What Kind of Machining Experience Do You Have?

[cncprofessor]

If you've been in the machining field for a year or more, how would you best describe your hands-on experience from the choices given:

[mike yaz]

Originally Posted by cncprofessor If you've been in the machining field for a year or more, how would you best describe your hands-on experience from the choices given:

10years general machining,20 years tool&die making and 2years in cnc.

[ImanCarrot]

10+ CNC- back then we loaded the exec on 1 inch hole punched tape hehe- it was measured in 100's of feet.

and a further 10+ years making lenses by hand

Still learning though!

[cncprofessor]

Yep, remember Tape-Matic w/GE NC tape control gigantic size box, and all of this just for drilling point-to-point bunch of holes (circa 1970)? Well, those were the “fun” days, particularly when we had to splice the broken tapes.....

[Geof]

You guys make me feel really old reminiscing about tape control from the '70s. What about the cam-controlled and plug-controlled Herbert turret lathes? I actually started my business buying these machines for their scrap value, along with manual Herbert turret lathes, and converting them to single-purpose machines. My guys rarely changed setups they just moved from machine to machine for different operations in production work for our own products. I used these old clunkers for several years making the money that eventually started buying CNC's then consigned the clunkers to the scrap yard. Sometimes I feel a bit nostalgic for them.

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Ah yes, Flexowriters to punch out tape, no memory at all, correcting tape programming errors with cellophane tape and a 1-punch block, no such thing as "canned cycles". The good old days. Only thing good about them is they're gone.!!!!! 1963 Cintimatics with drum cams/micro-switches for Z depths.

Other fabulous names like Moog and Bendix.

Dick Z

[ImanCarrot]

lol I have in my hand an "Avery Computer Tape" about 8 inch in diameter and 1 inch thick. The box has a graticule like scale on the back- you're meant to put the tape spool on top of it and are instructed as to the following:

"To estimate feet remaining on roll:

"Center Core on target A (ie put the spool on top of the box)

"Select scale for (type of tape)

"Read approximate feet remaining on roll along proper scale"

Mind you, they used to measure where rivets were going to go on ships by hand widths...

Calibrate that lmao.

[Geof]

Originally Posted by ImanCarrot ....Mind you, they used to measure where rivets were going to go on ships by hand widths... Calibrate that lmao.

Well anyone still using feet and inches still are sort of. Although I think it is finger width (George the Third's or something) and distance from elbow to wrist or a similar measurement.

[ImanCarrot]

The distance from your elbow to your wrist is the same as the length of your foot (serious, try it).

*pictures all the CNC'ers standing on 1 foot* lol

(honest it does work!)

Another useless factoid from me

[cjmerlincnc]

Hi I'd classify myself as a general machinist. I started a business about 12 years ago and needed an auto type lathe to cut parts from bar stock, CNC being well out of the reach of my pocket I happened by chance to visit a machinery auction with a friend. In the auction was a Sabmatic auto lathe made by Smart and Brown, this one has the Queens (UK) silver jubilee plate on it so was made in 1977. I managed to purchase it for the grand sum of £45. It came with a selection of collets and a box of bits and once I got it home and fiddled a bit with it I got it going.

The main problem was programming it; being a plug-board type machine you needed special pins to place in the holes and I didn't have any. A few hours of searching and a phone call to the company who was still in business and the guy on the end of the phone say's "yep we still have a few bit and pieces, you can buy the whole lot for £100"

Well, the box arrived with lots of seals and pnumatic valves, cylinders, all the spares you would want for and... one box of red pins. It just happens that the red pins are used for timing delay only and I needed the Black and Yellow ones.

Bugger. After a lot of head scratching and a few days thinking, a light bulb came on - CNC came to mind, what if I could connect the plug-board inputs and outputs to a computer and...

Lucky for me, in my youth I was well interested in electronics and took it up as a hobby, interest in computers came later and I learned a bit of programming in Visual Basic (I wish I learned C first) so armed with all this talent and this being my first toe-step into CNC I set about getting books for info and making an interface for the lathe plug board.

I started with simple transistors to convert the 24 volts of the plug-board to 5v for the computer and a card with a couple of 8255 chips that fits the PCI bus of an old 386 computer. In the evenings I developed a program in VB which resembled the face of the plug-board so that you could build a part program by clicking check-boxes where the plug holes would have been and then a facility to save the part program, so if you needed to make another part it's a simple matter of a mouse click to setup.

A fortnight went and finally it was all together, feed in the air and switch on, blow me! It works, a bit of fiddling with the timing of things but it works well.

Well, all that seems a long time ago and the machine has made many hundreds, probably thousands of parts and still does to this day. It sits pride of place in my workshop like a huge green behemoth with the bar feed spanning across my welding bench amid all the other CNC machines I have collected over the years right opposite to the mill I am currently converting to CNC using Mach3 and servo's.

I still look at it from time to time and think, wow thats when it all started.

[Geof]

Originally Posted by cjmerlincnc ........I still look at it from time to time and think, wow thats when it all started.

It is neat to be able to do that. I can only look at the places my original machines used to be, and a few photographs.

I guess giving in to nostalgia means I am getting old.

[Mitsui Seiki]

10 years precision grinding the same part for Ford.44000 parts/week.
10 years as a CNC mill programmer/setup/machinist.
Machines: VMC Stama, Matsuuras,Kitamura,HMC Mitsui Seikis,HMC Mori Seikis
Controls: Fanuc 15M,16M,10,11,18i,Seimens,and Yasnac