Also willing to help anyone out who has any questions. 7-8 years of 4 axis CNC milling experience and of course some manual machining experience as well.
Got myself a little bench top mill now since I dont work as a machinist anymore, had to since I was getting the shakes for machining withdrawals haha "thumbsup".
Here are my tips for the weekend warriors out there:
- Keep your machine, tooling, fixturing, measuring, etc. clean. The cleaner the better, I cant tell you how many times I had a little chip ruin a part becasue it either lifted the part or dinged it. I swear sometimes it feels like 75% of being a machinist is cleaning.
- Planning Planning Planning...Before taking your first cut brainstorm for a little while about the complete process you are going to go through on your part. There is always more than one way to go about making a part, often times my first idea isnt the best way. If your part is going to take multiple operations figure out the proper order they should go in and verify that you will have a reliable way to hold and locate your part for each opperation.
- Fixturing. This could be as simple as sticking a block in a vise or as complex as cutting a custom fixture for your part. Obviously having a solid fixture is the only way to maintain precision. Again refer to step 2 and make sure you have a plan before starting the work.
- Make at least one extra. If you are making a 2 op part and features need to align make sure you have a "test part" or two or 10 to get everything dialed in.
Patience is the key to getting good at machining. Any time you start to rush you will probably screw something up, dont worry we all do it!
I will have to snap some cool pictures of stuff that I have made, I have some cool stuff I have lying around.
Now I just need to justify a CNC conversion on my little mill so I can make some more complicated stuff without it taking me forever.