Shiney, a Machinist's Show and Tell

[Precise1]

The Shiney thread was recommended and after a vacation, I actually have the time and inclination to do such a thing.

 

I'll share some of what I have/do/done. Share yours too, eh?

 

I'm thinking machined parts (or mostly machined). Some grinding/EDM is cool to, up to you...

 

I don't have many photos but hopefully I can dig up some old ones. We'll have to go with fresh material now.

I have specialized in micro and high precision/Oh Hell No work for most of my time so some of it may be obscure, but we will work up to that.

 

Here is something I pulled off of the shelf in the garage, washed off and photographed. It is a flex drive coupling with 4 M2x.4 through, .4" (10mm) bore and M20x.5 at the base IIRC. It is aprox 3/8" (10mm) tall and the penny is .750 (19mm) in diameter.

It is T6061 aluminum, aka butter...

 

 

 

The real trick is to make it look like this...

 

 

 

 

B

[unccpathfinder]

I machined this is college twice...once when i took the class and 2nd when i taught the class...the 2nd time i made it full aluminum and an aluminum flywheel with a copper ring pressed on the outside for inertia...i didnt use any bushings nad think i turned 9000RPM...with bushings i could have probably gotten 20-30k rpms

 

http://www.coe.uncc.edu/~kssmith/Sheet1.pdf

 

i'll see if i can dig it up and clean it up and get some pix

 

here is a video of someone on youtube who took the same course I took years ago...

 

[TerranoNZ]

Always amazed by your work B

 

I'll play, although I don't do a lot of machining.

 

I made an intake manifold for Petes turbo Terrano

 

 

Had to be 45mm Dia came out @ 45.005.... I can live with that

[Mr.510]

That's an amazing little coupling B. I've done some teeny stuff, but nothing that small and complex in a single part.

 

I was (am?) a CNC machinist/programmer/tooling designer for 21 years. I don't have pics of most of the cool things I did, but do have pics from a few standout projects. On this particular project the concept and overall design was mine but due to time constraints I had a friend do the actual engineering and build the 3D CAD models. I did all the programming and machining myself. These part were made for the 2008 Ridler Award winning street rod Ferrambo.

 

This is milling the backside of one of the floating brake rotor carriers, material is 7075-T651 aluminum:

 

 

Operation complete:

 

 

Flipped over into custom soft-jaws for a little detailed scallop work around the edges:

 

 

This is a wheel centerlock nut, cut from a very hard stainless steel. I can't remember the alloy but it was brutal on coated carbide endmills:

 

 

Here's a completed wheel nut alongside the brass socket I made to match:

 

 

This is a drive spindle, that the above nut screws onto. The step at the end is about to get it's Acme threads. Material is 7075-T651:

 

 

This is a shot of the completed assembly, you can see the rotor carrier through the wheel:

 

 

And finally a shot of the whole car, to put it in perspective:

 

[TrailChaser]

Wow B, That looks like some fun work to make those.

 

unccpathfinder, Those are some cool little engines. I've been thinking about building a little precision sterling engine for kicks.

 

Mr.510, I've always wanted to work in the aftermarket field for autos. Tons of custom stuff that you get to help design. Nothing quite like seeing an idea go from your head to paper to program to steel to application. I often wonder if guys sitting behind a desk talking on the phone for their whole careers ever get to feel that sense of satisfaction...

 

I have been a machinist for a few years now and worked for a shop that was actually pretty lenient about us making our own stuff as long as there stuff got finished first.

 

First up, my new improved hinge for my bumper mounted tire carrier. My first hinge was a nightmare that I hacked together when I was still just a welder. I just sleeved two pipes together the first time.

This was one of the first things I built for myself after getting the job. It was made using a WWII German lathe. When they bought a company in Germany they shipped over a few items from their machine shop. Everything on those machines is obviously written in German which makes learning extra fun. lmao

All the pieces.

 

Welded to the bumper.

 

Custom Lock for my Jerry Can Carrier. Where the barrels meet there's a 45deg taper... It would be easier to hacksaw thru what the lock is welded to, or just pop a hole in the can and drain the gas into their own container.

