:03:13
Speaker
Really? Oh, yeah. Wow. So you don't need to have index because you just use Y to comp for that. Exactly. Because they're half inch tools that fit within a one inch tool holder block. So I've got two of them. But if you're... Is that kosher? Oh, yeah. It works great. Did you think of that? I've never seen that before. I know. No, I think of that. And every time I have a tech come in, they're like, what? That's amazing.
00:03:38
Speaker
So if you're using y-axis, the angle between the two will be different, right? It'll be one over 24 or whatever. The angle that the tool is presented to the part. Yeah.
Optimizing Live Tool Holders
00:03:51
Speaker
So, but okay. But then you, if you have that, then that means let's say you had no live tools or other stuff. If you had, um, 12 tour positions and one of them had two sick tools in it, then you would have 13 tools. Yes.
00:04:07
Speaker
You're confusing me. I thought you just said you had 12. I don't know. Do you feel like you have enough? I'm recognizing that one could always say it's nice to have more.
00:04:26
Speaker
I use very few turning tools. I think I only have the two that are stacked on top of each other and then one on the sub. Interesting. It's the boring bars, the drills, the spot drill, the live tools that really start to add up. Yeah. Okay. Because especially if you're doing various repeat production or job shopping where you have similar styles,
Balancing Tool Holder Types
00:04:50
Speaker
you wanna keep your eighth inch drill bit in there all the time, because you're always using it. And then you wanna add, and then you wanna add, and you always need a spot drill in there. You might as well always have a boring bar on both sides. And they add up. Boring bars on the subside are tricky, because your turret rotation means you don't have a ton of clearance. Yeah, mine's got maybe four inches on that side.
00:05:16
Speaker
Okay. Oh, that's more than I thought perhaps. Which is no, maybe less. Certainly bigger than two, but that's fine for me because my parts are tiny. Right, right. The genesis of this question is really,
00:05:31
Speaker
can you have too many live tool holders in the sense of you'd lose static tools, you lose static tools and, or do the size, the block size of the live tool holder, does that cause a problem? I guess not because it's no, because once you index it, everything's out of the way.
CapTo System Flexibility
00:05:50
Speaker
Totally out of the way. Okay. Yep. Yep.
00:05:52
Speaker
Everything you're telling me, everything I've heard like from Lawrence and WhatsApp and just thinking about the machine tells me that CapTo is not a mistake.
00:06:01
Speaker
Okay. The ability to quickly switch, for example, let's say we have a T1 is going to just be a CNMG. Well, instead of worrying about aluminum versus steel, that would be, if we had two different Kapto holders, you'd just switch those out. No stress, no fuss, no muss. I saw on Instagram, a guy actually coincidentally showing off his Kapto switch. That's not how it went, yeah. Yeah. It was just so quick and repeatable.
00:06:32
Speaker
That was the mayor of the Little River. Exactly. Yeah.
00:06:37
Speaker
So even for some stick tool, I think that's a good thing. And they make a dual capto block. So you could buy, the simplest would be a one position capto. So that would be for turning with one tool on the main spindle. The extreme would be the same block with four positions for half index on the main and for half indexing on the sub.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah. So they obviously make half index blocks. Bingo. Yeah. Capto. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I downloaded this PDF.
Comparing Tooling Systems
00:07:10
Speaker
It's the Sandvik Haas BMP65. For the Haas. Nice. Yep. So they show you what your options are. There are fewer options than you would think, given the complexity of lathe tooling, which is nice. You basically have those options for stick tools, one, two, or four.
00:07:29
Speaker
and then you have some driven tool, live tool type options. Lawrence had some, it looked like Lawrence had some dual CapTo, either for dual live tools on one spindle or for running a live tool where one faces master one face of stuff. So I gotta look more into that. Have you compared prices of a live Sandvik tool versus a live Haas tool, just regardless of CapTo?
00:07:57
Speaker
You mean the holder block? Yeah. Well, so I logged in. I have a Sandvik account, but I just created it myself. So I don't know if that's like the real pricing, but it doesn't look unobtainable. Like the most expensive
00:08:13
Speaker
The most expensive and if anyone's listening, don't hold me to this, please. But the most expensive, uh, live tool block would be the right angle.
Tooling Investment Strategies
00:08:23
Speaker
So that would be for axial. And if you get that unit with 80 bar through coolant capability, the list price is over 6,000. But, um, I'm pretty certain those would be eligible for the substantial discount you get through the tooling voucher type program or the new machine credit.
