@laneymachinetech

Craigslist Score! 👊 I saw the posting for this Buehler Ecomet III metallographic polisher and got super excited! The things go for stupid money, even though they’re very simple. It’s just a turntable with an adjustable speed motor and water spout. But they interface with a whole system of interchangeable platens and pads. The price for this one was $50! And it came with four platens, several bags of pads with varying textures, and a bunch of tubes of abrasives (mostly diamond). It even came with adorable, in-house developed instructions for lapping microelectronic specimens 😁 Metallographic polishing is done to prepare metal specimens for viewing under a microscope. In our classes, we sometimes view ferrous metals under the microscope to do analysis of material type and grain structure, especially during heat treatment processes. The seller for this machine was really interesting! It was actually a couple who was retiring from running a prototyping shop in Emeryville, CA that made special alloys. It turns out the old man was at one time a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and knew some of my friends from there, including my mentor Jim Galvin who passed last year. It’s a small world! #polishing #lapping #metallurgy #machining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design #metrology #inspection

It’s Textbook Tuesday! This is “Porous Graphite Air-Bearing Components as Applied to Machine Tools”. I mentioned this fantastic 1974 report to SME in my recent interview on the @withintolerancepodcast The article discusses many aspects of the application, design, fabrication and testing of aerostatic bearings (ie those which use externally pressurized air). But its primary topic is an aerostatic hemispherical spindle developed at the Oakridge Y-12 plant. This is where air bearing spindles were first developed in earnest, so this is a fascinating insight into the history of precision machine design. But the thing I love about this article is that it is full of practical information - basically everything you need to know to build your own air bearing spindles. The information is presented clearly and concisely. Even the math is explained in such a way that someone with minimal math background can understand it! One of the key nuggets in this article is the discussion of flowrate through aerostatic bearings. It was found that the spindle had a weird self-excited vibration. After investigation, the cause was identified as “pneumatic hammer”. Basically, this is a result of the air flowrate through the bearings being too high. In simplified terms, what happens is that the pressure between the bearing and the surface pushes the bearing up until enough separation forms between the two that all the air blows out and the pressure drops. The bearing then comes crashing back down until the gap is small enough that the pressure can build back up. And the cycle continues. The solution is to restrict the air flowrate into the bearing area. In conventional air bearing designs, this is done with precisely-sized orifices and slots. In porous media air bearing designs (for example, those which use graphite), this is done using the many tiny air passages in the media itself. You could purchase specially-made graphite with the right permeability. Or you could purchase any old porous graphite and tune it with lacquer! #textbooktuesday #kinematics #airbearing #precision #metrology #inspection #machining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design

Micrometer lapping kit! 😍 I found these two Van Keuren micrometer lapping kits on eBay recently and absolutely could not help myself. I have read about these before (pics of 1940’s VK catalog are included) and I’ve made my own fixtures to do the same thing based on pictures. But I’d never seen one in real life! These rare kits, no longer sold by VK, contain everything you need to recondition the spindle and anvil faces of a micrometer. This includes the plates, fixtures and abrasive compound used for lapping. But it also includes the optical flats, gage blocks, wire and balls used for testing parallelism of the two faces and their perpendicularity to the spindle axis. The basic idea is that you first clamp the spindle in the squaring fixture, which is a clamshell clamp with a ground annular base that is perpendicular to the center hole. Then you lap the spindle face on the big cast iron lap. Next, you close down the micrometer on one of the smaller double-sided circular laps, the two sides of which are very flat and parallel, and lap the anvil. In principle, the spindle face orients the lap so that the anvil face will be lapped parallel to it. In practice, this is easier said than done. Finally, flatness of the faces is checked with an optical flat and monochromatic light source (mono light not included). Parallelism of the two surfaces is checked with the wire and balls. The micrometer is closed down on the ball, then you remove the ball and try to shove it between the faces in various places. If the faces are parallel, then the ball will slip in with equal drag everywhere. To check for perpendicularity of the face to the spindle axis, the same check is performed with another ball of a slightly different size so that the spindle is in a different part of its rotation. The kits are missing the second ball, but come with a .180” wire which I believe is used for the same thing. These are the big papa kits with all the goodies for reconditioning up to 4-5” micrometers. I’m excited to try it out on a worn out micrometer 🙌 #micrometer #lapping #toolmaking #machining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design #metrology #inspection

