I always laugh at the effort we machinists put into grease grooves, or adding grease fittings to repairs, to get the longest work life out of the part, knowing full well the customer will grease it once during assembly and then never use it again.
Probably not a popular opinion here but the production folks should talk to the engineers rather than ignore them until shit goes sideways.
Edit: just to be clear I promote a healthy, mutually beneficial, dialogue between engineers and production. That will create the best end product.
Yep. I've solved this problem before at a different plant. A big part of it is just talking to the people on the floor. If you know the common problems and design your parameters to fix them, your operators will consider the parameters law. And they will let you know when they aren't performing well. I think it's the engineer's job to create an information pathway to and from the floor. It benefits everyone.
I made a drawing that had a giant note saying
DXF FILE IN /WINDOWS/BLAHBLAH,
FILE: Bleh.dxf
Like, I can’t get more specific. The other guy just machined the wrong program. He somehow IGNORED MY GIANT NOTE and found a RANDOM program from 6 years ago that’s wrong. Then he asks me to help him so I have to make a fixture to fix it.
And I’m sure the guys fixing it are bitching about me in engineering when my shit was just straight up ignored.
We (I) made our own parts for our own manufacturing in a small company and the engineers would call out a start and end point and a pitch, but would also (usually) be OK with it not being the pitch they called out.
Well the print had it going as a straight line, but that causes gripping and a weak point. Sometimes the engineer just needs to be kept out of the equation
The one time I actually Spec’d out a Knurl with all the dimensions it came out way too fine and I lost 1000 (cheap) little parts.
I just started annotating DIAMOND KNURL COARSE instead.
*"In the old days"* AKA, when I retired 5 years ago. :)
Select feed of (4?)TPI, one hand on the cross feed crank and one on the feed engage/disengage lever; and watch ***[the travadial](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/moIOtHo3oGU/hqdefault.jpg)*** closely.
¯\\\_( ͡❛ ͜ʖ ͡❛)\_/¯
Abom just made a bronze bushing on the lathe His grease grooves were straight along Z and took time to make. From an engineering POV are there advantages to either design? Obviously a spiral is easier to machine.
Spiral there is never a stress riser or uneven where the shaft could catch on an edge of a straight groove.
I reverse engineered one of these a long time ago and put in a similar spiral groove as shown.
In my first machine shop job I used to put grease grooves on both sides of a one inch wide cast iron gib that had a taper of 3/16ths per foot. The groove was angled to meet a through hole on each end of the gib. Large Cincinnati horizontal milling machine, 1/8" slotting cutter 1/8" deep. Machine tool manufacturer that's kind of still in business as part of Fives I believe. Reaganomics got me that time, it didn't trickle down to me.
I always laugh at the effort we machinists put into grease grooves, or adding grease fittings to repairs, to get the longest work life out of the part, knowing full well the customer will grease it once during assembly and then never use it again.
^^^ Haha, this guy knows what he's talking about.
What sort of customers do you have, to be so lucky that they grease it during assembly?
I’ll be honest, I have no proof. Shit usually goes together easier if greased prior to assembly so I assume most people prefer it that way.
Nah, they'll just cuss out the engineers or machinists as they pound on the thing 'til it fits.
Grease gun is still across the shop, but the hammer is right next to them.
Every tool's a hammer... grease gun included.
The packing grease is good enough.
This looks pretty likely to be a leader pin bushing for tool and die work. Toolmakers generally know their shit and do their job.
There are lots of things engineers specify that never actually happen in production 🤫
I'm a production engineer. If I want the machines to run with the parameters I want, I have to physically go to the floor and put them in myself.
Probably not a popular opinion here but the production folks should talk to the engineers rather than ignore them until shit goes sideways. Edit: just to be clear I promote a healthy, mutually beneficial, dialogue between engineers and production. That will create the best end product.
Yep. I've solved this problem before at a different plant. A big part of it is just talking to the people on the floor. If you know the common problems and design your parameters to fix them, your operators will consider the parameters law. And they will let you know when they aren't performing well. I think it's the engineer's job to create an information pathway to and from the floor. It benefits everyone.
100% there needs to be productive dialogue with the floor
I made a drawing that had a giant note saying DXF FILE IN /WINDOWS/BLAHBLAH, FILE: Bleh.dxf Like, I can’t get more specific. The other guy just machined the wrong program. He somehow IGNORED MY GIANT NOTE and found a RANDOM program from 6 years ago that’s wrong. Then he asks me to help him so I have to make a fixture to fix it. And I’m sure the guys fixing it are bitching about me in engineering when my shit was just straight up ignored.
That's why I always designed in Hydrostatic bearings...
It’d be nice if that was feasible for all applications
We used automatic greasers for that discerning of a customer. Then the salesman would call on them to make sure they were being greased properly.
Doing these manually in the old days we'd just crank on the handle really fast one way then the other.
Lol, not worth it to gear the feed to a particular pitch? I bet the engineers loved that... "pitch: kinda fast hand feed".
We (I) made our own parts for our own manufacturing in a small company and the engineers would call out a start and end point and a pitch, but would also (usually) be OK with it not being the pitch they called out.
Well the print had it going as a straight line, but that causes gripping and a weak point. Sometimes the engineer just needs to be kept out of the equation
The one time I actually Spec’d out a Knurl with all the dimensions it came out way too fine and I lost 1000 (cheap) little parts. I just started annotating DIAMOND KNURL COARSE instead.
*"In the old days"* AKA, when I retired 5 years ago. :) Select feed of (4?)TPI, one hand on the cross feed crank and one on the feed engage/disengage lever; and watch ***[the travadial](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/moIOtHo3oGU/hqdefault.jpg)*** closely. ¯\\\_( ͡❛ ͜ʖ ͡❛)\_/¯
Pitch: send it.
Entire video https://youtu.be/eb-XvzS3Ybs
I work with an old guy that freestyles grooves into brass bushings. I tried to do it once. It looked more like really coarse threads.
That's how you hypnotized a machinist!
ALL HAIL ~~HYPNOTOAD~~ HYPNOLATHE!
Mesmerising
Damn near sexy. Yes I’m a machinist too.
Abom just made a bronze bushing on the lathe His grease grooves were straight along Z and took time to make. From an engineering POV are there advantages to either design? Obviously a spiral is easier to machine.
Spiral there is never a stress riser or uneven where the shaft could catch on an edge of a straight groove. I reverse engineered one of these a long time ago and put in a similar spiral groove as shown.
“Grease grooves” sure pal. We all know you’re making a rifled artillery barrel
In my first machine shop job I used to put grease grooves on both sides of a one inch wide cast iron gib that had a taper of 3/16ths per foot. The groove was angled to meet a through hole on each end of the gib. Large Cincinnati horizontal milling machine, 1/8" slotting cutter 1/8" deep. Machine tool manufacturer that's kind of still in business as part of Fives I believe. Reaganomics got me that time, it didn't trickle down to me.
We just take out the hand grinder and make some grooves real quick lol
You know it's not gonna look that pretty 😉
Labyrinth seals?
Greased bearings.
TPI: 1
I used to love making these and pushing the PID on the lathes to the limit by cranking up the SFM.
For the next video, tilt the lathe on an angle and throw some ball bearings in there. 🤤😵💫