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My buddy's 'just eyeball it' advice nearly cost me a $600 part
So my old coworker Dave, who's been running mills since the 90s, told me to skip the indicator and just match the existing tool offset by feel on a tight job last Tuesday. I figured he knew his stuff, so I went with it. Ended up crashing a $600 face mill into the vise jaws because I was off by like 0.015. Has anyone else had a mentor give you some wild shortcut advice that totally backfired?
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blair_chen816d agoMost Upvoted
0.015 is a mile when you're roughing a $600 face mill into hardened vise jaws, not when you're hitting a tolerance callout. But here's my real question for you, did Dave watch you set it up or was this more of a "figure it out, kid" situation? In my experience, the guys who swear by eyeballing it have already crashed enough scrap to know exactly where the danger zone is, they just don't tell you that part. Take this with a grain of salt, but I've seen more than a few machinists give "shortcuts" without mentioning the backup plan if it goes sideways. Your mileage may vary, but I'd ask Dave if he's got a specific feeler or reference point he uses when he does it, because pure guesswork with no system is just gambling.
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emma_baker616d ago
Oh man, I gotta push back a little here. 0.015 is definitely not a mile unless you're finishing something with tight tolerances, for roughing ops that's usually fine with a bit of luck. Plus, Dave's been doing this since the 90s and probably had a system that works for him most of the time, it's not like he told you to send it blind.
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