Behind the scenes........pics.

[wrustle]

There's a lot that goes on "behind the scenes" in every shop........these are a collection of pics from our shop.

It's always nice to see finished products, or machines in action.


Sometimes though, the coolest pics are the ones "behind the scenes".


I will try to add to this as I get time............yeah, yeah, yeah...........that's right.........


To be continued.............. 


First up, a recent picture my son Andrew took with his cell phone camera.  


A "Panoramic" shot of the shop from one end.  2013 Haas VF-2SS on the left, and 1992 Haas VF-0 on the right.

[wrustle]

Sometimes you need to be creative with fixtures.

This little aluminum fixture we made orients the piece you see shown further below in order to machine the drilled and counterbored hole for the handle that gets assembled into it.

Here you see our angle block set to the correct degrees and located in the vise.  The parallel we use closest to the operator was machined as well to the correct height for the part to locate on once in the fixture in order to maintain the perpendicularity along the length of the shaft with the machined hole.





Now we place the fixture on the angle block.  The fixture is designed to hold both the pivot point of the part and the OD in the correct orientation so that the machined hole we put in will be at the correct angle.




Here you can see the part loaded into the vise ready for machining.




In this picture, you will notice a pin under the part between the OD and the machined parallel.  What we were finding out was, the extruded OD was varying from one lot to another.
This would cause the part to be out of square as it sat in the vise.  By machining the parallel shorter and using pins to make up the difference in varying OD sizes, we were able to control alignment of the shaft between the jaw faces.

Turning the OD was not an option, as these parts are made complete in our Haas VF-2SS due to the eccentric pivot diameters on each end. 





Here you can see the parts in their final assembled state before being packed and made ready for shipping.

[zmotorsports]

Very nice work. Thanks for sharing.

Mike.

[Sunset Machine]

Thanks Russ. Clever way of dealing with the differing OD's.

[DaveH]

Very clever Russ  
 
DaveH

[wrustle]

Grinders, chips and soda! It's how we roll for lunch when the wife is away during the afternoon!! Shhhhhhhh!!!



or even pizza!!!




or bagels with peanut butter!!




The BEST though..............DONUTS!

[wrustle]

Sometimes your setups can be as simple as a parallel, some rubber bands, and some scrap aluminum flat stock.


But those simple little components can make a HUGE difference to your level of productivity!




It's how they all go together that can make the difference between a really good money making job, or one you struggle with every time you open the vise.

Whenever we come up with a solid proven setup that is outside the norm, we take pictures and file them away for reference for the next run!

The setup below is for machining the width of some .125" x 1.250" x 2.5" lg. pieces of 1018 to an oddball size width 1.215".

The pieces are loaded into the vise standing on their sides and with this setup, we can sandwich 12 pieces together in the vise at once in both vises.

The face mill takes one pass to make the size required and it takes 60 seconds to load, mill, unload.

With 24 pieces being completed per cycle, it gives a throughput of 1,440 pieces per hour!

[EdK]

Nice tip on the rubber bands.

Ed

[Sunset Machine]

Sure like to see how-to's from a real shop like yours and the other guys'. But I'm curious, 1/8" thick, stack of 12. Sounds like 1-1/2" in the vice. Why not 32 or more to load up the vice and a suitable face mill? Would that come apart, or did I just double your output?

[wrustle]

(11-25-2015, 10:31 AM)Sunset Machine Wrote: Sure like to see how-to's from a real shop like yours and the other guys'. But I'm curious, 1/8" thick, stack of 12. Sounds like 1-1/2" in the vice. Why not 32 or more to load up the vice and a suitable face mill? Would that come apart, or did I just double your output?

Believe it or not.........12..........is the perfect number for handling.   It's honestly as plain and simple as that.

The actual cycle time is less than 30 seconds.   In that 30 seconds of FREE time for the operator, it gives them the chance to get two sets of 12 pieces staged and ready to go in the machine.

Aside from that, we have a +/-.0025" tolerance on the width we're milling.  Once the pieces are placed in the vise and vise jaws are brought to bear on the parts, the operator places a 1.5" wide parallel on top of the 12pcs in the vise and while pushing down on the parallel, they unclamp the vise just enough to seat all the blanks in the vise uniformly, and then clamp for milling.

We did consider exactly what you stated.....more pieces per cycle, but the fact of the matter was, it was just too cumbersome to handle.

Whenever running a production job where operator intervention becomes a major factor in the cycle time, ergonomics plays a HUGE role in what gets accomplished by the end of the day!