Attitudes in Machining - Page 2


View Poll Results: Machining Attitudes, whats yours?

Voters
225. You may not vote on this poll
  • Don't care

    1 0.44%
  • Just do enough to get by

    2 0.89%
  • Just take short cuts

    1 0.44%
  • Just get it done and out the door

    12 5.33%
  • Want it done right the first time

    172 76.44%
  • Overly nit-picky

    37 16.44%
Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 21 to 40 of 64

Thread: Attitudes in Machining

  1. #21
    Member handlewanker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    6463
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    TOLERANCES TOLERANCES, does anyone know why there are tolerences on a drawing?
    The reason is because you can't make parts on a repetition basis dead to size EVERY TIME.
    Tool wear, machine wear, and other factors come into play the moment you start to make more than one item.

    I once had a mate who had a set to with a foreman who insisted that the parts be made to top tolerence.
    As well as that he was expected to do the job in the same time.

    It appeared that the mating parts were all oversize, (bore sizes).
    Now I ask you, how can you make a part dead to size, +/- nothing and still do it in the production time of a tolerenced item, which is what he was being told to do by working to the top limit only.

    Only after a bitter argument was the part retolerenced to the new over sized dimension.
    Even the gauges used in production have a tolerence when set to top and bottom limits.

    Incidently, production is carried out by semi skilled tradesmen, and women, hence the need for tolerences.

    A skilled tradesman wouldn't lower himself to rub shoulders with those who are only capable of operating machinery set up by others.

    That is why the pay reflects the effort put into producing the parts.
    There is no such thing as a skilled operator.

    A skilled operator is a costly item, so semi skilled operators are the answer to making the job pay.

    In the old days the semi skilled operators worked the capstans, turrets and mills, whereas today you have the CNC set-up where the operator just loads the parts and initiates the cycle.

    As unpallatable as it may seem there is a definate need for a person who can work all day long just winding handles and pushing buttons, and in the process produce parts that will pass QC in the allotted time.
    Production makes money, jobbing shops rarely do.

    The secret is to deskill the job, so that anyone off the street can produce accurate work with the minimal tuition, and for the least wage.
    By applying a piece work situation the operator will be his/her own task master.

    The scrap rate is the price to pay, but with the scrap rate built into the price of the job, it's money in the bank.
    A scrap rate of 10% is not a too unrealistic quantity to bear.

    How many times have I seen a foreman working after hours trying to reclaim scrap parts, when they should be written off as par for the course.
    It cost more to rework a part than make it from raw material.
    Ian.



  2. #22
    Member handlewanker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    6463
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    BTW hoo flung, if you're fussing with a critical dimension you're wasting time.

    Critical dimensions are designed to be produced by the quickest means possible, and this means either centreless grinding etc for outside diameters, or reaming and honing for bores.
    Unless of course you are only making one part at a time, then you won't be making any money anyway.

    Some people I knew had the reputation of making jobs that were gold plated.
    Ian.



  3. #23
    Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    149
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Thumbs down Attitudes

    I used to be a gun, 3d cad, cam, tool and die, production. 0.01mm+/-
    Now its all a memory, probably just run a centre lathe now.
    Why? Ageism, poor pay, politics. The toughest part is coping with politics.
    Everyone wants the top job, get out of their way.



  4. #24
    Member handlewanker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    6463
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    What's up doc? (elmerfud), I know the feeling, but at least you got out of it alive to look back and reminisce with us.

    BTW, you must be at least 32? LOL.

    What's a top job anyway, and how would you qualify for it?

    I never worked for anyone for poor pay, if they wouldn't pay the rate it was next door where they give green shield stamps as well.

    That went for my father too.
    One bit of advice he gave me, "If they're paying five bob more down the street, guess where I'm going?"

    I am a skilled apprentice served fitter and turner, and my father was a toolmaker, since the age of 14.

    At no time would I dream of working for someone who just wanted a cheap file mechanic.
    That doesn't mean that jobs were so easy to come by that you had to fight them off.

    The shortest time I spent in a job was two weeks, the longest was 17 years.

    When you sell your labour it's to the highest bidder, and there's no sentiment in business.
    Loyalty is weighed up in the thickness of your pay packet, and I don't mean by working all the overtime or shift work you can stand.

    I was the only wage earner in my family, and if you think I was born lucky, that was by working around the world in three different countries.

    A lot of people are just too scared to look over the edge of the pail and seek pastures new when the need arises.

    I never sought seniority positions, that's for the big heads that like to throw their weight about.
    Once you're up the ladder a rung or two they've got you by the short and curlies, and then it's anxiety time waiting for the Xmas bonus.
    Ian.



  5. #25
    Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    149
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Thumbs up Hi Handlew**ker!

    Yes Ian, you are 100% correct.
    Sounds like you got some years of experience.
    I'll shake the monkey of the back and soldier on.



  6. #26
    Registered
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    10
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    Do it right the first time... But Always keep a welder close by



  7. #27
    Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    149
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by 6thAxis View Post
    Do it right the first time... But Always keep a welder close by
    That shameful foot shuffle to the bosses office after a loud BANG! CRUNCH!