00:08:42
Speaker
I don't think that's anything unique. I think that's pretty general. So let's say that reduces it down to well under four. That seems to be pretty comparable with the cost of others. And now you have to purchase the, the Capito part, but you'd have to purchase a stick tool as well. Or I guess that's a, to me, that's a negligible cost part of it. Just sucks when you want to buy six of them, you know, at six grand.
00:09:08
Speaker
Well, six to six grand would be a non-starter, but if it's six at three grand or something, and that's the most expensive one. The others are cheaper. It's kind of funny. I just don't look at it like that anymore. This is the machine that we're going to get. We're going to do it right. My mentality has changed. Even with the UMC, I thought,
00:09:32
Speaker
I would have never in March, whenever I ordered that thought about a justification for automation. And if I could repurchase that machine today, I would do that differently. Totally. Totally. So I'm going to throw back a piece of advice you gave me a couple months ago regarding tooling up the
ProvenCut Impact Discussion
00:09:50
Speaker
current. Get what you know you'll need and then just buy more stuff later. Right. Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
But I mean, you're swayed just like everybody is by, well, I get a big tooling discount, especially ordering from Sandvik or something like that through the first purchase. No, that should, that should be six months of purchases or something. Oh yeah. Yeah. It doesn't need to be like on the initial PO or whatever. It doesn't need to be just one order. It can be within anything within six months or it's how we've done it on the million side because that changes things.
00:10:24
Speaker
I dislike the nature that you can get cute doing this all different ways. You could purchase from your machine tool vendor a gift certificate at $50. So you could buy a $5,000 voucher for $2,500 and then you usually have six months or a year to spend it. Or sometimes the machine tool companies themselves, like we've had this with different cutting tool companies. They're like, if you can send us a serial number and a PO for a machine that was within
00:10:51
Speaker
a year will give you a discount on just the soft body or will give you a different discount on the inserts. It's just all salesmanship games. Good. Okay. That's better. But to your point, yeah. Pick up a couple of stick tools, pick up a couple of kaptos, learn it.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yep. Because I know exactly where you're at right now. You want to tool up for everything and you want to like, what am I going to use? What am I going to need? And the answer is you don't know until you actually dive in and start using it. And then things start to become very clear.
Challenges in Lathe Tooling
00:11:23
Speaker
I think with the Kapto, what my goal would be is to not take a Kapto block off. Because it's so useful and expensive. Like get what you want. So for example, I don't want to bootstrap it and buy the single or double Kapto blocks when I realized, wait a minute here. No, no, no. Even though I should have gotten the four-sided ones because you can always leave the only downside, I think, to the four-sided
00:11:51
Speaker
are using the half index is that if you have a larger part, you may have clearance issues with that second tool. Yeah, maybe. But most of the work we're going to do is probably under two inches and you could just take the second tool out. Yeah. If the cost difference is a few hundred dollars on a multi-thousand dollar block, I'd rather have the ability to have the two tools in there if you're going to use it half the time or something.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't in the brief time that I've tried to look up multi tool live tools. This is for static tools. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. For static tools go nuts. Um, for sure. But for live tools, as you add more tools to the same tool block, the cost goes up like a lot.
00:12:37
Speaker
I don't currently plan to do that, partly because my Sandvik rep was in yesterday and we were looking at this. So think about an axial live tool. So that's a tool that's going to say drill a bolt hole pattern on the face of your part. So let's say you had a dual live tool holder that could both drill and tap. Well, how does that work? Because if you're drilling a hole pattern around the face of the part,
00:13:06
Speaker
You can't drill in at nine o'clock because the taps going to hit the crash into the part or vice versa. You can't tap it three o'clock because your drill would hit the part as well. Yeah, it depends on the size of the part.
00:13:19
Speaker
Correct. If your price is smaller than the spacing between the two things, then you're fine. But you're being able to put the point. That's the parts where I think about where it's like, no, no, no, we would have collisions. And that's too much money and too silly to try to add that. But I think what would be valuable is axial left, axial right, like one off each side. Yeah, sure, sure. Because that's cheaper than buying two different axials and facing them each different directions.
00:13:46
Speaker
That's a really good point. That's, I should have put that down. So it's like, yeah, right. Well, and I guess radial each direction. I wonder how that, gosh, I'm glad we're talking about this. Cause I wonder when you have a radial live tool. Okay. On your knock, when you have a radio live tool, it's either positioned toward
Innovative Lathe Techniques
00:14:10
Speaker
the main or toward the sub, right? No, radial just sticking at the diameter of the part.
00:14:16
Speaker
Oh, it's coming straight out of the turret. Okay, so it doesn't matter. You could use it on either. Do you ever run parts where the same radial tool does work on the main and the sub? The same. I don't, but I could clearly see situations where you work. Where it would work.
