Great chucks.  If you have a main & a sub, be sure to get the accu-length.  I would get the accu-length anyways since it gives you more versatility later.  The rubber between the collets have a lifetime guarantee.  If that cracks or tears of the collet, call them up and you should be able to get it replaced free of charge.  I'd also order through a distributor, they should be able to give you a discount off of list price.  If not, try another distributor.  I'm sure someone will.

It's a cleaner 4140.  Run the same speeds & feeds, but you'll get better tool life.  It can work harden, but not nearly like an H-13.  

It's milling for small parts.  I've milled and turned hard steels quite a bit, but with the amount of cobalt and nickel in this material, I would suspect that it's tough.  The info you gave was good and provides some baseline to work off of.

Thanks for the response.  The chipload recommendation helps.

Anyone have experience machining this?  Looks like the machinability is 25-10%.  Any suggestions on tooling that worked well?

https://www.ssa-corp.com/documents/Data Sheet AerMet100.pdf

Hexagon Metrology has the best one on the market.  There is another one from OGP that is also good.  Expect to pay from $55k-65K depending on options.  One can be had for less, but will not have a lot of the options you will eventually need.

On 9/11/2018 at 7:04 AM, Colin Gilchrist said:

Yes, I'm getting out while the getting is good. I feel sorry for the people staying behind. I don't think they yet realize that the boat is filling with water. They are too busy bailing out buckets to notice.

We just had a big all hands meeting, where they were talking about all the money that was spent with buying a company in Long Island, and moving the machines and contracts up to Connecticut. In addition, we've got another production facility in Texas that is a boat anchor. They keep talking about how "the fundamentals of our business are sound, and we are in a great position for success!". What they fail to mention every time is that we are late to all of our customers (our supplier ratings are slipping further each quarter), and our Scrap/MRB rates are through the roof. The more they try and "push" the schedule, the more bad parts we end up making, because people are either not trained on a particular job, or they just don't care. There is zero accountability for making a bad part here. I believe that the shop union has a lot to do with that, but our management team is equally to blame, since they can't seem to see the forest through the trees.

The owners and management team just put in $3 million of their own personal funds into the business, so we could pay our suppliers. How in God's good name is that "fundamentally sound" business practices? That sounds like a disaster to me. Our CEO was joking that "I don't want to be known as someone who makes bad investments", while trying to assure everyone in this meeting that "we're fundamentally sound!".

Look, just because your sales guys are bringing in more contracts, does not mean the business is in a good place. Our scrap/MRB rate was already high. How is trying to double the amount of sales going to "help"? It just means that our deliveries are going to slip further, and we'll triple the amount of bad parts that we are currently making.

Now admittedly, I'm not a business genius. But I'm pretty solid when it comes to addition and subtraction. If we are having problems making good parts at 3.5 million per month of sales, and now they want to get to 6-7 million a month in sales, what kind of outcome would you predict? I know, it is rocket science right?

I keep wanting to stand up in these meetings and scream: "Just because you write something down on a sheet of paper, does not make it real guys!". At 3.5 million, we've got a "Scrap/MRB budget" of $850,000. And they are happy with that number, because it is "only 2% of our yearly gross". But, (and there is always a but, right?), we're already at 1.4 million for this year...

 They think they can "grow their way out of these problems", when in reality, these problems just expose the crumbling foundation upon which our company is built...

Been there and lived that.  Companies pushing for sales, sales, sales.  Nevermind that we also have to make the product.  And don't even ask about investing in the capital or personnel training.  

Companies like this overvalue the sales side and from what I've seen don't care about the production side of the business or the people on that side of the business.  That's also why I'm not still and my former employer and ran out.  

Thanks.  I did find that earlier.  I just need to work on integrating it.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a small parts vacuum?  I'm looking for something that would attach to the pneumatic parts catcher and would suck the small parts out of the sub collet.  This is for a Tsugami BE2-V.  

We had a couple of Kaeser screw compressors and they were great.  We started with a 25HP and when we needed to add on, put another 25HP in.  They were plumbed so the 2nd one would only kick on when pressure got low and the first couldn't keep up.  They would also idle when it hit set pressure.  Very few issues with them and they lasted many years.  Main thing for any compressor is regular service and to make sure they are in a room that they don't get too hot or cold.

Try greasing it first.  A chuck can lose 25% of it's gripping power if not greased that shift.  The longer it's not greased, the more holding power it loses.  

I assume you're barfeeding, so it's rather odd that it would only be on the last 4 parts.  Insert could have been wearing as well.

It depends a bit on the type of work you do.  We are not a job shop and have product lines that we manufacture.  Almost all parts are square or round, so workholding is always very straight forward.  

