Industry determines what we're taught, because they know what skills
they want us to have when we're ready to join the workforce (or re-enter
the workforce). Well, my instructors were both machining for a living
for a long time before they started teaching this course, so they have a
pretty good idea of what's useful for us I guess.

jon banquer wrote:


IMO, also very important to be able to do quickly. If you
wish I can provide an aerospace example of why it is
important and why a manual knee mill is often used to do
this kind of work in many CNC machine shops.

Sure, hit me with the example


If you get a chance try and look at any commercial boring
head so you can see how it is designed so that it can move
short distances accurately. Does your school have something
like a Bridgeport or a Criterion boring head that you can
examine so that you can see how they have been designed to
accomplish this task ?

We have a few commercial boring heads around the shop, and I've seen how
they work. I think the point of making ours was just to get a few of
our skills checked off, and to have a little tool we could use if we
want/need to.


Perhaps before... depends on you and how much you can or
want to absorb. :)

I have enough to absorb right now, with working ahead in math and
reading about metallurgy. Soon I'll be starting the lathe section in
the textbook, and there's a lot of questions to work on with that. Then
I've got a couple more presentations coming up in communications class. :P


IMO you will find others, like I have, that will give you
"the shirt off their back" when it comes to sharing their
knowledge. After you have found others like this you may
notice, like I have, that they all fit a pattern that others
don't.

I've met a couple of machinists that would take the time to explain
things to me about machining even when I was just deburring. I hope I
get to work with more like them.

If you don't you will either have to buy them or spend your
time hunting for the shop tools / asking to use someone
else's. I never felt I had the time to do this as I wanted
to use my time on other things. I also like knowing what my
tools can do rather than being surprised by a tool that I
don't know. All depends on what your comfortable with and
willing to accept or not accept.

I don't much enjoy having to ask someone else if I can use their tools,
and wasting time digging through the shop to find something - argh. But
I have absolutely no problem letting someone else use one of my tools
as long as it finds its way back to my tool box when they're done with
it.


Not very complicated. It's all in the design and most
designs suck because they don't have a precise enough
adjustment to *easily* allow you to move in tenths. The
concept of how to do this is similar to controlling movement
of a boring head. The most complex thing you would need is a
piece of spring steel. Yes, you use a dial indicator with
it.

Cool, I'll look into making one of these. It would be handy to have.



"Most of the stuff about the horizontal mill... Well, I
could understand most of the terminology, but I couldn't
catch it all."

Ask them directly in the newsgroup or find someone you can
e-mail that you suspect / knows what they are doing and is
good at explaining their thoughts.

When I get on the horizontal mill I'll worry about learning more about
it. I've got enough on my plate right now.


Just a few of my observations over I think 5 or 6 years of
posting he

You might want to make sure before you do that your prepared
to take the heat and / or watch the bad vibes go down as the
fighting starts. At times the bad vibes will carry from
thread to thread and the level of hate will know no limits.

Lol, just like real life, then. Not everyone gets along. I guess it's
just an unfortunate fact of life. You can learn something from everyone
if you keep your ears (err, eyes in this case) open. You just have to
learn to ignore the crap.


You doing what I would call indexing with a rotary table. I
have a lot of stuff I would like to convey to you about
rotary tables. As you start to use them, and if your still
interested, I will have more to say. :)

Well, I guess I'll be starting with that today. I'll let you know how
it goes, and when I get the bare basics down you can pass on some of
your stuff to me.

chem

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www.xanga.com/chemgurl