00:14:34
Speaker
There's nothing stopping you, I guess. I'll put it that way. No, for sure. If you had a quarter inch tool with a bullnose that you could use to both mill and even surface chamfers in there, you could use that to do some work on the main and then on the sub as well. Yeah. Perfect.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah, so we're tweaking our mod vise and the new washers, instead of it being a bar, these angled washers that secure the adjustable side in, right now they're made out of a bar, so they look like a stick of gum, chewing gum. The new style will be more like the size of a quarter, but it's a washer and it has a taper. And I am going to try to do those on the lathe. No, I hate he's. I was just thinking like,
00:15:18
Speaker
especially if you get a Y axis and especially if you get a sub sub spindle, you're going to be making parts on that laid that are not laid parts. Oh yeah. I would get super interesting. I wouldn't even need the sub spindle nor would that be easy to transfer it over. Uh, it's a washer and you can still grip it somewhere. Well, it'll be a washer, but it'll have a six sided, uh, non-square outside diameter or profile that that sounds silly.
00:15:47
Speaker
Yeah, I'll show you a picture. It'll make sense. It's a square that has two chamfers, which is how you get the fifth and sixth sides. Corner cut, corner cuts. Draw a square in your head and then just put two chamfers on. That's all it is.
00:16:06
Speaker
I mean, you can make an emergency call it on the other side, you think with that shape and then you clock the two to go. Yeah. You clock the two together, grip it, part it off, face the backside. Well, so the question is, I don't need to do that. Well, maybe not because I could, um, but you're not going to part it off into free air. Are you? That's, that's like gross.
00:16:29
Speaker
Well, that's the question. What kind of finishes would you get? Unacceptable? Finished, but then it'll also be like a little ring in the middle that needs work. Okay. Even if I do a backside chamfer tool, the part off is still going to have some point where it, because it's unsupported it. Yeah. Like you can get like an angled insert part off tool and you can get a sharp one. Um, so you'll be really close, but they're never going to be perfect. Got it.
00:16:59
Speaker
This may sound silly, would you bring the sub in to kind of act like a stabilizing tail stock where it, I guess it can't push it or apply pressure because that would crush the insert. It can. Really? Yeah, without holding it.
00:17:15
Speaker
Could you break through it'll just, there's a, I don't know what the whole diameter is half inch, I think, or five 10. Could you somehow use an ID expanding thing to support it from the ID? Let it, I guess if I'm going to transfer to the sub, I might as well take advantage of that, bring it over and then do some nice finishing work. Engrave your name on the outside or something. Um, they're washers. I'm not grim smell. I would.
00:17:42
Speaker
If it's a six-sided non-square wash, it'd be engraving. Two-shay. Maybe we do. A little Easter egg. A little SMW on it would be awesome. Yeah, I would definitely look at the emergency call-it route, which you can mill in place on the lathe if you have an Axial Live going that way. You could do an ID clamp, but you lose. It's not very rigid.
00:18:12
Speaker
Okay, interesting.
00:18:15
Speaker
I guess I know what an emergency call it is, and here's the thing, unlike your Delrin parts are plastic and thin. These are beefy steel washers that are at the thinnest ... I mean, it's tapered, but the thinnest section is still 200 thou thick, so plenty. Oh, yeah. You're right. I'll just do it that way. And then, John, I love lathes. Can you imagine this? Barfed- Can I get that in a quote? Well, I'm pretty sure this is recorded. There you go.
00:18:43
Speaker
a bar fed, like done right automation, manufacturing parts catcher, like, are you right? I should just show you the Sandvik guy the part and he's like, you're gonna do this on a lay that I started walking him through it. And honestly, I got to give you a shout out because I think your creativity is what's pushed me to think this way. And he was like, wait, so you're gonna do the taper? How are you? And it's kind of like waving here.
00:19:08
Speaker
How are you not like lock step or ahead of me on this?
Live Tools Optimization
00:19:11
Speaker
You're going to use an end mill. Yeah. I'm like, I can move an end mill in, it would be, I don't know if it's X or Y, John, sorry, but it would be X or Y plus Z to have the end mill cut at an angle. The part will be static, right? It'll just taper away. You have to work on the diameter of that tool, the finishes, because I care about that for sure.
00:19:32
Speaker
Oh yeah, it'd be great. Yeah. It'd be great. Okay. Yeah, easy. Cakewalk. Okay. Fast too. Yeah. You have a 6K RPM live? Yeah. Okay. What's the diameter of the part? Like one inch or something? Yeah, not even. Or it is one inch.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean that op would take you like four seconds. Maybe I'd like to use a three eighth inch end mill. I don't like using halves if I don't have to, um, no three eights. And then you could use the same end mill to do the six sidedness of it. No, because I'll do well. Okay. No. So that's interesting. I was going to cut the angle with a radial holder. Yeah. The six sidedness has to happen. Why?
