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Pics, Vids, and life in the new building!

wrustle

Titanium
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Location
Massachusetts
Yup,......plain and simple, "Pics, Vids, and life in the new building!"

Everyday can be an adventure in the shop. Some of these adventures we would like to share with others, while some we would like to simply forget. In either case, I'm usually in the middle of good times and bad and working in an "all family" workplace, I thought this would be good place to discuss with others the daily grind of life in the shop.


Well, as I'm sure a lot of you know......by now.......we have moved into our new location back in November of 2013. Despite our new location only being 2,500 sq. ft, it is still more than double what we once were crammed into.

Below are links (going back to 2008) to the story thus far, and if you are so inclined to go back and get caught up to the present day..........hope you have plenty of spare time to read!



http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/member-shop-photos/how-my-home-shop-all-began-154292/


http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...er-over-15-years-closing-up-shop-here-233071/


http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/ot-new-machine-day-well-two-months-273378/






For those of you whom have followed along (agonizingly, I might add) here's just some.....well......."stuff".......we do at our shop.

I love taking pictures and videos at work, and thought this would be a place to share those experiences with anyone who may find it, interesting, informative, inspiring, or just a better way to spend their free time rather than watching the grass grow. Some pics/vids may even provoke discussion about a certain machine, tool, setup or technique that I may learn from or others who follow along may learn as well. Who knows.

For some of you........I'm sure you'd rather watch that grass, than listen to my never ending drivel..........(but you know you want too!).......cause like me, and almost everyone else in here......we live and breath machining!


Some of the pictures will have a story behind them, and you just know I will go into great detail for days on end about some of them. Others will be just a pic here and there to share, as I am almost always walking around taking them.


Home sweet home.....or as some of you call them,.............The Shop!

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My new Haas VF2-SS. Love this machine. Delivered in December 2013. Best investment I've made so far regarding a machine purchase.
30Hp, 12,000 RPM spindle, 24 tool high speed side mount changer, Wireless Intuitive Probing System, chip auger. Super fast machine, and incredibly easy to setup and run!

Pics below of some of the features.

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55 Gallon coolant tank with filter and triple screen before getting to sump. Love the wash down hose! Makes clean up inside the machine a breeze!

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Electrical panel and layout is so organized labeled and thought out you'd think it was empty when first opening the door.

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Even has idiot lights to tell you if the phasing is correct.

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Inside this panel is where all the air, oil and grease lines, solenoids, and tanks are stored.

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Everything is clearly labeled and pictured.

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The ways are lubed with grease, and the spindle an oil mist. Both should only need filling about once a year.

There's even an automatic water separator built into the incoming air fitting that dumps any water build up every minute or two minutes or longer depending on what you set it to in the control.

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All lines, (air, oil and grease) are color coded and the schematic provided on the inside of the door to ease in identifying and locating them when you see the line anywhere on or in the machine.

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The side windows (key lockable) slide open and lock into place to allow easy access into the machine area.

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A view inside through the open side window.

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An optional chip auger makes cleaning out the chips almost enjoyable!! Will never buy another machine without one!


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I have had this machine now in use now for almost four months now and love, love, love.......the safety GLASS!! Still looks as new today as the day it first came in!

No, scuffs, scratches, or marrs, and cleaning it is a piece of cake!

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Plenty of storage space for tool holders, measuring instruments, a tool holder clamp for setting up tooling and having the lighted shelf is an awesome touch!

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Even storage areas under, and behind the control!

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Inside this cupboard is a list of all the machine "G" and "M" codes. Very handy!

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A USB port makes transferring programs a snap!

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Can't post anymore pics in this post. Hit the limit of 20.




To be continued................




Some things will never change!

Best Regards,
Russ
 
Can you run the machine full production with the end doors open? (Suppose, for example, you needed to machine the middle of a very long object, could you just unlock the doors and run the program, or would you have to disable some kind of interlock?)
 
Can you run the machine full production with the end doors open? (Suppose, for example, you needed to machine the middle of a very long object, could you just unlock the doors and run the program, or would you have to disable some kind of interlock?)


I wasn't sure if that was possible, but sure enough, opened the side window, pressed cycle start, and off to make chips she went!

So.......yes, I guess you could do that. ;)


Best Regards,
Russ
 
I am very jealous of that safety glass! I wonder if HAAS makes a retrofit glass for the older doors? Or maybe I will have to call a glass-guy :scratchchin:
 
Yeah. I replaced the glass in mine when I first got it. After about a month of running steel dry with some HSM programs, it was just as cloudy as the old glass.
 
I am very jealous of that safety glass! I wonder if HAAS makes a retrofit glass for the older doors? Or maybe I will have to call a glass-guy :scratchchin:

I understand completely how you feel Bill! I go through a set of doors on my VF-0 every other year.

They either stress crack from the coolant attacking them, or they get cracked from getting slammed shut sometimes in anger when things don't go right and you just feel like going out into the wilderness and killing anything that crosses your path, then hanging it from a tree branch and beating it some more until you forget what you're angry about........:eek:...........but mostly from the coolant attacking them. :D
 
Making stainless parts in an all aluminum shop.

