Better way to manufacture these parts?

twin staged · Jan 22, 2018

I’m making these parts for a customer all manually. I’m going to have to triple my price after figuring cycle times better and even at triple I can shoot myself pretty fast when something goes bad. Material is garbage low carbon threaded rod.. not my choice.

Parts are 3/4-10 threaded rod 7inches long +\- .050” Each end get a tap size hole 2” inches in depth. That’s the pain in the ass. Tap sizes are 14x1, 14x1.25, 12x1, 12x1.25, 10x1.5, 10x1. These are all left hand.

Center of the rod gets a cross hole 3/8-16 tapped

Drilling in my lathe, cross hole/tap 3 spindles in a jig (drill, chamfer, tapping head), end holes get tapped vertically with the tapping head.

First thought would be a 2 spindle Swiss with live tooling and it spits out a complete part in half my cycle time, but I’m really not knowledgeable on that end of the spectrum...

These are also fairly low quantity orders 20 per size so far anyway.

litlerob1 · Jan 22, 2018

I'm not even going to read it without pictures.

DDoug · Jan 22, 2018

The problem is the low qty's.

If you figure a way to increase production (and lower cost's),
you need to amortize it.

Have a good talk with the purchasing agent, explaining how
ordering larger qty's will come with lower prices.

newtonsapple · Jan 22, 2018

Check with these guys: Home Page

I have no connection with them other than they just bought some inspection tools from me through eBay. I never knew this was a specialty, but they appear to focus of just this type of part.

It could be run on Swiss, but I don't think Swiss is required, just a regular live tooled lathe with a sub spindle. 20 piece orders means a lot of the cost will be setup. If multiple sizes are ordered at the same time and can be run out of the same setup, might not be too bad.

DDoug · Jan 22, 2018

Hold on here...I just re-read your operations.

When you have it in the lathe, why not drill and then tap the ends ?

Sounds like too much part handling.

I have 2 small hand turret lathes, both run 5-c collets, and I picked
them up cheap. These would work well for this part.

MrWhoopee · Jan 22, 2018

digger doug said:
The problem is the low qty's.

If you figure a way to increase production (and lower cost's),
you need to amortize it.

Have a good talk with the purchasing agent, explaining how
ordering larger qty's will come with lower prices.

Get a quote from a CNC or screw-machine shop for 50, 100 and 250.
Put in your markup and show the purchasing agent how much cheaper it could be.

"When in doubt, farm it out."

twin staged · Jan 22, 2018

digger doug said:
Hold on here...I just re-read your operations.

When you have it in the lathe, why not drill and then tap the ends ?

Sounds like too much part handling.

I have 2 small hand turret lathes, both run 5-c collets, and I picked
them up cheap. These would work well for this part.

My lathe doesn’t do well with rapid fwd and rev spindle. I’m setup for more job Shop style work. Repairs, one offs, production welding fixtures. So there’s one of the issues. Even with the extra step the tapping head is very fast.

One issue with a 5c head is how inconsistent the OD of this rod is. I’m using a Jacobs rubber flex in the lathe for that reason and threaded soft jaws in a quick vise on the tapping head.

Thanks guys I’ll look into some of this stuff. Have thought about farming it out that’s why I’m here.

twin staged · Jan 22, 2018

I’m at a 13 minute cycle rate processing from 6 foot bars. Just me.

newtonsapple · Jan 22, 2018

Yeah, if you are running 13 min per piece, this is definitely a good candidate to sub out.

Even at 20 piece lots you should be able cover setup and still come out ahead.

DDoug · Jan 22, 2018

twin staged said:
My lathe doesn’t do well with rapid fwd and rev spindle. I’m setup for more job Shop style work. Repairs, one offs, production welding fixtures. So there’s one of the issues. Even with the extra step the tapping head is very fast.

One issue with a 5c head is how inconsistent the OD of this rod is. I’m using a Jacobs rubber flex in the lathe for that reason.

I don't understand how a Jacobs rubberflex can be closer accuracy than a 5-c collet. Also, crap material provided, why should you micromanage
the crap material ?

Plus every time I have used a rubber flex, I wear my hands turning that
handwheel, and it takes too much time to wind it open/close.

My collet closer is lever operated, I have swapped out parts with the
spindle turning.

Not every job is optimum for the lathe you presently have.

twin staged · Jan 22, 2018

digger doug said:
I don't understand how a Jacobs rubberflex can be closer accuracy than a 5-c collet. Also, crap material provided, why should you micromanage
the crap material ?

Plus every time I have used a rubber flex, I wear my hands turning that
handwheel, and it takes too much time to wind it open/close.

My collet closer is lever operated, I have swapped out parts with the
spindle turning.

Not every job is optimum for the lathe you presently have.

The rod has varied +\- .005 and was giving me shit in my 5c. This is more the case of the customer not understanding the difference in materials. Deffinately on the same page about equipment. I’m not setup for production, but I gave it a whirl... I’ll either tool up small and cheap or sub out. As far as this job goes I think it will die from cost unless the parts can be at or under $10 each after chatting with the customer a little.

Dan from Oakland · Jan 22, 2018

The 2" deep M14 threads must be a joy to produce.

twin staged · Jan 22, 2018

Dan from Oakland said:
The 2" deep M14 threads must be a joy to produce.

Thankfully the thread depth is about 1 inch forgot to add that. But yes still a pain lol. I suffered through and delivered about 50 of each. There’s also a 5/8 rod too and a sleeve for these, but the sleeve was cake. My dad always said if you were too stupid to know when to quit eventually it’ll get done....
Live and learn

DDoug · Jan 22, 2018

I would let this part go, and see if they can get them for under $10 each.

However, they may decide to up the qty's to get the better pricing,
but after they left you (and not coming back)

twin staged · Jan 22, 2018

digger doug said:
I would let this part go, and see if they can get them for under $10 each.

However, they may decide to up the qty's to get the better pricing,
but after they left you (and not coming back)

Looking that way. I’ll send out for a couple quotes, but I deff won’t be hurting losing it.

Finegrain · Jan 22, 2018

Yikes, 13 minutes :eek:

Not that this is the optimum setup, but I could do at least 5 of them in 13 minutes in my VMC.

Regards.

Mike

brian.pallas · Jan 22, 2018

With your title and post I'm not sure if you are asking about a better way for you to do it, or just opinions on the best way overall?

Optimally, a horizontal machine would eat those up. Even with those lot sizes.

boslab · Jan 23, 2018

Unfortunately when your small you don't get the bread and butter jobs, just the bread wrapper from my experience, while you suffer remember there's some asshole out there facing off 2" bar for $10 a cut (I used to pray they would give him plutonium by mistake)
I did learn that stomaching some jobs sometimes leads to a good one now and again (perhaps the voodoo doll worked on the preferred supplier, I was sticking 6" taper pins in it)
The sub it if it sucks philosophy may be right
Mark

TedinNorfolk · Jan 24, 2018

Trouble is,Mark,the OP may be the one it has already been subbed out to!

Red James · Jan 24, 2018

At 20 per size, 6 sizes, that's 120 pcs per order, which makes this a light production job. People with only manual equipment should quickly sub such jobs out to cnc shops and make decent money on the mark-up. Cnc's are 5 to 20 times as fast as manual equip and only charge 2 times the hourly rate, so are much less expensive for quantities like this,

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