00:20:19
Speaker
We're not talking the same thing. If you're making what's essentially a hex on the outside of the part, right? I am. Yeah. That has to happen with an Axial Live tool. Oh my God. Oh my God. You're right. You're rotating the C. Oh my God. While the tool does it. Of course. Oh my God. I was so sad about presenting the tool toward the... No, of course. Just use the face of the tool. Oh my God.
00:20:47
Speaker
Breakthrough. Let's edit that out so it doesn't sound like I'm a complete idiot on the podcast. No, it's perfect. I know. Keep it in. I know. That's beautiful. Right. Of course, John. Holy cow. And that's, I guess, turret rotations are so much faster than mill tool changes, but that's still nice because it's one less
Exploring Machine Capabilities
00:21:05
Speaker
thing. Oh, that's great. Oh, for sure. That is great. So you're milling the hex and the taper face with one tool, one off. That whole thing's going to take you 20 seconds. Yep.
00:21:18
Speaker
and then find the chamfer tool, put nice little chamfers on everything. Oh my God, I love it. And then you're done. Yes, that's great. Okay, this is going to be exciting. Yeah. Oh, so have you- See, laser cool. Have you had, do you find weakness
00:21:40
Speaker
No, whatever. How is milling with your, with your live tooling spindle? Rigid? It's no, it's no mill. It's not. Okay. You know the difference. That's for sure. Okay. Um, the, the most aggressive we use is a three eighths hogging out the pen pocket clip. Okay. Cause we're moving tons of material and you know, it, it, how do you compare it?
00:22:05
Speaker
I don't know. It sounds like a tormach, not like my moori. Just because the moori has like 10 inch spindle bearings, the NAC has like two inch spindle bearings. You're talking about the two inches on the live tool holder.
00:22:22
Speaker
On the life tools, yeah. It's just not that rigid. Okay. That said, you push it. I mean, it's no big deal. Okay. The other thing I learned just FYI is this finishing spindle is able to do positional work. So you could do the same thing where you could machine a hex pattern with a radial tool. So you would clock. This is for the Haas that has the, not the full sub-spend. Exactly.
00:22:51
Speaker
So it's lower horsepower, like five or 10 horsepower or something versus a proper 20 or 30. That to me seems fine. So yeah, so you could go like say C0, C60, C120 to position it, and then you'd bring a tool across it to do work. That's fine. The cork or caveat there is there's no brake. So it's being held at that position with the motor.
00:23:15
Speaker
Okay. Um, there's video on the Haas YouTube showing them machining and some 12L14 that's a decent diameter, maybe two inches, and they're taking a real cut, you know, a couple of foul feet per tooth or something. So it tells me, okay, it's definitely possible. Maybe not ideal. Um, I'm not familiar with what the limitations would be of not having a proper break and just using the motor to hold it. Um, and then you can not do a simultaneous fourth axis work with this up. Cause you've only got your positional.
00:23:42
Speaker
Well, I assume that's just a software thing. I don't know why it would. Yeah. How is that? Right. Look, you have a servo motor that is purposely indexing it to 30.0. Agreed. Don't know. And why can't it just be 31? Maybe there's not a... Well, there has to be an encoder because they are able to clock. They're for sure able to do your part pick. I don't know. Maybe it's just a choice on their part. So either way.
00:24:09
Speaker
I do both. I do spindle clamp.
00:24:15
Speaker
And I don't know what you call it, just motor torque only. Oh, really? It's much faster. Yeah, it's much faster to do motor only because it takes like half a second for it to clamp. You can hear it and then unclamp. So imagine if I'm drilling 12 holes around the outside of a part, you can hear it like index clamp, drill, unclamp, index clamp. Whereas if you're just doing motor, it's like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. It's really fast.
00:24:45
Speaker
If you look at the sub spindle as almost always a light duty finishing off anyway, which is what I do, you don't need a break. Good. That's great to hear. And if you've seen the video where Haas is hogging fairly decently with only the motor torque, you're good to go.
Stable Parting Off Techniques
00:25:04
Speaker
That's my thought. I don't want to be disillusioned about it, but I've always felt like it's exciting to push a machine, to find out what you can do with a machine, not to push it to its limits in the sense of some other folks that like to make videos on the internet and say big words and do stupid things. So let's assume it only indexes in 30 degree increments or something? No, no, it's 0.01 or something.
