by Phil Kerner | May 17, 2015 | Inspection, Members Only: The Tool Room, The Basics - Measuring, Locating, and Checking Your Work
Just the other day, I had to machine a small hole in a part with a +/- .004 dimension. Now in most cases, a drill should be able to do the trick PROVIDED that its been sharpened correctly and is running true. BUT you never know...every once in a great while, I get...
by Phil Kerner | May 17, 2015 | Members Only: The Tool Room, The Basics - Measuring, Locating, and Checking Your Work
If you haven't noticed by now, I get a LOT of very long parts to machine on a regular basis...many times, it's just a matter of adding a hole or two into a pipe that's four feet long. Like any machine, my Mazak vertical mill has its limits, and sometimes my work...
by Phil Kerner | May 9, 2015 | Inspection, Members Only: The Tool Room, The Basics - Measuring, Locating, and Checking Your Work
Funny...all those years as a moldmaker and now at this stage of my career I have access to a full inspection / QC department. One day I was watching one of the guys checking a batch of parts and he showed me this nice little trick for measuring the distance between...
by Phil Kerner | Oct 19, 2014 | Inspection, Members Only: The Tool Room, The Basics - Measuring, Locating, and Checking Your Work
File this one under "you learn something new every day." I had this very small milled part that required a very fussy undercut to be milled using a keyseat cutter to +/- .001" on the width and location. The only way for me to get an idea was to put it on our optical...
by Phil Kerner | Oct 19, 2014 | Inspection, Members Only: The Tool Room, The Basics - Measuring, Locating, and Checking Your Work
One of the big differences between mold making and contract-machining work is what gets checked and what doesn't. For instance, had I drilled and tapped this 4-40 hole into a mold, it might be for a small micro switch. As long as the switch or sensor mounts up and...
by Phil Kerner | Aug 17, 2014 | Inspection, Members Only: The Tool Room, The Basics - Measuring, Locating, and Checking Your Work
This lesson is the result of a request by a perspective member. Here's his question: "I have a flatness inspection question that no one has been able to answer. It's about the jackscrew 3 point method that I saw an older machinist perform years ago that I haven't been...
