Practices to develop

"Take your time , when you get in a hurry, bad things happen", My truck driving mentor ingrained this in my brain to the point that I wanted to kick him out the door. But it's definitely saved my bacon more than once. A compliment in private from a shop manager about another employee also stuck with me over the years, He said "he's not fast, but you never have to check his work".
 
I probably need to post it in "goofs and blunders to avoid". I had a recent mishap that resulted in no injury, but could have. How? I was in a hurry.

I'll post the thread on the part, but I was reproducing an Erector set part on my Clausing lathe. I leave a 5C collet chuck on that lathe, was turning a 5/16" birch dowel. I use a Makita cordless with a 10 mm square adapter to tighten/loosen the collet as it takes something like 4 full turns to loosen the collet. I was in "production mode"; made a part, stuck the Makita in the collet chuck, loosened it up. As I use up the dowel it disappears into the headstock, I take a ramrod through the spindle to push the dowel towards the tailstock for the next part.

In my haste, my "standardized work" was to stick the Makita in the chuck, loosen the collet, leave the Makita in the chuck in my hand, lean to the headstock end of the lathe, use the ramrod to advance the dowel to a stop, and retighten with the Makita. I lost my balance a bit and leaned into the lathe and bumped the drum switch into reverse. Before I knew it, the Makita was gone. "Where the heck did my Makita go?" The chuck spun, took the Makita out of my hand and deposited it in the chip pan. . . No harm, no foul other than I now remove the Makita from the collet chuck after loosening, use the ramrod, then reinsert the Makita to tighten up the collet. Yes, I have repeated the incident twice (bumped the drum switch) but the Makita was safely in my hand.

Bruce
 
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BGHansen said:
I probably need to post it in "goofs and blunders to avoid". I had a recent mishap that resulted in no injury, but could have. How? I was in a hurry.

I'll post the thread on the part, but I was reproducing an Erector set part on my Clausing lathe. I leave a 5C collet chuck on that lathe, was turning a 5/16" birch dowel. I use a Makita cordless with a 10 mm square adapter to tighten/loosen the collet as it takes something like 4 full turns to loosen the collet. I was in "production mode"; made a part, stuck the Makita in the collet chuck, loosened it up. As I use up the dowel it disappears into the headstock, I take a ramrod through the spindle to push the dowel towards the tailstock for the next part.

In my haste, my "standardized work" was to stick the Makita in the chuck, loosen the collet, leave the Makita in the chuck in my hand, lean to the headstock end of the lathe, use the ramrod to advance the dowel to a stop, and retighten with the Makita. I lost my balance a bit and leaned into the lathe and bumped the drum switch into reverse. Before I knew it, the Makita was gone. "Where the heck did my Makita go?" The chuck spun, took the Makita out of my hand and deposited it in the chip pan. . . No harm, no foul other than I now remove the Makita from the collet chuck after loosening, use the ramrod, then reinsert the Makita to tighten up the collet. Yes, I have repeated the incident twice (bumped the drum switch) but the Makita was safely in my hand.

Bruce
Click to expand...
I totally get how that happened. I bumped the drum switch on my South Bend more times times than I can count.
Glad you came away unscathed!
 
See, drum switches are dangerous. Without them, we would be able to leave our keys in our chucks, but nooo.

Back on topic, today I was doing a heavy removal job making big chunk of CR square bar into channel stock. I really wanted to make the channel with a full-width cut, and I only have HSS in that size. I wasn't happy with the finish, to I resharpened the face of the end mill using my Sheckel D-bit grinder in three easy steps: Primary relief, secondary relief, and gash. Ten minutes later, I was back at it and getting a much better finish in that fussy cold-rolled. I started thinking about skills to develop, and I gotta say, sharpening stuff is a great skill to have. It's turning my small stash of cutting tools into a lifetime supply. My modest Deckel clone can actually do a lot, but the more I learn about tool and cutter making, the more I'm able to make use of the belt sander in freehand too. It's a rewarding rabbithole.

This is a great primer for those of us running a one man shop:

Microsoft OneDrive

1drv.ms 1drv.ms
 
pontiac428 said:
See, drum switches are dangerous. Without them, we would be able to leave our keys in our chucks, but nooo.

Back on topic, today I was doing a heavy removal job making big chunk of CR square bar into channel stock. I really wanted to make the channel with a full-width cut, and I only have HSS in that size. I wasn't happy with the finish, to I resharpened the face of the end mill using my Sheckel D-bit grinder in three easy steps: Primary relief, secondary relief, and gash. Ten minutes later, I was back at it and getting a much better finish in that fussy cold-rolled. I started thinking about skills to develop, and I gotta say, sharpening stuff is a great skill to have. It's turning my small stash of cutting tools into a lifetime supply. My modest Deckel clone can actually do a lot, but the more I learn about tool and cutter making, the more I'm able to make use of the belt sander in freehand too. It's a rewarding rabbithole.

This is a great primer for those of us running a one man shop:

Microsoft OneDrive

1drv.ms 1drv.ms
Click to expand...

I just so happen to have that book on my bookshelf :)
 
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