00:25:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You just can't do simultaneously. Correct. But with y-axis, you are pretty golden there. Oh, no, sure. You can still do bolt hole patterns on the sub. Yeah, I'm not worried. If it's within your y range. Yeah, which is four inches of y travel. Do you know what you have? You can make a four inch part. I think it's four, yeah.
00:25:54
Speaker
Uh, yeah, exactly. Well, if you figure out a way to do polar interpret, not polar interpolation, but you can have, it's a bigger part. You could even use four inches and then you could rotate the part and then do more work. It's a post issue, but, um, cool. Awesome. Awesome. Welcome to the world of hand editing. Never. I already, already lining up the post processor tweaks.
00:26:19
Speaker
I was trying to figure out if we could do the y-axis parting that Sandvik does, and I don't know now that that's going to make sense. It looks super cool, and I remember seeing it on the tour and just thinking, hey, that makes so much sense. I love that kind of disruptive thinking outside the box, but ends up it's a little bit more complicated in that.
00:26:41
Speaker
Most lays and I'm guessing the Haas included don't include default post or machine control support for constant surface speed calculations in the Y axis, meaning it doesn't know how to run CSS and Y. Yeah. I never even occurred to me.
00:26:58
Speaker
which you could hack it together with a post that basically interpolated the CSS manually, just did changes as it moved in or out. This is all Lawrence. He was saying there's a couple other quirky things about it.
00:27:16
Speaker
I got to research it more. Lawrence was saying he doesn't bother with it right now just because it's a timing value, like a production, high volume. That's not necessarily our goal. What I thought it did, which I do like, is better finishes on the parting. But on that washer, for example, if we're going to transfer to the sub,
00:27:36
Speaker
That's less important. But I mean, look, I think anybody who runs a lathe, if you could tell them that you could part parts off with the same as a turn finish on the face, you would be very much interested in that.
Success Stories with ProvenCut
00:27:48
Speaker
Why is the finish better tool? I think it's the stability of the tool. Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah, we looked into the y axis thing, we had our Sandvik guy come in. And we decided against it mostly because I've only got a one inch part. And he's like, anytime savings is negligible because you're
00:28:10
Speaker
you know, most of my parts are like quarter inch. Yeah. Or, you know, three eights or something. So he's like, it doesn't matter. But I don't know if we have enough why. I mean, the the where I do think it shines is the shocking, the demo that they showed, which was on a Mayzac Integrates mill turn where they were partying a thin, a thin eight inch steel disc off of a piece of round bar. And so they've got plenty of travel because it's a
00:28:37
Speaker
You know, it's a multitasking mill turn machine and they took that tool I mean the blade is four and a half inches long and they shove that thing into that part the feed rates on the I was watching the video yesterday the feed rates that they show are 18 thou per rev Right I've never machine anything that yeah, I have by accident
00:29:03
Speaker
So to me, it's 98% about finished quality and 2% about it being faster. But if it's a lot of hassle, I think we'll just stick with a regular part off too. Yeah, that's fine. You'll be fine. Yep. Yeah. And if you're transferring almost everything anyway, then you just hit it with a turning tool on the other side and it's beautiful.
00:29:27
Speaker
Cool. I have one more thing I wanted my notes to share, which I've just absolute high, which is we have received I think about four pieces of unsolicited feedback on ProvenCut, which absolutely completely validate why we're doing it.
00:29:46
Speaker
And like a month ago, I had some feedback that made me think, gosh, did we miss the markers? Is this a narrower audience than I thought?
Drill Bit Troubleshooting
00:29:53
Speaker
And it's an interesting mistake. I was making the mistake of listening to too few people's feedback. And now, so the feedback we've been getting,
00:30:04
Speaker
things like I didn't realize I had a problem with my machine. After seeing the proven cut recipe, not being able to replicate it, it gave me the confidence to dive in. I found the problem with my machine and I fixed it and it's now cutting better. People saying I had no idea I could push my tools that hard. What was the other one? There's another one that was good. And then my favorite by far is this is like getting a high definition TV when you've been reading in Braille your whole life.
00:30:35
Speaker
That is so perfect. Yeah. So that is awesome to me. We've gotten a lot of recipe requests, so that's kind of what's on my plate right now is making sure we are getting to work on that. That's the plan. We started with 300 recipes before we went live that we all sort of did now.
00:30:54
Speaker
We're basically almost solely focused on user input that will blend back to a mix of user input plus our input as we stabilize that. And then eventually it will be, there'll be some more just, we'll hit some critical mass level and then it'll be more exotic stuff, more testing stuff like the one, the stuff I want to do, which is take the same tool, move it between a shrink fit, hydraulic, a milling chuck and ER and start comparing results, building out that data set like that. That'd be awesome.