Our new CNC mill! On Thursday morning, we received a 2008 YCM @ycmcncmachine FV Series 56T CNC machining center in excellent condition. It was donated by Stryker Endoscopy, a medical device manufacturer in San Jose, CA. They were getting a Makino DA300 and needed the floor space, so they had to get rid of this and another machine. The R&D director, Calvin S., is a part-time instructor at another college. He values manufacturing education, so he prefers to donate surplus equipment rather than sell it. Stryker even paid for Dunkel Logistics to deliver the machine and @clancymachinetool has agreed to donate their time to do the setup installation! Thank you all so much for supporting our program and the future of manufacturing! 🙏 I’ve heard great things about YCM machines (Taiwanese) from others. The FV series machines are designed for high speed, high performance mold machining. And the 56T is the compact, small footprint model with the 15K RPM spindle that takes the adorable little BT30 toolholders. We were going to buy two Haas Mini Mills this year, but the YCM will replace one of them. The two machines have exactly the same footprint - if you don’t count the coolant sump on the YCM. I LOVE that it has a separate coolant sump with built-in filter and oil skimmer! I despise the design of the mini mill with its coolant sump integrated into the casting. It’s so hard to clean… 🤬 Comparing the YCM FV 56T to a Haas Super Mini Mill: The Super Mini Mill weighs 4000 lbs, has a 10K RPM spindle, does 1200 IPM rapids, has a travel of 16” in X, 12” in Y and 10” in Z and has a full load of 40 amps. The 56T weighs over 6000 lbs, has a 15K RPM spindle, does 1800 IPM rapids, has a travel of 22” in X, 16” in Y and 18” in Z and has a full load of 60 amps. The YCM is a hurly-burly machine in a small package. I CANNOT wait to run it through its paces. (Although, I think the machine would jump around all over the shop if I tried to run it at max feedrate 😅) It even comes with a 4th axis, vise, tool setter and toolholders! 😍 #newmachineday #machining #cncmachining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design #apprentice #machiningstudent

Hot off the heels of an internship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Adam Balogh of Laney College rejoins the podcast this week.  Adam shares all of the amazing machinery and processes he saw while working in the Target Fabrication lab, Dylan and Adam discuss the machines Laney College has acquired since his last episode, and Adam shares Laney College's "Fall is Free" program for the 2022 Fall Semester.   To find out more about the Fall is Free program and apply head to https://laney.edu/fall-is-free-at-laney/ The Laney College Machine Technology program https://laney.edu/machine_technology/ Check out Adam's IG @laneymachinetech Corrections: 1)  The dish of the Arecibo radio telescope is made of perforated aluminum, not concrete.  2)  The Star Wars program was a system of space lasers, not a space telescopes. 3) Rigging/Logistics company that donated their time to deliver the Kern to Laney is LLS Inc. (www.llsteamusa.com) Thanks to @alientoolsgmbh for continuing to teach me how to photoshop ----------------------------------------- Help support the podcast at the link in bio #instamachinist #cncmachining #cnc #Kern #laneycollege #laneymachinetech

.1 micron resolution in discrete steps 🤯 I was playing around with our Kern MMP microprecision milling machine donated by @kernprecision and finally it clicked in my head just how utterly ridiculous it is that the resolution of the axes goes out to four decimal places. I am used to using machines in inch mode, where four decimal places is normal. That’s just ten-thousandths of an inch. No big deal. But this machine is in millimeter mode! .0001mm is .1 micron, 100 nanometers! Or for us inch folks, that’s 4 microinches, 4 millionths of an inch! That’s such a tiny value!! I was slightly disbelieving at first. I thought, “This must just be the resolution of the glass scales. There’s no way this thing can actually move in such tiny discrete steps.” BUT IT CAN! Verified with a high resolution indicator measuring displacement of the table, when the table is jogged .1 micron it actually moves .1 micron! Why is this so amazing? Because of friction. This machine uses conventional technology in its construction: timing belts, ballscrews, linear guide rails with rolling elements, etc. There’s a lot of sliding and rolling friction in an assembly like that. This leads to lost energy and a phenomenon known as stiction. This is the result of lost energy when breaking free two surfaces in contact when they begin to move relative to one another. It is like a sort of stuttering effect of the machine travel when trying to make small movements. The machine builds up energy to crack the surfaces loose, but then as soon as the surfaces move the energy is dissipated. The machine lurches forward and then stops suddenly. Stiction makes it really hard to make small adjustments in precision mechanisms. One way around this is to back off the table a little to get it moving and then advance it forward to its new position. But the fact that the axes on this machine can be moved in individual .1 micron movements is incredible! This is what’s possible with a really well-designed, dialed-in machine. #kernmmp #microprecision #precision #machinebuilding #machining #cncmachining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design #metrology #inspection

