jason_lewis3•28d agoProlific Poster

Met an old timer who taught me about workholding in 5 minutes

I was setting up a job on a Haas VF-2 last spring and this retired machinist named Bill walked by. He saw me fighting with soft jaws and just said "son, you're overthinking it, use a stop block." He showed me how he used to gang parts together on a fixture plate and it saved me 3 hours on that run. Has anyone else had a random encounter that totally changed how you approach a setup?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer_coleman27d ago

I once had a guy show me a trick and I spent the next hour trying to undo the mess I made.

kelly.charlie27d ago

Wait, did Bill watch you actually run parts after showing you that trick, or did he just drop the knowledge and bounce? I'm curious if he stuck around to see if you had any issues with part shift or chip clearance when you gang-loaded them. Cause I tried something similar once (jamming four parts on a manual mill fixture) and the endmill grabbed the last one and sent it into orbit. Did he give you any specific tips on clamping force or how to deal with vibration?

jade_jenkins27d ago

Did you ever find out what kind of vise or clamps he was using? I used to think gang-loading was just asking for trouble, but after watching Bill run a full fixture without a single hiccup, I changed my mind completely. That vibration issue you had sounds like the exact thing his setup avoided with some heavy duty toe clamps and a slower feed rate.