00:31:25
Speaker
I used Provencut. Serious? Two days ago. Yeah. Tell me about it.
00:31:30
Speaker
So I, what was it? We've got a one eighth inch drill bit in the Maury cutting steel or blade steel, um, drilling like, like three holes, four holes per blade. Uh, we've been doing this forever, but we started having weird problems. Uh, there would be like a bird's nest of blue chips around the tool or just sitting on the table. And we're like, where did that come from? Um,
00:31:57
Speaker
So I was like, let's, let's bust open proven cut and see what sort of, uh, you know, recipe you guys have done. You've got one for four, four DC. Um, you don't mention if it's soft or hard, which would be helpful. Yep. Um, cause it's a blade deal. You'd almost see it just as often soft as you would hard. Um,
Drilling Techniques
00:32:19
Speaker
So yeah, you tested it with a through coolant drill bit and your SFM and your feed for tooth were like way higher than what I'm running. And
00:32:30
Speaker
I was looking at the like, you've got the kind of the preview of the toolpath, or of the of the cut, and then you finally click for like more information, you're like, Oh, there's all that stuff. So that was cool. And the picture of your chips, and I could compare it to the picture of my chips, and I've got like long stringy birds nest of chips, and yours are like, like separated, you know, yours are like little fingernails. Because you have the through coolant, and you're pushing it hard.
00:32:57
Speaker
Whereas mine's like just loading up or, um, not breaking the chip, let's say. So I was looking at the difference and I'm like, I need to recool it. That's, that's amazing. This is on the mill. You said though. Yeah. On the mill. Yeah. Yeah. The Maury. Um, yeah. So it was cool to see, cause I'm running 150 SFM. Uh, I forgot my chip or two is like one or two, maybe. Yeah.
00:33:26
Speaker
And I'm not pecking. I'm just plowing through eighth inch material. It's not very thick. What's the hole diameter? Yeah, so you shouldn't have to peck even without through spindle for sure. You should just go. And I don't. Oh, I thought you said you do peck. Yeah. Oh, okay. You don't peck.
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah, but we've had some weird breakages lately and like I think yesterday Angelo broke like two or three just trying to make it work and we're like this works every day all day. I don't understand what's happening. So we're going through variables like is the pull stud tight and everything and we didn't find anything but it works again. Okay, who makes the drill you're using?
00:34:06
Speaker
Lakeshore. Is carbide? Yep. Is it short? Yeah, it's not the jobber length. I mean, it's not that short. Right. I was just wondering, I don't know if anybody makes like an eighth inch drill that's only three inches long because really you would benefit from that. I would so benefit from that.
00:34:28
Speaker
That would be my only concern with a carbide drill is if it's for some reason, it's not, I'm guessing that you're not spotting it nor should I am spotting it with a equal or greater angle, 140. What's the drill diameter? What's the drill angle? I don't know. That's important. Standard.
00:34:48
Speaker
Well, it could be, carbide drills are different, but that's important. Depending on that angle and what Lake Shore says, you may not need to spot it and it may be better not to spot it.
Practical Use of ProvenCut
00:35:02
Speaker
Really? I just don't want it to walk under any circumstances. 135 degree.
00:35:11
Speaker
I can't think right now. The drill is sharper than your, yeah, so you're using a spot drill that is a flatter, a bigger angle. So that is correct in theory, but I would, if you told me to take a 135 degree drill on a part right now, I would not spot it. Even an eighth inch, they're really small. Yeah, no. We did a, Ed did a video on this and we,
00:35:39
Speaker
We were trying to figure out why is it, well, it has less to do with the angle. It has more to do with the fact that for whatever reason, most twist drills on like the high speed steel variants, but the good twist drills that you buy, it happens to be the case that most 135 degrees are split point. The split point has to do with its stability and not needing a center drill. It's not that they're between the 118 and the 135. So I would look at what the literature on Lakeshore says on that.
00:36:08
Speaker
on what is it? Yeah. Is it a split point drill or do they just split point drill? It's a slip. Don't spot it. Um, I don't know if I have any eighth inch drills, carbide drills. Oh, I probably do on hand, but I'll add that to the list to go play with on proven cut.
00:36:29
Speaker
But yeah, I was going through that process using Provencut for the first time, you know, I signed up last week or whatever, and I was like, perfect, this is exactly the, you know, perfect scenario.