  8. #28
    Registered
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    10
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by elmerfud View Post
    That shameful foot shuffle to the bosses office after a loud BANG! CRUNCH!

    Been there, done that. Luckily the office hallway is about 10 ft. long. Makes for a short walk of shame



  9. #29
    Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    149
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    all we need are some wrong answer sound effects from a tv game show, funny



  10. #30
    Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    629
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    The aim is to do it right the first time. If you don't have a goal, you are noever going to reach it. I wonder how many guys here who've commented run their own business?

    "It's only funny until some one get's hurt, and then it's just hilarious!!" Mike Patton - Faith No More Ricochet


  11. #31
    Registered DR-Motion's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Ontario,Canada
    Posts
    120
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    Remember: if you haven't time to do it right then you have to find time to do it over

    embrace enthusiasm to accomplish the task
    Gary Davies... www.durhamrobotics.com


  12. #32
    Member dertsap's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    canada
    Posts
    4230
    Downloads
    1
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    if it's been done right the first time ,then the part should go out in a timely manner , the overly nit picky stuff would be dealt with

    if it's not done right the first time and it's a 1 off ,it would make for a 100% scrap ratio , not exactly something thats going to make anyone money

    give the customer what he has paid for and he will be happy , overly nit picky can be a profit killer ,eg the first company i worked for ran heavy production , we ran many of the same jobs , we had a guy come in and wanted to impress the boss so he went above simply deburring the parts to polishing them (he had time on his hands) ,the customer liked the parts and demanded that all parts in the future looked like that at our expense !
    needless to say we didn t make much money from those parts to begin with and we dropped any further contracts with them

    A poet knows no boundary yet he is bound to the boundaries of ones own mind !! ........


  13. #33
    Member handlewanker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    6463
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    Hi all, "bang, crunch"? foot shufle to the boss's office, boy but we've put our faith in mindless robotic machines big time.

    This never happened in my day when conventional machining was the order of the day, or perhaps it did when you get some dick head not watching the saddle getting close to the chuck.

    This has nothing to do with "attitude to machining", I think what the thread is about is integrity in work practice and workmanship, producing parts to drawing, hiding up mistakes, dodging up tolerances or to put it bluntly, getting away with murder etc.

    I'll cite a typical dodge that was tried on for a while by one of the radial drillers on nights in the UK when I worked there last.

    Partly because we had trouble getting adjustable reamers to cut ot size and also because it became hit and miss to get the size using blunt reamers on alluminium bronze castings, one of the drillers having reamed a number of holes oversize before checking the progress, resorted to using the ball end of a ball pein hammer to slightly burr the top of a hole in a piece reamed oversize.

    He would hold the ball end on the hole and rotate it with downwrd pressure until a small bur had been raise on the bore edge, and the plug gauge tested OK.

    It only took a second to achieve the "fit", and no one was the wiser until a number of parts came back a few weeks later with the bores obviously oversize.

    What fooled the parts inspector was the fact that the "no go" gauge wouldn't enter, so the work got passed.

    It took a lot of in house detective work to pin point the culprit, and one of the reasons why we all marked our work with secret marks that only we knew where they were.

    There will always be an element of dodgers and slap dash types that seek to get away with it while avoiding blame where possible.

    I'd love to see the workshop where all the holy Joes produced perfect work ahead of time and with a polish that even St Peter would have been proud of.
    It doesn't happen.

    Usually the pressure of making the parts without having a bungle on the way makes people take short cuts, and so the inevitable dodge is applied when a part goes skew wiff, to get the job out of the door and avoid the foreman's wrath if he found out.

    To be found out is more devastating than stooping to a cunning trick to hide up the dodgy part.

    Even with the best will in the world, when a job goes pear shaped, the first thought is 'How can I get away with it?' 'will the boss/foreman find out?' 'can I just lose it under the bench?
    '
    I'm being dead honest here, I have never stooped to any of the above mentioned tricks to get away with it, and if you believe that you're as stupid as the guy who boasts to himself that in 50 years of machining he's never had a bad one found out.

    I'll say this, when the job's important and you make a mistake, it's only your integrity that reports it to the foreman, so that it can be decided if it's a scrapper or can be reworked.
    This was taught to me while serving my apprenticeship.

    A guy who constantly stuffs things up is the type who would look for a quick way out to get away with it at all costs, and to hell with the job.
    He's usually one step away from the door anyway.
    Last one in, first one out, has more "sickies" than is credible, can't wait for Friday avo etc.

    Then, when the boss employs the cheapest semi skilled labour in preference to more experienced but higher paid workers, can you expect to have a workforce that would not dream of dodging up bad work?

    In the 1800's the disaster when the Tay bridge, in Scotland collapsed with a train on it, losing many lives, is a typical example of the lengths that some would go to hide up shoddy work.

    As far as I can remember it was reported after the accident that the girders holding up the bridge were cast in a foundry that was not renowned for high class work.

    To get the quota of bridge support girders delivered, the foundry men resorted to filling in the bad ones that had casting faults from deep cracks, and should have been scrapped, with a mixture of cast iron dust and glue.
    The rest is history.