This was made on a manual mill and that German lathe.

 

My boss and I modifying a Titan wheel to fit an Xterra.(we did all four for a guy)

 

Before

 

After(different wheel. probably a front judging by the brake dust)

Edited November 28, 2010 by TrailChaser

[TrailChaser]

Ball Joint Spaces with angle correction. (CNC Milled)

 

Before

After

 

Snorkel Head made on the manual lathe and man mill.

 

This is the blinker cutout on my front bumper. I figured the CNC could do a slightly better job than my torch. (I need to repaint the bumper)

 

Here are some videos.

I did this for my dads birthday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq91x0366NA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSm4Ln6rA0g

 

Here is a video of the HAAS CNC Lathe at work. AKA making some chips fly..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLfD3oMe91M

 

Threading some handles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4sVcYeKxno

[Mr.510]

Mr.510, I've always wanted to work in the aftermarket field for autos. Tons of custom stuff that you get to help design. Nothing quite like seeing an idea go from your head to paper to program to steel to application. I often wonder if guys sitting behind a desk talking on the phone for their whole careers ever get to feel that sense of satisfaction...

 

I started out at Constance Machine in 1991 as the first full-time employee. Programming, setting up, and machining parts. We did mostly fish canning factory and experimental medical parts. Very complex and expensive parts with extremely low volume. Basically CNC prototyping. About two years(?) later we launched the 'Joes Racing Products' line of parts. I ended up as head of Engineering and New Product Development as we grew to 30 employees over 18 years. The Joes line was about half of our total production with the rest being commercial production machine work. About half of that was high performance automotive aftermarket. I did a lot of design work for Alta, Perrin, and a few others. What I did with the Joes line isn't really automotive aftermarket as hardcore race car parts really have nothing to do with 'real' cars. Racing parts is it's own industry.

 

Getting into the performance automotive industry at the manufacturing end is really difficult. It's a teeny little niche in the corner of the manufacturing world. We sought out that type of work as we were gearheads that like cars/trucks and we had a well-known and respected brand name so we weren't just another 'no-name' job shop looking for work. My advice if you want to go that direction is to encourage your boss to seek out that type of work if any is available in your area. Get your hands in it a bit and meet some people. There are very few shops actually making performance aftermarket auto parts and every knucklehead with a slammed Honduh is willing to work at these places for $10 an hour for the 'cool factor' alone. That makes it very difficult to get into the industry at a livable wage.

 

You are correct about how cool it is to see a design materialize! For much of my career I wold design a part, program it, machine, test it, etc. The last couple of years before I quit my position at Joes I had a really good programmer/setup guy. I trained him as my replacement for all on-the-floor work so I could devote all of my time to new product development. I worked swing shift while the rest of the company worked days. This allowed me nights alone to focus without the all day distractions of a production shop. I would often dream up a new product and create a 3D CAD model for prototyping in an evening. Half the time when I arrived the following day the fully machined prototype was sitting on my desk! Talk about instant gratification. That was truly awesome.

[Tungsten]

[Precise1]

Too cool, all of it!! Very interesting hub design, but simple and logical at the same time.

 

Even when I supervised a job shop and owned my own CNCs, I've specialized in high tolerance, exotic alloy and micro machining. Diamond turning took it a step farther and into the optic world. Just to be clear, I do not design optics, I'm just the schlep who makes them. I machine lens/lens masters accurate to sub wavelength of light that are used in injection molds. FYI 1 wave length of visible light is 633 nanometers, .633 microns, .000633mm or 25millionths of an inch (.000024") and I regularly cut form deviation within 250 nanometers or 10 millionth of an inch.

 

Anyway, here is a miniature camera that my company makes. This is the entire thing, 2 lenses, a housing with the filter attached. It is a fish eye lens with 180 degrees view and a focal length of about a foot that takes surprisingly good pictures... for a video camera. Yes, it is a fiber optic video camera about .1'" (2.5mm) in diameter.

 

That is a hair in the first picture in case the penny didn't do things justice...