Hidden student talents! 😍 Student Anna G. @anagallira asked to borrow my favorite micrometer. (Can you tell which one it is? 😁) She came back a couple weeks later with this beautiful pencil drawing! And she even framed it for us 👌 I love it! Thank you! Some of these older hand tools have such a wonderful form. I think I may commission Anna to do a series of these so we can put them up in our new metrology lab! What do you say, Anna? Are you up for it? #pencildrawing #drawing #micrometer #apprentice #machinistapprentice #machiningstudent #machinist #cncmachining #manualmachining #machining #lathe #mill #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design #metrology #inspection

It’s Textbook Tuesday! This is IPT’s “Industrial Trades Training Manual” by Bruce Basaraba. This is the textbook we use in our MACH 207 - Mechanical Drive course. (In which you should enroll at once!) IPT is a Canadian technical book publisher which specializes in handbooks and training manuals for the skilled trades. This is their millwright training manual, which is actually the same as the handbook version except that it has larger print, spiral binding and review questions at the end of every chapter 👍 This book borrows a lot (A LOT) from power transmission component manufacturers’ literature. But that’s OK. What we like about it is that it has tons and tons of practical information all in one place. Things like properties of different journal bearing materials, values for gear backlash, how to select a poly v-belt and how to determine indicator sag. These are all things that any millwright, any industrial maintenance mechanic or IMHO any machinist should know. This is not the kind of book you read front to back to learn about power transmission systems. It’s a reference. It’s the kind of thing I would keep in my toolbox. There are other books of this type - for example, the ones published by Audel. Those are good too. The review questions are what eventually sold us on this one ☝️ #textbooktuesday #millwright #mechanic #industrialmaintenance #maintenance #machining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design

My first timepiece! 🕰 WARNING: the pallet fork and escapement wheel were installed backward! Oops! This is a mechanical wall clock I made using 1/4” thick laser-cut hardwood-veneered MDF and machined brass. I wish I could take credit for the design, but it actually comes from the excellent video lecture series “DIY Engineering” by Stephen Ressler @architectus79 . Although, I believe he borrowed strongly from Brian Law’s wooden clocks (www.woodenclocks.co.uk). There was already a vector drawing file for the laser cut wood parts. I ordered them from Ponoko, an online laser cutting service. I had never used one of these sites before, but I found it pretty streamlined. The parts were sort of lackluster in the as-cut condition. So I sanded them and applied some Hornby’s tung oil finish. What an amazing improvement! That stuff is pure magic! It really brought out the beautiful grain of the hardwood veneer. Most of the parts, even the mechanical components - like the gears and pallet fork, are wood. But all the rotating components are super-glued to 3” long brass tubes which slide on brass rods. The design is an energy vampire 🧛‍♂️ - meaning: the friction is incredibly high. The clock wouldn’t even run without first lubing the shafts with some Nyoil. Since I’m a machinist, I wanted to make at least some custom parts out of metal. I showed the brass accent pieces I made in previous posts: the pivot, the ornamental turned screws, the weights and pendulum. One very special feature is the African Blackwood insert in the pendulum which was decorated with ornamental turning by @sauerjon on one of his rose engines. You can see this piece being made in one of my previous posts. It is such a pretty piece and it was such a wonderful memory for me, that I had to find some application for it! This is not the most accurate time-keeping device. In fact, it’s running fast right now so I have to adjust the pendulum length. But it’s gorgeous and it makes a pleasant sound 😁 #ornamentalturning #guilloche #horology #clockmaking #mechanicalclock #clock #machining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design

The last few parts for my side project 😁 Sorry, no process pics for these. I was rushing to get them done. Sometimes you just gotta bang something out, like when it’s Friday evening and you’ve got to read The Jungle Book for the 350th time to your impatient toddler 😂 These parts are mystery brass. There are two cylinders with yokes for cotter pins to attach a very nice nickel-plated brass chain. There’s also a disc with radius blend feature to hold an African Blackwood insert decorated with ornamental turning by @sauerjon on one of his rose engines. (The wood piece is held in by an internal O-ring.) Mostly lathe work on these. A little bit of milling to make the yokes and cotter pin holes. Looking pretty nice, I must say! Brass is the prettiest 😍 It’s going to age so nicely. What am I making? 🤔 #roseengine #ornamentalturning #guilloche #lathe #millingmachine ##manualmachining #machining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design