    When the devil drives and needs must be, then the standards are lowered and everyone crosses their fingers.
    Ian.



  14. #34
    Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    149
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Exclamation

    Well said mate, in China nobody gets sacked and all the crap parts get sold to us anyway. What can we do, play fair and they couldnt give a toss.
    They pinch all our work and sooner or later we will be forced to work like them.
    How many toolrooms have gone under in australia in the past 5 years? a lot i can assure you courtesy of free trade and communist china.
    Accurate machining could be a thing of the past if things get tougher.



  15. #35
    Registered ImanCarrot's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1468
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    If you buy a car and it's got nit- picky faults you will tell around 10 of your friends. If it's ok, you'll tell 3 (not sure of exact figures, but that was from a CQI survey).

    I love deadlines- I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.


  16. #36
    Registered Shotout's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    440
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by handlewanker View Post
    A lot of people are just too scared to look over the edge of the pail and seek pastures new when the need arises.
    Ian.
    That's a good point. I was guilty of it myself until recently. That is why I tendered my notice earlier this week and now am waiting to get a start on a new, better job. I was scared to get out of my comfort zone until it was forced upon me financially.

    As to attitudes. This is my first machine shop job, which I started about 19 months ago, I was kind of thrown to the sharks and over my head, hence my finding this site. I had a run of parts shortly after I started, 30 in all that taught me a valuable lesson. The bores on this part had a tolerance of +0.000 -.0005. We had just enough stock on hand to make the order and not a lot of time to get it out considering the other jobs I had running at the time. The first part over cut by .0002 and I adjusted the tool offset. The op on the other side produced a to size bore. I kept a careful watch on my wear and keep running the job. I produced 30 parts, 29 of them correct. I didn't have time to get more material and meet the ship date and the owner said ship the order. My mistake was telling a welder that a part was .0002 over tolerance rather than just saying I need to remake it and dealing with the consequences. He was after all counting on me to have the judgment and understanding to handle that aspect of this job. The company that received the parts returned the whole batch of parts since one of the few they spot checked was wrong. All of them where considered wrong as a result and marked with a heavily scribed X. I don't know the dollar amount it cost the company but was told we did manage to almost break even on the job and not let it happen again. Send it out right the first time.

    Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
    Mark Twain


  17. #37
    Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    12177
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Shotout View Post
    ... The company that received the parts returned the whole batch of parts since one of the few they spot checked was wrong. All of them where considered wrong as a result and marked with a heavily scribed X. I don't know the dollar amount it cost the company but was told we did manage to almost break even on the job and not let it happen again. Send it out right the first time.
    You have learnt the lesson to keep your lip buttoned, which we all learn one time or another; I think I re-learn it on a regular basis. But I think someone was guilty of a much bigger error than that: Either the criteria for rejection was not adequately specified, which allowed the customer to reject everything in bulk, or the customer was not held to the specification. In addition, I think the customer should not have the option of defacing the product, after all if they refuse to accept and pay for it, then it is not their property to deface. I also think the owner made a mistake saying ship the order; much better to be up front with a reason for delays or short shipment that just coast over it and hope.

    An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.


  18. #38
    Registered
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Scotland
    Posts
    41
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by handlewanker View Post
    I'll cite a typical dodge that was tried on for a while by one of the radial drillers on nights in the UK when I worked there last.

    Partly because we had trouble getting adjustable reamers to cut ot size and also because it became hit and miss to get the size using blunt reamers on alluminium bronze castings, one of the drillers having reamed a number of holes oversize before checking the progress, resorted to using the ball end of a ball pein hammer to slightly burr the top of a hole in a piece reamed oversize.
    I have come across a slightly different version of that bodge involving a thread that accepts the no go gauge and the application of a mallet and a ball bearing. Let's just say that it doesn't accept the no go for long!



  19. #39
    Member dertsap's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    canada
    Posts
    4230
    Downloads
    1
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    i had a guy last nite who was working on a fixture , i told him specifically that the two 3/8 pin holes were to be bored for a press fit and that he was to leave it a few tenth under . he later called me over and says "see its a perfect size " ,i in turn said what are you talking about its a slide fit , he says back to me "when you told me press fit i thought you wanted to be able to press it in with your thumb

    i suppose maybe he would have understood "big hammer fit "

    A poet knows no boundary yet he is bound to the boundaries of ones own mind !! ........


  20. #40
    Member HuFlungDung's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    4826
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Default

    While denting the top of a hole to make a gauge feel snug sounds like an ineffective fix, I have....ahem....'restored' press fits caused by an oversized reamed hole by running a blunted tap down the hole. A cold forming tap would also do the same thing. Since a tap is a few thousandths over the nominal diameter, it will 'knurl' the hole. Pressing a hardened dowel of the proper size into the hole burnishes a tight fit.

    First you get good, then you get fast. Then grouchiness sets in.

    (Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)


Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  


About CNCzone.com

    We are the largest and most active discussion forum for manufacturing industry. The site is 100% free to join and use, so join today!

Follow us on


Our Brands

Attitudes in Machining

Attitudes in Machining