Machinist

So those who know me IRL or cyber stock me. Know that in my free time i do have a very small laser cutting business, i started off with a really crap diode laser and eventually made enough to purchase a full size C02 Laser. Now one of the most important thing that machining has thought me. Is that WORK HOLDING IS BASED. Why indicate a shitty piece of bar stock each time when you can just make a jig/fixture and run thousands with minimal work. So i very much took this to heart and instead of spending 20 minutes to frame a coaster in my laser cutter to make sure it is 100% straight. I took a ratty piece of sheet metal (that i paid WAAAAY to much for $90USD) and made my "ghetto bed". now it was handcrafted the same way a child makes a macaroni picture. Very imprecise, and not flat at all i tried my best at making it flat but well, im a machinist not a metal worker. which truly shows my 1/1 piccaso's masterpiece. So i hear you WHERE IS THIS GOING!! this "ghetto bed" worked very well for small stuff, when family and friends would order something i would quickly throw in my jig load up my file and BAM its ready to go. This bed was purely a proof of concept, from the post i saw on light-burns forum of a guy doing something similar with sheet metal. So fast foward 3 years later and i bought plate 3/4 plate stock (which i paid out the ass for) order it to size and draw up a CAD model. a few thing i learned from the original "ghetto bed" was that the exhaust is underneath the bed and needed some way to quickly slurp up the smoke, for this i have a snorkel i am 3d printing and running downward (still work in progress as we speak) and secondly and most importantly! I wanted threading, i originally drilled 7/16 holes to which i just vaguely threaded bolts and nuts through. But now i have 1/4-20 spaces 1.30 inches across the bed, which will make setting up fixtures more solid and repeatable unlike the original bed. i did go with 1/4-20 for a few reasons, first off its standardized and very cheap for bolts, second and most importantly its a small hole. Which then allows me to drill and re-tap if i strip a thread and it also gives me alot of mounting holes. However having tons of holes were also a nightmare to hand tap and debur the backside.

The keen eyed among you may notice slots on the edges of the bed, i decided to go with slots purely because the original mounting holes are not concentric or symmetrical. So F it slots!

im very happy with the bed, i plan to paint it black to make it not reflective and have played around with the idea of open sourcing/selling bed like this, if people are intreasted of course!

Haas Reduces Production, Slashes Overtime in California

With the vast majority of global machine tools coming out of Europe and Asia, California-based Haas Automation might sound like it’s in a perfect position to benefit from tariffs placed on imports that President Donald Trump says will kickstart American manufacturing.

However, any longer-term reshoring is way off in the distance. Instead, Haas is facing an immediate pullback in production from its manufacturing customers as they weigh increases in raw materials and components prices.

“In recent days, we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in demand for our machine tools from both domestic and foreign customers,” Haas automations official said. “Out of caution, we have reduced production and eliminated overtime at our sole manufacturing plant in Oxnard, California, where we employ 1,700 workers and have been in operation since 1983. We have also halted hiring and put new employment requisitions on hold.”

Because reshoring will require new equipment, Haas officials said they’re worried that the administration could slash tariffs on machines from Taiwan (companies such as YCM and Hartford), Japan (Okuma, Makino) and Korea (DN Solutions, Hwacheon) to avoid making manufacturing investments in the U.S. more expensive.

Worse, Haas imports some of the materials and components it uses in its machine tools, so tariff breaks for Asian machine tool makers could give them a major cost advantage over American-produced machines.

“Without a corresponding reduction in tariff rates for imported raw materials and components into the U.S., such a scenario would be catastrophic to the $5 billion U.S. machine tool industry, which is a key component of U.S. national security,” Haas officials said.

—Robert Schoenberger

https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/article/55280943/so-that-happened-haas-cuts-california-manufacturing-because-of-tariffs

I really like this guy.

Hi guys, for reference I run 2 Prototrak lathes, one 3 axis bed mill, and a few other 2 axis retrofits. My company is big into Prototrak for my semi-manual repair side of the shop. I was just wondering, with how unique the programming experience is on Prototraks, will I be able to take what ive learned to other machines? Before these I was only manual so this is really the only "CNC" experience I have so far.

Thanks in advance!

Currently trying to come up with a way to make them more than one at a time.

About an inch deep all along one side of the sheet, it split in half.

Haven't turned anything in a while. Chips!

This is a really good 3 part series on measuring the error motion of a precision spindle that I found really interesting and wanted to share.

Consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open-source program that lets you watch YouTube videos without Google spying on your viewing habits!

Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.

Since lemmy loves FOSS here’s a Linux CNC program

Consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open-source program that lets you watch YouTube videos without Google spying on your viewing habits!

Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.

With Google's assault on Invidious leaving it inoperable, consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open source program that lets you watch youtube videos privately!

With Google's assault on Invidious leaving it inoperable, consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open source program that lets you watch youtube videos privately!

Barfeeder again! About a minute per.