Today I worked on cleaning out the Haas TL1 Lathe, which was full of chips leftover from previous operations. Unfortunately, I am not able to post images yet of the projects I am working on, and so will use pictures of the same machines from online.

It was pretty straightforward and didn't take long to remove the bulk of the chips (mostly consisting of acrylic and aluminum) through the output bin on the bottom right of the machine (see picture). I then blew out all the remains with an air compressor, then wiping everything down with a wet rag. He also showed me how to start up the machine and jog it around. I then took a grease gun and filled the ports around the Z-axis to keep them well lubricated. Cleaning the chips from the output bin wasn't too bad, but there were still some remains of milling lubricant, which made things slightly sticky. 

He then had me clean up and replace blades on both of his bandsaw's and wipe them down. He also showed me some tips throughout the day while he was working on his contracted parts. 

He is super open to teaching and is a fantastic boss thus far, and I'm very blessed to have this opportunity to work in his shop and one on one training with a guy that is willing and wants to teach! 

I just started a new job at a local prototyping CNC shop! Super excited and will get a ton of one on one experience, which is much more than what I could hope for in some of the larger shops! I've mentioned this guy briefly in my previous posts and have helped me quite a bit in my journey!

I'm starting part-time in the mornings for a while, then may move into more hours later on.

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post about the work I do here, so there may be fewer posts due to NDA's.
Today I was tasked with reorganizing and setting up a display case for a lot of the parts he made over the past 30+ years. He also wants me to do some research in finding a laptop suitable for handing Fusion360 (he uses Mastercam but wants me to use Fusion360) and finding the best bang for the buck.

I haven't had a ton of time recently to work on furthering my self-education on the Pocket NC, and that's mostly due to work and possible new job opportunities. 

One of the things I love doing in between projects is browsing Youtube for CNC related videos through suggested content and some of my favorite creators. I mostly do this for entertainment but also learning how things work and how different people solve problems they face. It's refreshing to see how machines work and the process behind making parts. I like to think of it as a memory bank where ideas tie into each other and help with quick problem solving and thinking outside the box. It also helps me get more familiar with the jargon of the machining world and the benefits of specific ways of doing things over others.

I've especially enjoyed @grimsmoknives videos that started as quarantine vlogs and now morphed into the life around his shop. He's super open with the processes behind his knife making and not afraid to show where he failed or messed up, and getting back up on the horse to try again. 

Another machinist that I love watching is @saundersmachineworks on his Youtube channel NYC CNC. I've logged countless hours from his videos alone and have gained so much knowledge from the tutorials and demo files. Quite a bit of the information I can't use right away, but I'm able to store that for future use, and it helps with a general understanding of the machines that I won't have access to for a while yet.

The bandsaw blade finally came in from MSC Direct, and, unfortunately, I ordered the wrong size.

When I bought this craftsman bandsaw (picked it up on letgo), it didn't have a blade in which I could measure, so I had to figure it out on my own using a clothing measuring tape. It came out to 6 ft 2 inches, so I bought the closest one I could find to that size (6' 1-1/2"). When it came in, I was dismayed to discover that it was too large, and I couldn't tighten it correctly on the machine. I played around a bit and figured something out to get it to work for the time being, though I will order a new blade. 

While I was taking it apart, I spent a little time cleaning out the inside and adjusting everything the guides to a closer fit, basically preventing it from moving side to side while cutting. 

I did a few test cuts on wood and foam (I have yet to try aluminum) and so far no issues, though I did notice a spark or two where the guides are, though I think that may just be the teeth touching them when I put too much force on the machine. Overall though, I'm pretty pleased that I finally have a working bandsaw, and it will speed cutting stock up. 

I haven't had too much time to work on the Pocket NC today, but I did want to get one thing done. And that is better organization, I would continuously have tools floating around my workspace and would often lose them. 

I saw a video by @saundersmachineworks, where he showed all his systems for organizing his tools using Kaizen foam. He's got a fantastic system, and I highly suggest watching it ("Ultimate Machine Shop Toolbox & Organization" on youtube). The basic idea is to lay your tools out on a piece of foam, then outline and cut out groves to fit each one snugly; this allows you to quickly look over and make sure you have all your tools in place and helps with putting them back in their proper spots. 

For mine, I've got calipers, both clamps, the setup Allen wrenches, a few files, the collets, and the metric screws that came with the Pocket NC. I also stopped by Wayne's shop (local machinist), and he graciously gave me an ER11 3/16" collet after talking to him about my difficulties with the 1/4" tooling. 

Finally getting the clamp piece finished up on the Pocket NC

I just got a new 0.25" 3 flute endmill, which I used to do the adaptive clearing on the central part of the clamp. Unfortunately, after setting it up with Pocket NC's recommended speeds and feeds, I found that it stalled quite a bit and even would stop spinning entirely. I had 10% of the tool diameter side load, 90% stepdown, and 0.0008" inch per tooth, which related to 12 in/min and 8,500 RPM. The above video shows what I kept running into, I played around a ton with the speeds and feeds and still got the same results. I then took it way down and cut at 0.0005" width of cut, 9,500 rpm, 25 in/min, and 0.2" stepdown, which finally worked. Overall I'm kind of disappointed that the 1/4" endmill can't do more than it does, and I'd say is equal with a 1/8" if not inferior. 

