What's new
What's new

Stupid Things I Do

G00 Proto

Hot Rolled
Joined
Feb 18, 2013
Location
Dirkdirkistan, ID
There is no greater feeling than getting some brand new super fast endmills. Of course you want to push them just a bit... so I write a tricky little program on a tough part that really peels the chips out. Nothing but joy. Of course I'm feeling so brilliant I don't bother to run verify... what could go wrong. Of course I was so enamored with the fancy toolpath and shiny new endmill that I didn't bother looking at my rapid planes :) Endmills break pretty good a 2400 inches per minute.

No big deal, everyone makes mistakes... it rolls off me like water off a ducks back.

So I waddle my stupid ass over to the computer and fix my rapid planes and run verify. Load up another shiny new endmill, and set my length offset and let her rip.

Of course the same dumbass forgot to replace the old program with the new program. I literally broke the second cutter in exactly the same divot as I had just made 3 minutes before, using exactly the same program. This time my serenity failed me... turns out earmuffs don't bounce and potty language can be heard out all the way outside of the shop :)
 
We have discovered a condition we call, "the stupid hour" which typically happens when you work late and get tired. An example is when you're water jetting prototype sheet metal parts and then bend one of them into shape in a way that is perfectly mirror reversed from what it's supposed to be. It's amazing how many mistakes happen when people are under stress or situations exist in the shop which prevent concentration. Don't ask me what recently happened on the VM-3 when someone we might call "small, angry Phil" came to visit.
 
Of course the same dumbass forgot to replace the old program with the new program....


Dude, I've gotten just past the first paragraph of your post and pretty much knew EXACTLY what you were going to say!!!

I truly wish that there was a Go-Pro camera attached to my head permanently!
While I may not do stupid things every day, there should be a video record of the:

No Fucking Way That Just Happened
or
No Fucking Way Did I Just Do That
or
No Fucking Way Did I Just Do That Again
or
No Fucking Way Can I Be That Stupid And Do It Again!!!

moments.
 
Stupid things we do in the shop should be a sticky thread!!

Back around the turn of the century I was still in my arrogant infancy of CNC machining. I was used to brute force manual beast to make life easy so I was always trying to get creative, Ya know the old adage "give a lazy man a hard job and he'll show ya the easiest way to do it"? Well, That was my mentality in my early 30's.

I had started out on Sony and Acramatic controls so Fanuc was a whole new world for me, A bit intimidating and clumsy but I can handle anything! Welp, We get this big ass You-Ji VTL 100 horse main with 50 horse live spindle two speed gearbox,,,,,Oh yeah!!!! Pffft,,, Nope, POS couldn't pull a greasy string out of a cats Ass.

I've got this repeat job that's a plate of ductile iron 2" thick and about 8' in diameter that gets the usual turn, face, bore, and a bolt hole pattern with a few 4" pipe threads on the outer edge. This new Machines supposed to do all this in 2 ops by thread milling the outer pipe holes. I guess someone forgot to tell the dealer a 10,000+ pound chuck don't interpolate very well.

So now I'm looking up at this 20 foot tall beast of a machine and wondering how I can be more impressed with a powermatic drill press. All of a sudden this awesome, great, Beautiful idea pops in my head, So awesome I had to wonder why someone else hadn't thought about it. Let's get a 4:1 torque multiplier out and rigid tap that MF! I run over to the warehouse and grab the multiplier and 4" pipe tap, Then proceed to make an adapter from the 1-1/2 female side of the torque multiplier to BT-50. Even got all fancy with it, Ball detent so the multiplier wouldn't fall off the drive, You know, Safety first! Even made a socket to fit the tap with set screws to keep the tap in.

So now I've got this contraption in the spindle, recalculated the feed for 4:1 in my G84 line a 12' piece of 1-1/2 aluminium tubing to hold the torque side of the multiplier along with a very green operator to hit feed hold and feed override incase my invention got out of control. Here's the exact point my limited knowledge of Fanuc shined. I'm on the end of this cheater pipe and tell the kid "Hit it". I'm watching as the tap starts slowly into the hole and ever so slightly begins to cut as I start feeling the cheater begin to put pressure on my chest as I try and push back. It wasn't long before I realized that programming the spindle speed to the manufacturer's peak torque curve may have been one of my many bad decisions in this adventure.

Before maybe the second thread made its way around the bar began pushing me back while slipping on the unswept chips covering the floor. I turned my head to see just how far away from being pinned between the bar and the Haas Vf-5 when I realized I was already there. I began yelling "Feed Hold" at the operator as I'm starting to feel the true power of that spindle I had been laughing at earlier. I see the guy poking vigorously at the feed hold button and I'm thinking to myself "What the hell is wrong with this POS Now, why didn't it stop?" I don't think before this I had ever used E-stop since Acramatic controls you could just turn the Pot down to 0 and everything stopped, Even in a tap cycle. E-stop for some reason didn't even register to me while in the midst of being crushed. What did register was the feed rate knob, I grunt out with all but my last breath "turn the feed down"! As I here the clicking of the knob I'm thinking "Ok, Thats got it". Nope,,,That machines still getting even with me for making fun of it.

