We used to use this "Hotglue process" a long time ago at an old shop then I brought it to the last shop and it worked like a charm. It actually changed the way the guy bid the jobs after we got the process down. It's a long read but worth sharing and trying I guarantee! The hotglue process involves the sandwiching of two pieces of material to eachother. One of these pieces of material, for the sake of discussion, we will call the "pallet". The pallet, I've found, seems to be most effective when made out of Mic 6 or double disk ground aluminum. This will start the job with a nice flat and parallel base to wich the work piece will be glued onto. The pallet will eventually have to be replaced after several sessions of machining if there are different type jobs to be glued down and machined but not after producing many many parts. If the pallet is located with an exact stop with the same toolpaths repeating the pallet can be used indefinately since the drill cones and profiles are never changed. The beauty of this glue down or hot glue process is the fact that the pallet allows you to hold jobs and profile right to depth without having to take the workpiece out of a vise and remove the material that was held onto by the vise jaws in a second operation. Also the part is free from bowing or torque that might distort tight tolerance jobs. It also allows you to machine jobs that might be otherwise impossible or at least very difficult because of the material thickness (or lack of it). Obviously there are limitations to the type of jobs that can be hot glued down. Any type of teflon will not stick to a pallet, most plastics will not stick properly or could have there characteristics changed, (if they do stick), by being heated to 300 plus degrees. Also there has to be some reasonable amount of surface area to the part to be machined for the glue to stick. I have hot glued materials as diverse as G10 fiberglass, 302 .012 thick shim stock to 17-4 ph stainless steels. Naturally there are limitations when doing steels or thick aluminum jobs that might make a convetional approach more practical. The hotglue process starts with a prep to the sides of the pallet and the workpiece that involves a scoring step which is easiest with an 80 to 100 grit sanding to increase the surface area for the glue to adhere to. After the scoring a cleaning must be performed usually with uncontaminated acetone or denatured alchohol on a rag and a second swipe with a fresh side of the clean solvent soaked rag depending if there are cutting oil residues or other greasy type substances still left on the workpiece. Then the two pieces are heated to between 300 to 350 degrees on any type of hotplate or even range top. As the workpiece and pallet approach the melting temperature of the glue the gluestick will start to glide across the surface freely. It seems to work best if both the pallet and the workpiece are coated with the glue. The glue is a very common high strength glustick used in glue guns. It is important that the gluestick is the clear or semi-tranlucent type which resembles the color of dried silicon sealer. We have found that the ultra high strength gluesticks with the opaque creamy color are too brittle and have failed and tend to fracture off the pallet and or workpiece. After applying the glue to both sides of the workpiece there needs to be a squeezing step which I found worked best with a thick flat piece of aluminum for a base and an aluminum pressure plate for the top which not only draw the heat away but keep the pressure from the press or clamps from compressing the two pieces unevenly. These two pieces will last indefinately (the pressure top plate and the base plate) and require only occasional swipes with a razor blade to remove the glue wich is expelled from the sides of the sandwiched pieces between them. The remaining glue usually is a consistant .003 to .006 thousanths thick. After machining, the pallet should get a quick rinse with simple green and water so that the cutting fluid does not comprimise the next glue down on that pallet. Then simply put the pallet on the hotplates again, heat up till the glue releases and set the finished part or parts in a standard stoddard type shop solvent. The glue will dissolve within hours (or a bristle brush with some gloves will speed up this process). After the first glue down is performed on the pallet just wipe off the excess glue after heating and prep the workpiece as mentioned above. A couple things to remember... the glue will become brittle if overheated it will turn brown and start to smoke. Usually the hotplates, rangetop, oven, or whatever is being used to heat up the pieces to be glued, will vary in temperature and a mark on the dial or a Raytech infar red temp gun will allow for consistent odor free gluedowns. Also the scoring and cleaning is critical to the process. This may seem at first like quite the involved process but will become second nature after a couple successful gludowns. Eventually, as we found, this will become a valuable tool in your arsenal of shop processes that changes not only the way jobs are approached but also the type of jobs a shop can consider bringing in the door.

Thanks for the responses Gcode, Derek and Mayday. The potential arrangment I mentioned in my last posting was such that an inspector friend of mine was going to inherit some "guaranteed" contracts after his current/old shop moved to Arizona and I would come in initially with no money invested at all being the only programmer with two guys on the floor, one manual, one set-up operator, and feel out the situation before committing to anything. My inspector buddy was going to try to float it in a takeover kind of deal after the old owner went to Arizona. So it wasn't the risk tom me I'd made it sound like. After further investigation and talking to a few people outside the forum I'm hoping to land the Government aerospace type job. Like tthe last job at prickville I have sort of an inside person to sort of hook it up for me. Hopefully they have something I can wrap my little peanut around. (Between widgets and F22 wing spars). There are many, many different departments there. At last check they were looking for large part five axis programmers primarily and that's one more than I've ever programmed on. And I don't own a garage so there goes your idea Derek. Do they make a mill I can shoehorn into a walk-in closet in a small condo? And oh yeah, sorry for the slight hi-jack of this thread. Back on topic, I've been looking around at quite a few places and I cannot believe what people will put up with as far as working conditions. N Franco was right in that although we worked for jerks, the accomodations were pretty decent there (at prickville). It never ceases to amaze me how cramped, filthy, and disorganized some shops are. Maybe I'm just picky. Thanks again, A-ron

