Excel table of contents example bc2.xlsm I have attached a spreadsheet that I use for keeping track of my projects. One of the unique features of this spreadsheet is that it has a self healing Table of Contents. What I mean by that is: you can add new sheets, reorganize sheets, delete sheets and when you go to the Table of Contents page, it will rebuild the table of contents. I have a few bogus sheets in there as examples. the last sheet is instructions/hints on how to use this sheet. One of the pages that I have in there is a group of tools with some basic parameters that I will save as I am selecting tools so that when I am entering information about a tool, I don't have to go back to the tool manufacturer's page. I will add in blueprints and machine information. Most of the things that I need end up in one document for that project. Something like this could become "The Book" for a part with all of the setup information in it.

:OFFTOPIC: When I started, guys got fired for things like attitude, not following directions, doing dumb things, hitting things with a hammer and stuff like that. Yelling was common and expectations were always very high. i started by cleaning machines. Now, a new guy just starts making parts. No need to even measure a part....?? I would say that things are different, but what is the most damning for our industry is setting expectations at a level that encourages learning and getting it right.

I can tell you're old. Most of our setup sheets contained just that. Tools with pertinent tool info. Part origin, Any special needed notes. Pretty basic stuff. Over the last 5 years I keep getting complaints that they don't know how to hold the parts. What size parallels to use. I have to specify the exact end mill brand and part number. Insert grades. Exact tool holder. Which vise we need to use. I can't leave a single detail out or I get blamed by the operator for their incompetence. When I started in the trade, I think it was around my 3rd machinist job, I went to work for a guy who had his son doing the programming. They didn't even use setup sheets. We had to look at the programs (which were horrible) and figure everything out ourselves. Some of the programs has multiple height and diameter offsets on a single tool. They were terrible. If you crashed, the shop owner always said "who pushed the button". Man are those days gone. lol.

I'm not too sure that getting rid of High School Industrial Arts programs, and all of the shops that taught the skills needed in the trades, was a good idea. I don't completely blame the latest generation for not learning what they were never taught.

A couple of my more skilled coworkers say that 20-30 years ago (at the same shop we're at now) they used to get handed a sticky note with a list of tools on it. They would run whole jobs with just a sticky note. I can't imagine scribbling a few tools on a sticky note and not drawing up a whole packet of OP sheets.

Based on the help file it seems like it should be possible to do transform-translate, move the points where you want and have those points correspond to a WCS of your choosing. It doesn't want to seem to go though. Rob, there's also another trick you could use in your situation. If you were to program that setup with 4 separate, but the same, toolpaths, you could highlight them all, right click, then go to edit selected operations menu and click edit common parameters. From there you can change a lot of the information in the parameters of all the operations provided you want all of those operations the same.

In the example, the geometry of the toolpath is being "manually" created. If this is on a surface, use Surface Finish Project, or Surface High Speed Project. Use "Curves" as input. This is purely 3-Axis.

Hey everyone, thanks for all the comments and thoughts and for the stuff Bill and other have uploaded here and also what he sent to me. I appreciate it! It's a lot to think about, but right now, if I'm understanding everything, it seems like AR and even X+ are more focused on Mastercam operations and tooling information, and for our operators we really want to minimize the information because, as some have pointed out, they (our operators) hardly read what we give them as it is, and so our toolpath sheets need to be that: focused on the toolpaths not Mastercam operations or anything else, but a bare-bone list of information they 'might' read. I'll keep digesting what Bill sent me and the stuff here, but I think unfortunately, what we have is what we want unless I want to learn to program and only grab the information we want...probably not as I've never done anything remotely like that and would have no idea where to start... Scott Yep, that's where our shop is at. When I was on the floor, we did almost everything. Now the operators do almost nothing other than setups and calling up the next program and some of them still can't handle that....

That's probably a good point, but from my experience, the arrogance makes it difficult to be objective. lol.

I got that one figured out...planes too just so I can check. Still never know if the coolant is on.

Construction Levels? Everyone always wants another CAD feature around here, eh?

Levels should have folders/groups, and planes should have more flexibility to organization. Sucks adding a few in, or working on a big file that has no semblance of order in the planes manager. I often just sort by offset number to get all the used ones near the bottom. It's less than a band-aid solution, IMO

Username checks out.

#MeToo It's a different beast now. Machine Tools and their capabilities are exponentially more complicated than they were when I started machining in the early 80's. The parts we machine are more complex too. The setup sheets here for production are detailed down to the table setup including the rotary, vises, every bolt, pin and clamp. We run the same parts on several different types of machines, too, so we duplicate and triple work in those areas. The new breed simply doesn't want to take the time to learn or figure something out for themselves. And they DAMNED sure don't want to take responsibility for their screw-ups. :edit: Sorry Sharles, no Like for you!!!

Everyone wants real CAD inside Mastercam.

most of our work instruction/setup sheets over the years have been pretty simple. Now days I'm finding that you have to write a step by step manual on how to set a job up and run the parts. I think that I spend more time on setup sheets attempting to write instructions and snap shots of parts than I do anything else. Back when I started in the trade, everything was text and you had just enough info to set the job up. It's almost to the point now where you need a video of someone setting up and running the job. I guess that's what happens when you have a generation of "machinists" who watched a few titan video's and think they're ready to go pro.