 

 

 

 

B

[nunya]

And people wonder why B complains about blurry cell phone pics!

[Precise1]

Here is an optical array, 11 channels. The lenses are 250 microns across, .01" or aprox 4 hairs in diameter. The tricky part is that they have to be positioned in a straight line, specifically spaced to +/- 1 micron (40 millionths of an inch) in X,Y & Z. I designed and made a fixture to allow me to do this that can be mounted on my spindle and spun. It's still a pain in the arse though, one of these takes 1-2 days to make, depending on Murphy's whim.

BTW, this was supposed to be a 10 channel, but I got carried away...

 

 

And here is the connector it makes, see the one on the left. This is a whole 10 channel fiber optic connector assembly that snaps together. I really shouldn't say what it is for yet, but lets say that computers have basically hit the wall with electrons and micro circuitry; they are just to damn hot and slow...

Red, should appreciate the GB/s potential of this kind of system...

 

 

B

[Precise1]

And one more for good luck...

This was an occasional job that a shop I worked for used to do for Hewlett Packard. It was an installation tool for some electronic connector dingus. The rod has a very precisely machined end on it and was used poke one electrical connector into another. Once connected, you hang the weight from it and if the rod pulls loose, you didn't poke the connector hard enough; conversely, if it doesn't come loose, it is a good connection. Yeah, seriously!! That sculpted 303 stainless piece is just a 50 gram weight, and the knurled rod is a poker. Punchline?? Rod was $255 each and weight was $58 each. Ever wonder why HP stuff cost so much??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B

[MY1PATH]

ok trish just said "B made a camera smaller than a Bee"

that is crazy, whats its intended purpose? boreoscopes?

[JamesRich]

I have a few pictures of the shiny stuff I make but nothing as cool as what you guys posted. I make oilfield completion part that all end up in the ground. I have worked on some special R&D safety valve part made out of 718 inconel (which has to be the worst material to machine) with tolerances in the tenths of a thousand but I never made parts that ARE in the tenths of a thousand like B.

I run a Mazak Integrex 650 with a 24" chuck and 5 axis live tool machining capabilities.

It really can do some really cool stuff when you get all 5 axises going at one time. Where it helps us the most is to turn a part and then do any kind of machining to it at any angle in one operation.

Here is a pic of a safety valve flapper after the first op. This is a piece of 718 inconel 7"x12" long that cost a little over $20K for just the raw material. Makes for a little pucker factor when cutting on it.

All the front is finished, then I part it off using the lath tools

Then mount it on a fixture to finish the back side.

James

[Precise1]

And people wonder why B complains about blurry cell phone pics!

Hell, I make some cell phone camera lenses. Who is better qualified to know that they take crappy pictures??

 

ok trish just said "B made a camera smaller than a Bee"

that is crazy, whats its intended purpose? boreoscopes?

LOL About the size of a large bee's head actually. Not quite, thank me and my fellow drones the next time the doc needs to poke a hole and look around, we make one of the smallest AFAIK cameras that they use. There are several versions, one of which goes on the back side of an endoscope you they can see you coming and going while the good doctor looks for the proctologist's super bowl ring...

 

Size does matter and speed counts; sometimes smaller is better and fast is good.

 

B

[tmorgan4]

Wow...I'm impressive work for sure!!!

 

Will any of you guys do side jobs for a fellow NPORA member? I need a few things made......

[Precise1]

Maybe, it depends... I don't have free access to standard industry CNC equipment, but I can do what I want on the hand equipment at work. What do you need made??

 

It really just comes down to who is tooled up for that sort of work and how much time it takes. Sometimes it is best just to pay for a product and be done with it...

 

B

[Precise1]

I have worked on some special R&D safety valve part made out of 718 inconel (which has to be the worst material to machine)

 

I've only machined a few Inconel jobs and it was nasty stuff. I couldn't make a cutter last no matter what I did so finally I just ran it dry and turned out the lights to watch the end mill glow and the sparks fly. Came in at RC42 or something ridiculous. Nasty stuff!!

 

B

[Precise1]

Dimensions and tolerences will define the answer, but lets put build requests in another thread though.