Hey all, Sorry for the sudden checkout. I've missed you all and wanted to officially sign off but had several things I had to address before forum formalities. I've been missing a lot of work lately but "I haven't really been missing it..." The last job sucked to no end and it wasn't because I worked for hairy, cheese eatin', stinky, xxxx, surrender monkeys, (thanks grounds keeper Willie), but because of the dipsh!t, incompetent idiots that ran the shop there. They systematically eliminated anyone who presented an approach which included new processes or modern tooling unless it was introduced by someone in there tight little nepotistic inner circle, which didn't happen too often because it was comprised of drunks and losers who weren't willing to update from version eight and who hacked out programs that needed tons of editing out at the machine but hey they were closed ranks and you couldn't mount a case against them because there were a$$hole birds of a feather. I was part of an outside group with little or no influence that included T-guy (J-rome), Mr. McAllister, Mr. Kalhoff, N Franco, and myself to a lesser extent. All of the above mentioned people did the most complex work in the shop and were rewarded ultimately -with jealousy, disrespect and crooked daggers when they weren't looking. I was the lowest paid of all 'cause they re-negged on their initial proposal and because I never aspired to do anything overwhelmingly worthy of recognition for such a bunch of dipsh!ts but hey, it paid the bills for a while so I worked just hard enough to not get fired. I have been actually workin' doin' general contractin' and " honest dumb ole' redneck type labor work. I do miss the machinist paycheck and have opportunities/dilemmas to decide on currently... -Work for a large government/aerospace company in the bay area with a whole new set of political B.S. circumstances working in many different departments, (with a lot more preferences and styles to adapt to according to my liaison into there), pending a security clearance and drug screen, or go in with a four man team with guaranteed contracts and being leveraged with a personal investment in a HAAS machine tool in a new and unproven adventure in a small upstart company with a couple people I've known for some time, (that I really want to work with), and a couple guys I have no idea about... I'm leaning towards the gamble because It would mean more rules I have say in but... Advice is appreciated and I might not be able to respond for a couple of days here. I appreciate all the help I've ever gotten here and might be a regular (non-political type) dependant soon depending on my decision -needing mucho post editing advice from all the forum elders in here if I can convince this "speculative" group to go with Mastercam. Take care... Miss ya'all A-ron And P.S. I voted for Kerry before I voted against him. -Sorry Terrorists , Liberals, Communists, and alternative lifestylers. And I talked to Chris Reeve a day before he died and he told me, (after he miraculously and suddenly came out of his colma just to call and wish me luck), to go for the gamble... [ 10-21-2004, 10:14 PM: Message edited by: A-ron ]

...but the easiest way to eat raw oysters...

quote: Acupulco safety tip #1: Always be sure to check the depth of the water before diving from the local cliffs. LOL! There are two types of cliff diver... Grand champion and dead. quote: I just hate going to see an ocean side gynecologist ROTFLMAO!!!

As long as everybody feels good about it right James. Afterall, dont feel good solutions trump logic in our current P.C. climate. It's incremental social engineering in the most insidious way. And that would mean self dependance and individual achievement would, (metaphorically to those on the left), represent a sort of Capitalist mindset. On another P.C. sidenote -I'd heard there was a movement to encourage young boys in S.F. school districts to sit down when they urinate since standing while urinating is essentially an "in your face" celebration of masculinity... What's the matter with people these days? Kinda' leaves you rooting for the big asteroid sometimes... P.S. I'll read up on John Talor Gatto Gregg, thanks for the info.

quote: This includes 'overseas outsourcing', science and math education, local manufacturing and machine technology, etc. Well then lets start by making our teachers here at home accountable. Lets produce more entrepreneurs here at home with our educational system. Lets break up these unions and make it legal again to test our kids in K-12 here in California. How about vouchers... -or some type of competition as far as educational options. Your sure not gonna make any headway there voting for Kerry. They've been in bed with the Dems for so long its like a vote for job security for union teachers. [ 08-16-2004, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: A-ron ]

quote: We find reasons to go to war with another middle-eastern nation. (Iran or Syria - probably Syria - it is less able to defend itself.) Probably Iran, they are the closest to the bomb currently but I hardly see it as "Us finding a reason". quote: We still pussyfoot around North Korea (proven and claimed nuclear threat - and building a new missile system to boot). As well - we will pull out most of our troops from South Korea to support a new war elsewhere. Considering it's a peninsula off the Chinese mainland I'd tend to say this is probably a safe bet for now. Especially after the reaction to our Orion recon plane that was forced down in international waters a few years ago (Not to mention the fact that thanks to Clinton and the Loral Corp, China can put a Long March missle anywhere on the west coast they want to...) What happened to your hawkish ways Craig? Is Santa Cruz county getting to you?

French survival guide page one...

I too think it's wonderful Mr. Lovelace... ...sorta like the Clinton legacy huh?

quote: There's a book by Ayn Rand that was about colectivism, can't remember the name of it(not Fountainhead) but after I read it, that was what convinced me that the Conservative/Libertarian viewpoint was where my heart was. -The Virtue Of Selfishness? Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others - misfortune is not a mortgage on achievement - failure is not a mortgage on success - suffering is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence - man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone's altar nor for anyone's cause - life is not one huge hospital. -- Ayn Rand, "Apollo 11," The Objectivist

I hope to god that's just spittle that comes out of Barney Frank's mouth with that lisp of his 'cause it's in my hair now and I think I'm gona go ralph...

quote: Go 24!!!! Also go 48 , 25, and 5. Team Hendrick has got a couple great shots at 2004 Nextel Cup winners.