A senior operator pointed out my tool height was off by 0.002 and it changed everything

I've been running CNC mills for about 3 years now, mostly doing small production runs for a machine shop outside Philadelphia. Last month a guy who's been doing this since the 80s watched me set up a job and said my tool height offset was off by two thousandths. I was sure I had it dead on. He had me run a test cut and measure with a micrometer, and sure enough he was right. I had been rushing through the tool setting process, just eyeballing it. Now I take an extra 2 minutes to double check with a dial indicator before every run. My scrap rate dropped from maybe 5 percent to almost nothing. Has anyone else had a simple thing like that get pointed out after years of doing it wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo_cooper24d agoTop Commenter

Oh man this hits hard. A guy named Frank who's been running lathes since before I was born caught me rushing through a finish pass on some aluminum parts. I was taking to heavy a cut because I thought it would save time. He just stood there watching and finally asked if I had ever actually measured the heat buildup in the tool. I had not. He showed me how the first part would always be a few tenths off because I was expanding the material with too much tool pressure. Slowed way down on that operation and started checking my tools at room temperature. Ended up saving hours of rework over the next month. Some of these old timers have seen every mistake you can possibly make.

dylanbarnes23d ago

Frank probably saved you years of headaches right there.