Swiss Lathe Setup and Use
00:36:39
Speaker
And it made me happy to go through it. And then funny enough, I was showing it to Angelo for the first time, and we were like, you know, 20 seconds into a conversation, and then the mill starts making all kinds of noise, because the call it nut was rubbing a clamp on one of the,
00:36:55
Speaker
parts. And, uh, yeah, we were using an old code that we shouldn't have been using from a couple of months ago. I've since changed it, um, on different codes. Anyway, uh, no big deal really. Just a little, little hugging in the middle, but it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Probably like five thou interference or something. Um, I, uh, I'm not going to have the first stone on that one. Yeah.
00:37:24
Speaker
What else has been going on this week? Good solid week. But yeah, production's excellent and steady. Sweet. And been playing with the Swiss a lot lately.
00:37:38
Speaker
I set up, what was it on days of Wednesday, I think on Friday or maybe on Monday, I set up a new part on the Swiss. Didn't take very nice to set up, which was nice. I was able to repurpose a lot of code from, um, a different part and then made some gorgeous, beautiful parts. Um, little 20 thou hex milling, Torx milling with the 60,000 RPM speeder at 18,000 RPM.
00:38:08
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, I made a bunch of those and then I was able to switch over the machine to another part within about half an hour, which is amazing. Super way. If you have, if you have the ability to keep most of your tools, it's really just what the bushing in the, in the program. Yeah. It's like call it and program and a couple of settings. Did you, I may be way behind here. Did you get the, you got the proper slide bushings now?
00:38:36
Speaker
I did. I haven't used it yet. Oh, really? The guide bushes. So you're just having the M code to open the call. The machine pushes the material out a little bit and re-clamps it. So it's a chuck and it's a chuck and lathe.
00:38:52
Speaker
Basically, yeah, yeah, I'm in chucker mode, they call it. The bar feeder always applies air pressure like like piston pressure against the bar. So the bar call it opens the bar bits forward against the part off tool, which is now at zero, and then Z moves back and then clamps again, and then your part is no longer. Will you ever use it as a proper Swiss lathe? Yeah, I really want to. I really want to. I just haven't tried yet.
00:39:21
Speaker
Wait, so do you have, it would be Z, is there any Z movement in your tooling? How do you thread the OD of a round part right now? The spindle is Z and the spindle moves forward and backwards. The whole spindle does, not the part within the spindle. Yeah, exactly.
00:39:44
Speaker
What? You have two different Z-axis. Your whole spindle moves a little bit, and then the part could move an infinite amount within limits of material properties. Am I understanding that correctly? Right now,
00:40:01
Speaker
Right now the main spindle is literally on linear rails and has a movement range of I forget like two inches or something in chucker mode. Wow. So it's the part is clamped and the part and the spindle move together. Again, is that it's trippy to why is that normal for Swiss machines for a chucker mode Swiss machine. But even as guide bushing, it's the same.
00:40:27
Speaker
you have the spindle clamping the material, but then like a couple inches forward, there's the guide bushing that is static. And the material just slips through it. Oh, it's the same Z that's driven driving. Okay, I got it makes a little more sense. Still, that's quite strange to think about that behavior. Yes, we have to watch threading because the part jumps in and out.
00:40:49
Speaker
of the whole, you know? And it's like, where'd it go? There it is. It's like a rabbit running back into it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But yeah, it's really cool to see the tools very static and not move very much at all. Like it's becoming normal for me to look at it, but to think, you know, from your perspective, I'm like, oh yeah, this is really weird. It's funny. Yeah. And it's very busy watching, you know,
00:41:17
Speaker
watching a program run because you've got parts running on the main parts, running on the sub at the same time, everything's moving in different directions and you can only look at one or the other. Right. So when proving out a program, I'm able to separate. I'm like, okay, I only want to run the main spindle right now. The subs just going to chill and do nothing. Got it. Um, so that's super helpful. I do that every day. Um, and it's not possible for the two to hit each other later when they start doing simultaneous work, there's far enough apart.
00:41:48
Speaker
Well, in this scenario, they wouldn't because only the main is active. Right. But if you're proving out the two programs separately, when you later go to run them together simultaneously, they're pretty far apart. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You got home moves everywhere so that they're away from each other where they need to be.
00:42:06
Speaker
I'm just thinking if you, like if you had a twin turret or good God forbid, a three turret lathe, like if you proved out the main turret on the left and then later you did the other turn on the right and they both worked independently. Okay. But then when you run them together, what if, what if the, what if one rotates a boring bar into a position the other one wasn't at when it was independently being proven out?