As I realise im not going anywhere and am at a point I can only hope for the best I notice the distance to go getting closer and closer to 0. Then I remembered "This Fkr has to go the other way now". I struggle to get out the words "Move!!!!! " Only to see the kid jump behind the hanging pendant controller. I reached around to try and get a grip on the bar so when it began pulling to reverse the tap I may be able to give it a quick yank to snap the tap loose from the threads. Nope, This rides not over yet! Since this thing was geared down 4 times it took about 8-10 seconds for the bar to drag me around a 12' radius all while kicking and fighting to snap the tap loose only to see this kids eyes looking like mister Magoo as the bar goes under the control. Now here he his pinned up against a Blanchard grinder that has no intention of moving, waiting for the resistance to let off the tap. Luckily it was taper pipe so it released much quicker than it engaged.

Soon after that the safety officer at Continental wrote us up for removing machine guarding and overriding the safety interlocks. I never saw the kid again, I guess he decided working around me wasn't a good life choice.

Ever since then I have always wondered why Fanuc doesn't have feed hold and feed override on G84?!?
 
Great stuff g-coder! Funny we’re alive somtimes. Not that a guy is careless just too smart lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
How about brainfarting which way to jog Z when setting a tool height?

Of all the (relatively) complex shit I do, that's the one where I chip tools. WTF?
 
How about brainfarting which way to jog Z when setting a tool height?

Of all the (relatively) complex shit I do, that's the one where I chip tools. WTF?

Thats an easy fix...Red magic marker the offending button and label it CRASH... and always mentally refer to it as the crash button:D
 
Ok- here is mine for the day- write mill program-butt simple profile. Go to run part, and ???? path looks goofy. Recheck program, check part zero 2-3 times. Same problem. Rinse and repeat a few times. Feeling really stupid now. Guess what? Vise was not tightly bolted down- darn thing as scooting along on the table.
That was good for about an hour of wasted effort chasing it. Next.
 
...I truly wish that there was a Go-Pro camera attached to my head permanently!
While I may not do stupid things every day, there should be a video record of the:

No Fucking Way That Just Happened
or
No Fucking Way Did I Just Do That
or
No Fucking Way Did I Just Do That Again
or
No Fucking Way Can I Be That Stupid And Do It Again!!!

moments.

Just a friendly note for the youngsters on here. I've been doing this (welding, fabricating and machining)
for a little over 50 years and the "stupid hour" still follows me around. Something for you all to look
forward to...:eek:
 
I'm older than most here, so I'm going to use "longer history" as an excuse for having made more mistakes. My old boss (Bill Brenizer) was a hard headed Pennsylvania Dutchman, and as hard headed as could be. He said "the only guy that never made a mistake, never made anything" That guy was tough, mentally and physically, and the hardest working guy I ever met.

I've loaded a tool into the machine, got distracted, and then run it without setting the offset. At least 50-50, right? Well, if it's the wrong side of 50-50, and someone comes up trying to get my attention while I'm trying to proof - BANG! My first machine was a cnc knee mill, and one had to load the tool manually (one place for a mistake), then manually turn on the spindle (ooops, forgot to do that), and then push the green button. Ha!

I have a trophy that I win at times. I named it "Mike, you're a dummy" with variations on dummy, depending on the mistake.

I've learned that going slower in the beginning often nets more net speed. Prolly have a tome if I kept track of all the mistakes I've made.
 
I've learned that going slower in the beginning often nets more net speed. Prolly have a tome if I kept track of all the mistakes I've made.

As I was learning machining, I kept repeating what I was taught when learning to ride a motorcycle quickly through the twisties....

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

I may not have all my tools in and set as quick as some other guys. But when they're in and set, they're set right, and the part is on size, the first time, and I don't have any surprises when I run the first piece, so I'm still faster at a setup than most.
 
Just did this yesterday, super tired. weld and forgot to turn the gas bottle back on........ was wondering why the hell the weld was popping, was just assuming it was really rusty steel on this trailer.
 
When you meant to zero return that new endmill or probe tip and you press the expensive button instead..].the resulting impact scraps a almost complete part..

Exp button.jpg

probe.jpg
 
A couple nights ago I was using a Hardinge HV4 5C indexer to index some wrench flats on opposite sides of a part. WTH. The wrench flats are supposed to be parallel! I forget to make sure the detent locked into place during indexing, mostly because I took a shortcut and set the indexer to the left of the vise on the CNC table, which puts the indexer levers and dial facing away from me, the operator, so I can't see them. I did not feel like redoing my code to have the indexer on the right. Laziness bites.

My CNC is an old Deckel, and tool offsets have to be entered manually. I can't tell you how many times I've had close call and the occasional oops by spending a bunch of time measuring tool length offsets and then forgetting to enter them into the tool table. I get tired and into a hurry to run the part.

Another oops is to forget to enter the part Z offset, which also has to be done manually on the Deckel and the Haas TM-1 that I run on occasion.
 
I keep this one on the window sill next to my desk to remind me.

The boring bar goes after the drill...

chip.jpg
 
The first Swiss program I ever finger cam'd by myself, shortly after finishing my apprenticeship.... I had everything right, and it was almost time to cut off the part.

Main spindle pushes part 4" out of the guide bushing. Sub spindle goes 2" over the part. Sub spindle clamps.


Oops... probably should have either synced the spindle rotation, or stopped the main from spinning at 9K RPM.

Thankfully, the part was only .129" diameter, so it was only a small noise.

I still have the collet on my desk, as a reminder to not be stupid.
 








 
Back
Top