 

B

[JamesRich]

I've only machined a few Inconel jobs and it was nasty stuff. I couldn't make a cutter last no matter what I did so finally I just ran it dry and turned out the lights to watch the end mill glow and the sparks fly. Came in at RC42 or something ridiculous. Nasty stuff!!

 

B

Weatherford sub out our overflow but unfortunately no outside shops want to work inconel, so we do a lot of it. 925 inconel is not as bad as 718 but it's still not fun. You basically slow all your feeds and speeds down to 1/5 of what you run carbon steel at. Also we found a line of high heat application endmills from SGS with the AITiN coating that hold up around 2/3 longer than a standard endmills we use. And for turning ISCAR makes the best insert. The worst part about inconel is the stress in it. We have to ruff the material and let is sit so it can stress relieve itself then finish it. If you don't it will distort and there goes your close tolerance.

James

[Precise1]

Yep, I was using the same coating on a Data Flute 3 flute 1/4 em. It worked, just not for very long... I played a lot with speeds/feeds/DOC to try maximise it, but no real luck. I am used to Kovar, Carpenter 49, Hymu 80, tungsten copper, tellurium copper and other hard machining exotic alloys but the inconel was nasty!!

 

 

So here are some older shots of the machine I have been running. Hell, you are looking at about 1/3 of my department...

 

 

Here is a facing fly cutter set up. The part is in the 1" insert vice that the mister nozzle is pointing at.

 

 

B

[Mr.510]

In 1995 I decided that I would no longer buy Christmas presents and I would make them instead. I do not have good pics of the ornaments I made or pics of all of them... but it's Christmas Eve and I feel like posting what I have. I'll have my parents keep their set out when they take their tree down so I can take better pics of the whole series. I designed all these ornaments in CAD, programmed, and machined them. I used an adhesive fixturing technology that evolved with the years and allowed more streamlined and complex shapes as I refined it. The parts are all 6061-T6 sheet in .062 thickness. They were pocketed and profile milled with a .0625 2 flute carbide end mill. A pilot hole was used in pockets for plunging as ramp entry exceeds the capacity of the fixturing method. Most of the pockets had to be fully machined into chips as the chunks left in their centers would not stay adhered and would break the cutting tool when they popped loose. They are hard to see in some of the pics, but each ornament has the year milled in using a .031 2 flute carbide ball mill as well. There was a very long, steep, expensive learning curve on this project! Buying gifts would have been cheaper the first couple of years but saving time or money was never the point.

 

The first year I did a snowflake ornament. Lots of area for adhesive but I still scrapped more than I completed. The two parts are identical other than the "1995" milled into one half:

 

 

This ornament is only about 3" in diameter but is by far the heaviest design I made. This one requires a large branch on the Christmas tree!

 

 

 

In 1996 I was able to use a slimmer profile but still needed lots of adhesive area near the tips and the center. The 'spokes' are .125 wide down the center and .093 elsewhere:

 

 

 

 

In 1997 I decided to try three interlocking pieces that 'snap' together. I also made the year a prominent part of the design rather than engraving it with a ball mill. This whole part is .062 wide profile. My fixturing method was perfected by this point:

 

 

 

 

1998 is my favorite of all the ornaments. It is also three pieces and is about 6" tall:

 

 

 

 

With the approaching turn of the millennium I decided to do a simple "Peace on Earth" kinda thing with a peace sign in the middle of a globe for 1999. This one is many people's favorite, I honestly don't care for it all that much:

 

 

 

 

That's all the pics I have at the moment. I think I did three or four more ornaments before deciding to not participate in Christmas presents at all. I'll try to get some better pics of the whole series and post them up in the next week or so.

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

[Slick]

oooooooooooh! shiney! me likey!!!

[lint]

COOL!

I made a couple ike the first 2, but they were made out of wood .....and weren't so shiny. The last one is wicked! Well done!!

[JamesRich]

That is some awesome work Mr510! And B, If I cant see the part without a microscope I don't machine it! The parts I machine are easy to see just too heavy to pick up.

James