Shop Time w/T.W. Friends.

I’m really liking the stuff I’m getting that is water jetted. The shop I get all my parts cut out at recently purchased one.

 

Water jets are nice. There was one near us who we used before they sold out and moved on.

Here’s a piece of 6061-T6 aluminum they cut out for us 6” thick. The finish is great for that thickness.

 

Was very surprised at how close of tolerances they can cut.

 

Yeah water can hold tighter tolerances than plasma and much less clean up but now that laser is out it's becoming king and good ones keep getting cheaper and cheaper.

 

Watched a lazer cutter at the machinery show last year. Was bad azz but high dollar equipment.

 

Lasers open up such a huge world of options. Our 4,000 watt Trumpf Co2 laser opens up a lot of possibilities over our high speed punch. Thicker capacity, better edge quality, larger sheet capacity, and the freedom to cut any profile without needing tooling.
I program ours along with being the senior CAD designer, and yes, a lot of people don’t understand the input that goes into the files, programming, setup, etc... it really adds up.
I’m sure Creed can relate to people saying “it’s just a small job, it’s just one part” when I hear that I cringe.
I guess it all depends on the way the shop is set up and ran, small job shops account for this and normally have a few skilled “fabricators” who can follow a job through the shop and complete every task (take Creed for example) then there are custom production shops like the one I’m at, we take small jobs, but the structure of our shop is really set up for moderately low production quantities, we don’t pump out 1 or 2 products repeatedly every day, so our employees are versed in figuring out challenges and diverse parts, but we also maintain an operator for every machine and with that overhead cost we try to keep the number of setups low and the quantity moderately high. In addition, all of our CNC equipment is programmed offline, so the operators can focus on production, and not figuring out if the machine/tooling is capable of completing the task.
Sorry for the digression, just shedding some light on the differences in operation.

hope everyone has a great Friday! My hens just started laying eggs this week so I just finished up a lazy morning breakfast of eggs and bacon while sipping coffee.

 

Yep right now they are. Soon the prices will start dropping more and more.

 

The newer technology fiber optic lasers are a lot quicker and require less maintenance than the older Co2 lasers since they don’t bounce a beam down the axis of the machine using mirrors. They also generate their power from a solid state disc as opposed to firing power through a resonator with Co2, so they use less consumables. But from what I’m hearing from our techs and sales reps is that they’re turning out to be less amazing than originally thought... we were going to upgrade soon, but might just sit tight.

 

Now to get it down, flip it over and find somewhere to put it until all the small hardware comes in. This thing has it all, horizontal welds, vertical, over head, top, sideways, upside down top horizontical welds. Fun times. If this one works they want another one

The table it’s sitting on is 4’ X 8’

 

The problem we run into with people just walking in is one part and it takes longer to fixture it and program it as it does to run the part. They don't understand why it's going to cost them $75 and they don't understand $60K machines aren't free

 

Many people that squawk about prices have no idea of what happens behind the scenes.

 

Cole and I went deer hunting this morning for youth day, didn’t see any deer but we had some good time together. We’ll try again this afternoon.

 

Made this rack to haul deer years ago to keep blood out of the truck and a while back I took it and all my hitches and clevis’s to my buddy at powdercoat. He ask what color. I said I want to recognize them if someone borrows one. This is what I got

 

No mistaking them now!

At the decal shop I worked at ages ago, I printed Yoda's face to put on my fluorescent green tape measure because people were constantly borrowing it. It always found it's way back to me after that.

 

Holy crap, I do still have it.



His body was from doing a shit ton of door decals for Touchstone Energy vehicles.

 

Did some late night modification on my son’s go kart clutch so it engages at a lower RPM since he’s a beginner rider.
Took the clutch apart and spread a few coils out so the spring has a little more slack.
Took a few laps with the head light on and it lets me idle it way down and engage it. Had to take into account that I weigh 170 and he weighs 45, so I cranked the throttle stop down one more turn for good measure.
Now I just need to convince him to get on the darn thing!

 

Morning came and went quickly today, but here’s to hoping everyone’s making the most of their weekend!
Did some Cub Scout stuff with my older son, pack hike Saturday morning, birdhouse building Sunday morning.
And the big achievement for today has been getting evil knievel on his kart!
Not sure who’s prouder!

 

@Gregthespy - Big congrats getting him on the go cart!

And you're getting all that done and I'm just sitting here watching football.

 

Trust me, I’m sure if these guys weren’t up at 7:00am I wouldn’t be! But at the end of the day, I wouldn’t change a thing about it!