00:42:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's like you have three different things happening. You have what's going on the main spindle, check. What's going on the sub spindle, check. Now what happens when they're together? And you got to watch it. Like nightmares. Or have, you know, camplete or something like dialed. Right. Which they have for multi-turret layouts. Oh, do they? Okay. That makes sense. Oh, yeah. For like Nakamura, twin, three turret layouts. They're really good about that.
00:42:55
Speaker
That's cool. Gosh, that'd be awesome. I wish they had it. I mean, baby steps. I'm feeling more confident that we will have a good experience with the late. Yep. Yep. I don't doubt it. Yeah.
00:43:12
Speaker
especially being a Haas, so your post should be pretty darn great. Oh, yeah. With regarding transfer and everything like that. Transfer's tricky, but my post doesn't, I guess, does handle transfer now, which is cool. It's definitely infusion. I've never obviously done it myself, but the pick and the decisions to
00:43:36
Speaker
how far to handle it and how hard to clamp and all that. It seems quite cool.
Haas Oktoberfest Event
00:43:40
Speaker
Exactly. Yep. Yeah, you're gonna love it. It's a nice challenge.
00:43:44
Speaker
Speaking of Haas, if anybody listeners in the Midwest area want to meet up, I'm going to go hang out and check out the stuff at their Oktoberfest event on October 9th, so a little bit less than a month. It's a Wednesday. It's a free event. I do think you have to register. This is at the Twinsburg HFO, and much to my excitement, they are going to have a UMC 500, which I have not seen.
00:44:13
Speaker
Honestly, that's the size I probably would have preferred or bought. Ironically, we've made some parts on the 750 that wouldn't have fit on a 500, so maybe I'm wrong, but I've had this thought, would I sell the 750 at some point and pick up the 500, maybe with automation, or is it just an added thing? But regardless, I'm excited to go see the UMC 500, again, October 9th. Prior to that though, anybody who's going to be at emo needs to bring stickers.
00:44:43
Speaker
I want Grimsmo's Aroa not recognizable. Oh, that's maybe a little much, but I want a back quarter panel, not recognizable. Yeah. I'm all for it. Yeah. I don't know if anyone's going to go or do it, but it would be funny and hilarious. Yeah.
Tooling Development Experiences
00:45:03
Speaker
Sweet. What's going on today or this week?
00:45:09
Speaker
Production. Rinse and repeat. Bang out a couple videos today. Awesome. Yeah. Very cool. I am testing. I'm just back. I started this video and then I got distracted. So working up a recipe for one eighth inch end mills in stainless steel.
00:45:28
Speaker
looking at how hard you can push it, chip clearances. Can you do slotting? Can you do deeper axial cuts and still have the tool survive? I've gotten some really good results. We've also broken a few tools, but that's one of the chip break models. We break tools so you don't have to.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Funny eighth inch end mill and eighth inch ball mill are two tools I use a lot and I'm actually getting Zadaro to make me some quarter inch shank. Yes. Taper down to eighth inch ball so that the eighth inch section is as stubby as possible with as much rigidity as possible because we have to stick out the tool a half inch to clear the clamps and stuff.
00:46:13
Speaker
So you'll have a huge benefit from that. Absolutely. That's great. And it's just, it's just fun because they're not that expensive to, you can play with them, but man, they stink to break. Like when you break the tool, so that's what I won't bore you, but like, that's what I, I've got to do improving cutters. I've got to try to figure out why do people need this? There's a whole bunch of different reasons. Is it, is it saving your parts? Is it saving time? Is it programming? You know, with the one click, I don't know if you use that, but one click opens up the,
00:46:40
Speaker
Provencut Recipe and Fusion 360. It's awesome. Even Autodesk was like, how did you do that? So what are the value? This is business 101. Why do customers need or want your product? And how do you both react to what you're hearing, but then also influence or steer them to that? But man, when you break a tool, and it's not only the cost of the tool, but it's the confidence loss, the time loss, re-indicating the tool, damaging your part. Is there residual carbide in it? Yep.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah. I like it's fun. I love it. I remember like knife making Tuesday. Oh one back in 2011. I think I broke an eighth and Jen mill in a blade still and on video and I'm watching it like, Oh man.
00:47:27
Speaker
I don't know if I have another one. Probably like the MHC high speed steel from Enco. Yeah, pretty much. RIP to probably all three of those brands. Held in a drill chuck as well. Did you really? Oh yeah, for everything. Oh my gosh. God bless you. It's amazing. It can hold a whole range of parts.
00:47:51
Speaker
Oh man. But I mean, when you use a Jacobs Chuck with an Enville, you need to make sure you tighten all three of the key positions. That's all. I don't think I ever did. That's funny. All right. Awesome. I'll see you next week, bud. It sounds good. Have a great day. You as well. Bye. Bye.