Being a mostly all aluminum shop, we have been getting into doing more and more stainless as of late.

Can't say I'm overly thrilled to be doing so, but when your largest customer wants you to make these parts for him, you tend to be a little more accommodating.


We've always done a fair amount of stainless in the lathe, but that to "me" is easy. In the VMC however......I am sorely lacking in talent. One thing I would HIGHLY recommend to anyone out there in machine shop owner land.......is...........get yourself a good tooling rep!!

I have one (he's awesome), and he has saved my ass countless times on many different projects!

Anyways......going against all I believe in.....here's the short story!


Made these parts as prototypes, design was approved, production quotes submitted, contract awarded. GREAT!!.....but they're stainless.....shit......I hate stainless......especially in the VMC!

Let's face it friends, when making prototypes, it's a fairly simple process to make one or two of something, right? But when you get an order for 50 or 100 or even more, it's another ball game. A few minutes lost here and there adds up to many hours when dealing with higher qty.'s.


So..........call up my trusty tool reps! Yes, I said reps, as in plural. Gotta have the right people in place to make expert decisions when the expertise is not something you can provide.


So I call my main tooling dude, ask him to stop in, look at these drawings, let me know what he recommends, and I place call to my other main tooling guy and have him recommend some solid carbides for my specific applications and he does, and I buy them.


My tooling guy swings by, takes a look, recommends the proper inserts for the application, I get them in, I program using the info he provided per the spec.'s for the tooling, the parts get made.....they come out great!

Simple as that!


Wait....what? "Simple as that"? Are you joking? You hate stainless. I distinctly remember walking around the shop on many occasions rambling on about how much "I hate fucking stainless"..........but there it is.....I said it,

"Simple as that."


And it's true..........tooling reps are worth their weight in gold! They made these parts we did come out really good, and in a very profitable cycle time. My hats off to them both!


Some 303 stainless parts we made in our VF2-SS.

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These are some other parts we have in process right now in our VF2-SS

Roughing the profile with our 2.00" Walter Face Mill using Walter Stainless Steel specific inserts WSM35 grade.

2 passes at .200 DOC 380 SFM


303 Stainless blank on the left, rough profiled part on the right.


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Next we are finishing profiling and pocketing the inside. Lakeshore Carbide .500" solid carbide variable 5 flute stub end mill.


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To be continued............
 
If you hate stainless Russ, don't get into semiconductor work!
303 might as well be aluminum. And wait till you have to make some "hoops" out of 316 that are 8" dia. only .1875" thick, and have to be flat within .001". It moves around so much when you start removing material. I have had 3 operation parts take 6 or 7 ops.

I also HATE stainless!!! (Esp. When it's thin)
 
Yea,I've done some 316,no picnic. An old timer that I know always said machining 303 is like machining cold rolled! I have to agree. Hate 304 and 316.
 
MAJOR upgrade at the shop!!

Yes friends, the time has come for a MAJOR upgrade at the shop...........



For the last several months we have been struggling with, "small fridge sucks the big one syndrome."


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When we first moved in I thought, ok.....we'll just get one of those little dorm room type fridges and that should be PLENTY big enough for what we need.

WRONG!


After a few months of opening the door and either stuff falls out or the freezer has self defrosted and everything is friggin wet inside, I finally brought over our fridge from back home that we keep in the basement for parties and stuff.

Ok......it's mostly to keep all my beer cold.......you happy now?



Anyways, with the new addition to the "Cafe Crosby" life is good now!!!


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Plenty of room for everything we need, a separate freezer so you can store a weeks worth of lunches should you chose to do so, and let's not forget the fact this bad boy will easily hold a few 12 packs with no problem!!! :D



The only down side.....now I have no fridge at home in the basement. :(


Looks like the missus is getting a new fridge for the upstairs so I can have the one in the kitchen for downstairs! ;)


Best Regards,
Russ
 
did you end up buying an air compressor?


Not yet Wille. Still circling the airport on compressor and the automatic saw.


Spent a hell of a lot more money than I ever thought I would on the move and getting settled in. I had planned on over runs naturally, but the production loss and the transition to the new machine took a lot longer than I planned and it was a little dicey for a while cash flow wise.

Been a long time since I was in that position and trust me......the stress and horror came crashing down really quick as if it was yesterday, therefore I want my little security nest egg back in place and fully funded before making another sizable purchase.


Hopefully...........next month! :)


Later,
Russ
 
Stainless week continues...........

The run of stainless parts continues this week, and into the weekend, thus we have fresh pics from the parts we're running this fine Saturday morning.


These aren't really anything super fussy, mostly +/-.005" with a .001" tolerance on a hole location and a half thou on dia.

We did the prototypes of these a few months ago, and now have a 50pc order we're running.

These go with the other stainless items posted earlier in this thread, which were the same sequence and qty......prototype to production.

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Making these in my Haas VF2-SS and it's making pretty quick work of them. Love that machine!

Later,
Russ
 








 
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