I then used the 1/8" endmill to do the rest of the pocketing and finishing, which only took about 20 minutes total. I'm so glad I had preset toolpaths ready to go, it sped things up, and I was able to get bunches of toolpaths sent off together. I wasted a considerable amount of time trying to figure out the proper settings for the 1/4" endmill that the project took about three times as long as I would have liked. 

I had a 1/4" chamfer bit, which I used for the first time to clean up the edges. I love 2D chamfer, it's so easy to program, and the finish quality is outstanding! After all the finishing passes where complete, I went back to the 1/8" square endmill to cut it off the base. I wasn't sure what toolpath I should use for this, and after looking around I found the 3D swarf was the best. I didn't want it to make a 3D motion, so I locked it in place by setting the tool orientation. I had it take 0.005" step-downs and leave 0.005" stock to leave so I would be able to come in later and part it off by hand. It worked out well, and I was left with a very thin onion skin that I could nudge the piece, and it would move side to side seemingly forever. There was virtually no cleanup necessary except to knock off the edge with a single sweep of a file. 

The quality difference between this and the first one is incredible, not to mention the speed and efficiency with having preset toolpaths ready to go. The main reason for redoing it was the bottom face of the clamp, which wasn't very flat on the first go. 

Huge thank you to @oakblades for sending me some handmade palette knives!

These are going to be useful for around my workspace for those small hard to reach places. They both look absolutely amazing and you can really see the care he put into these! Each one has a serial number, these are 3858 and 3859.

I've been super busy with work these past few days and haven't had much time to continue my education on CNC machining.

Since the new 1/4" collet came in for the Pocket NC, I can now use more significant tooling. I don't have any endmills for cutting aluminum specifically, so I'm in the process of picking up some new ones. I've been talking to Wayne (the local CNC shop owner) and asking him about the different aspects of the bits I could get. The one thing he keeps stressing to me is rigidity, which I haven't heard other machinists talk about much, but it makes a lot of sense. 

His premise is that you only want to get enough cutting length for what you're going to use. In this case, I will only ever use 100% of the tool diameter in the length of the cut/stepdown. So if I have a 1/8" endmill, I only want to have 1/8" LOC (length of the cut, or flute length) to get the most rigidity I can from it. Similarly, the flutes are also super important; the fewer flutes you have, the less stable the tool is and can be prone to deflection; however, the more flutes you have, the less chip evacuation you will get. So there is a balance you want, and he uses and suggests three flute endmills. It provides enough space for chips to evacuate with air coolant properly, and still have enough rigidity to prevent deflection.

I've spent the past few hours generating toolpaths to machine out the clamp piece to use as templates for future projects. 

I had no idea until I started trying to optimize the operations of how much time I wasted. I would typically use 3D adaptive clearing as my coverall for machining, including finishing passes. I would usually use the rest machining to prevent re-cutting material, which worked, but if I made any edit to the previous toolpaths, it would give an error to all the rest. 

I'm nearly finished and have a bunch of toolpaths each for a different purpose (as seen above). I would watch a few tips and tricks video's from @saunders then use some of the information I got to imbed into the programming. It's been super helpful, and I cut the overall machine time from 3-4 hours to 57 minutes! I'm still working on optimizing the order in which I do things and splitting things up to get the most accurate part.

One of the tricks I found interesting where for the finishing passes. Instead of doing one operation to clean the bottom and side faces, you would split them in two. I would generally do this, but the thing I didn't think about was not letting the endmill doing the floor touch the side faces; this will prevent the side of the bit from rubbing against the side face and leaving a poor finish. The way you do this is by adding roughly one to two thou on the radial stock to leave. 

Now that I am taking my time and making the best toolpaths, I'm looking at the simulation, and it had helped tremendously with removing wasted time and preventing mistakes like tools plunging into stock. These new toolpaths do require a lot more tool changing (6 times, I think), but I think it will be worth it for the outcome and speed it will bring. I've also separated each group by the endmill, so I need only export for each tool.

I'm super pleased with what I've come up with so far and need to order a few 1/4" endmills to fit my new collet and toolpaths.

Since my mishaps last night, I realized I had to take a step back and set plans in place for setting up cam easier and more accurate, also known as infrastructure.

I would typically set up my part in Fusion360 and generate toolpaths as I went, exporting and running each one. I did this mostly to make small changes easier when I was first learning how to machine parts. However, its very time consuming, and I often make mistakes (like yesterday), leading to sub-optimal outcomes. 

Today I am working on replacing my old system with a library of tried and true toolpaths I can duplicate for other projects. The first part of this process is putting all my tools in my tool library; this allows me to quickly select the endmill I want to use and have all the settings already programmed into it. It would also give me the propper feedrate, rpm, and tool number without having to re-enter in the information each time I set up a new CAM setup.

The other half of the coin is setting up the toolpath settings; I can duplicate my known toolpaths to new CAM setups and quickly generate them, which I can then make small changes for the different parts I machine. I'm setting these up with some baseline guidelines, so I know they work, then change them depending on the situation. 

I'm also shuffling through some of John Saunders' older videos on programming tips to embed into the toolpaths, as well as recommended finishing processes optimized for accuracy and efficiency.