Machine Shop Tetris 🤔 Taking over management of the college’s machine shop has been quite the learning experience for me. And shop layout has been one of the most difficult things to master. With all the CNC machines we’ve had (and are going to have) coming into the shop, I’ve had to spend a fair bit of time thinking about where to put them all and also where to put all the manual machines displaced by the CNC machines. It’s intellectually exhausting 😵‍💫 Thankfully, we’re getting to the end. All the manual machines have been repositioned. Now I just need to finagle three CNC machines into the remaining space on the Northwest side of the shop. The first machine is our Haas SL-10 CNC turning center. The second machine is a secret machine donation which is arriving on Thursday 🤫 And the third machine is a Haas Super Mini Mill which we are purchasing this Fall semester. I can usually get by with just a tape measure and masking tape to mark the positions of the machines directly on the ground. But this one’s gonna be tight. And all the machines are arriving at different times, so I have to get their placements right the first time ☝️ So I went into Solidworks and made a quick model of the building layout. Then I took some measurements of the various machines and sketched up some simplified models of those too. This made it super easy to move the machines around to find the best fit and orientation 🙌 I’m happy with the configuration. My absolute minimum for spacing between machines is 3 feet (1 meter). And I want no less than 6 feet (2 meters) spacing on the operator side (marked with a blue circle on the models). The models need to be more than just boxes with dimensions which bound the extreme limits of the machine. This doesn’t give enough information about the shape of the machine - for example, where and how far the chip conveyor juts out. On the other hand, the models from the Haas website are a little too detailed and mess with my head when I’m trying to fit things. #shoplayout #lathe #millingmachine #machining #cncmachining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design #apprentice #machiningstudent

Wondering which FREE classes to take this Fall @laneycollege ? MACH 207 - Mechanical Drives is one of the coolest classes we offer! The class covers not just the what, but also the how and why of industrial power transmission systems. You'll learn about the physics of mechanical systems, how to select the correct components for replacement, how to properly assemble equipment, how to maintain machinery for long service life, and how to troubleshoot common machine problems. The class is taught in 14 modules: Simple Mechanics and Physics of Power Transmission; Plain, Static and Dynamic Bearings; Rolling Element Bearings: Lubrication; Motors; Balancing; Shaft Couplings; Shaft Alignment; Belt Drives; Chain Drives; Gear Drives; Conveyors and Related Handling Equipment; Linear Motion Devices; and Clutches and Brakes. The lectures feature PowerPoint presentation slides created from scratch by yours truly (Instructor Adam B). I put a ridiculous amount of work into developing this class into something I'm happy with. I've included a few random samples of the slides 👌 I'm sure you'll agree they're STUNNING. But lectures are only part of this class. The other part - arguably the most important part - is the hands-on labs. Every week you'll get yours hands dirty installing bearings with an induction heater, performing a dynamic balance on a motor shaft, aligning a pump and motor with a laser aligner, adjusting chain take-up, and all kinds of other fun activities! The class meets in-person from 6-8:15pm on Mondays and Wednesdays. Enroll today! I'm happy to waive the prerequisite if you have some background knowledge/experience. Questions? Need help applying or enrolling? Want to waive the prereq? Email me at [email protected] #laneycollege #sfbayarea #oakland #maintenance #industrialmaintenance #machinery #mechanics #machining #machinist #cnc #metrology #inspection #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #apprentice #engineering #design

Thank you @livermore_lab 🙏 Yesterday was the last day of my internship in Target Fabrication where they build nuclear fusion experiments for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Truly one of the most memorable experiences of my entire life! It was a never-ending parade of awesomeness 🤯 I didn’t really know what to expect when I first arrived. I thought maybe they would let me look over the machinists’ shoulders as long as I stayed out of the way. And I would have been quite satisfied with that. But instead they told their most senior machinist, “Your job for the next two weeks is to teach this guy anything he wants to learn.” And then they set me loose on the machines 😳 So I was milling foams on a Kern with end mills no bigger than a human hair and turning sine waves on a Moore Nanotech with diamond tools! (This is all after the proper training of course, and there was a lot of training…) Everyone I met was welcoming, friendly, level-headed, patient, open to sharing their immense knowledge and open-minded about trying new techniques and pushing the boundaries of what can be done in a machine shop. It was an absolute joy to work with the crew! The internship was a unique and critical opportunity for Livermore Lab to share knowledge with the machine technology department at Laney College, so that we can prepare our students for machinist positions at the Lab and help promote open positions at the Lab with our students. I believe our department is especially good at training entry-level machinists for R&D environments which require a broad range of technical skills, tight tolerance work and high level critical thinking. And it seems the Lab agrees, since they hire so many of our graduates for their apprenticeship 👍 If you want to build the best foundation of knowledge and skills as a machinist, you go to Laney College. If you want to build on that foundation and work at the highest level of the trade, you go to Livermore Lab. Photos from LLNL site. #ultraprecision #precision #micromachining #machining #machineshop #machineshoplife #instamachinist #engineering #design #metrology #inspection