I figure it's a lost art both from our shops experience and from the people that I've interviewed.  We all know the job market is tight and hard to find employees.  Finding an experienced programmer/machinist where his experience actually means something is like a diamond in the rough.  That's my 2C and you can take it for what it's worth.

Thanks for the replies.  I agree that workholding is a lost art.  It's hard to learn workholding creativity without going through the experience.  

Nice crane part.  That's an odd shape, but still within your chuck diameter, so balancing is key as you did.  The swing would be your definite max diameter.  However, we've got a Doosan Lynx with a 6" chuck.  Doosan states that max turning diameter is 12.5".  Since there's not enough space put on a larger chuck, I would doubt that putting 12"dia on a 6" chuck is the smartest idea.  

On another lathe, we've got a 10" chuck.  I've chucked larger than the chuck diameter before, but what safety factor would you say is ok?  2, 4, 6in larger than chuck diameter?  

Just wondering what the general rule of thumb on how large a part can be chucked in a given chuck size.  For instance, if you have a 10" chuck, can you chuck larger than the chuck diameter?  I know that there are ways to do so, but am wondering what the industry norm is.

We just started running a Kennametal (formerly Stellram) HFM.  We're using the C7792VXD12 in the 2in size.  It runs faster, deeper cut, and is capable of more than our older Ingersoll ones.  This tool is capable of a lot more than the Ingersoll as well.  We cut mostly H-13 in both hard and soft states.  

http://www.kennametal.com/en/products/20478624/57493250/556247/46610642/100048482/100048483/100048492/100035123.html

We currently are running it at 1050RPM, 289IPM, .05DOC, with a 75% stepover.  We could push it more, but don't have a need to.

Thank you for the responses.  I think that G32 is what I was looking for.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I did take a look at trying to use the threadc.dll Chook.  After I created a chain on the curve to select, it would give me the message that "splines not allowed in chain".

I've seen some videos where they are turning on things like this, so I know it's possible, but need to figure out how to program it.

As the guys above said, the finish looks uniform and the feed too high.  

If you could run a corner radius or better yet, use a wiper flat.  Benchmark Carbide makes some.

I've got a part that I believe can be turned, but don't know how I would program it to do so.  It could be milled with a 4th axis, but that would be too easy and if it could be turned complete, that would be a huge savings.

The part is attached.  I was looking to use a Iscar full radius groove turn tool to turn the material out.  Low DOC, high feed.  I don't know how I would program it though and any suggestions would be appreciated.

auger.SLDPRT

If you have programmed everything correctly and have a good machine cutting the way you want then you wouldn't need a Y offset value.

I agree with this, right now though I have a tool that is shifted in Y and need to get the parts out to buy me some time to get it back on center.  

Other issue is when doing work on 2 or more side of a part then you could shift a feature in a bad direction. Now you would need more than one Y offset to fix the problem you are running into.

This is more of what I was looking for in an answer, the possible problems that could arise from this process.

That said there seems to be a growing idea in some engineering circles that education and learning in books means a lot more than experience. Hopefully you are not falling into that mind set and I encourage someone to get an education, but a real practical education with some real world applications in that education. You are set on your course and hopefully you get it all sorted out how you need. Seeing how I was the only one to even respond to this thread tells me a lot hopefully it tells you something as well. Please keep us(me) posted how your always Y method for ever tool works out and the problems you ran into that were only solved by using this method I would love to learn something new and different. 

I know what you're saying with adding in those values could throw off center if a wrong number is in there.  If it's 0 though, it wouldn't move in the Y direction and it doesn't matter if there's a Y value in the code or not.  This would allow more adjustability and already have the compensation values in the program should they be needed.  

For example, if I have a rough facing tool that's off in the Y, I can change the Y value and have it cut on center.  The next tool, being a finish face is on center and even though there's a Y value in the program, the offset reads 0, so it shouldn't have any effect.  I understand as well, that both those tools should be on center at y0.

Conversely, if I have the programs not post out Y values for those tools, it would have to be added manually if needed for one of those tools.  

I don't see this as posing any issues, other than making sure the Y values are as they should be for offsets.  However, wanted to float this through the forum and see what other places are doing and make sure I'm not headed down the wrong path.  

I figured that was the case.  I don't think there would be any downsides to adding them in for all of the tools though.  Thoughts?

Just curious if most people have their posts for Lathe Y values to always post out or if they are only posted when needed?

Thanks for the feedback.  Our sales guy for E2 was pretty up front and they matched any pricing that Jobboss had.  I've heard from some other people that it's pretty much a horse a piece as far as differences go.  

As with any of them, what you put in is what you'll get out!