Hello World!

Hello World!

We've just launched the site and we're excited to provide our first tooling test for your reading pleasure.  If you haven't already, take a look - you'll find it useful.  And if you hate it, let us know. It’s our first test, so we’re bound to learn something from feedback.

Keeping with the theme of statistics, here are some interesting numbers from the test:

Total cost of material for test: $2,372

Volume of material machined: 1,925 cubic inches

Metal removal difference between first and last place: 180 cubic inches

Volume of hair pulled while killing reflections in end mill photograph: 200,000 cubic inches. No joke, taking pictures is tougher than it looks. Props to the pros who make it look easy.

Running the test was fun, but not without some challenges.  We expected some unknown circumstances but knew if we worked at it, even the toughest obstacle could be overcome…… that’s not true…… we went in completely over confident. Honestly we though this test would be a piece of cake. I mean all we’re doing is some mindless toolpaths on steel. There are no measurements, no scrap, no drawing spec. And we’re hoping the tool breaks for goodness sake! 😊

We found out it wasn’t quite that easy. One of our biggest challenges was guessing how much material we'd need to purchase. If we order too little, we risk the material supplier running short of the heat number, which guts all the testing we previously did. Too much and we're wasting cash. In the end, we did have more waste than was ideal but getting the test out was our priority so we threw a little money at the problem. Luckly, we learned from our mistakes and for Test No 2 and we have a plan.  Material purchasing will be waaay easier!  We simply look up metal removal volume for each tool!

 Oh wait that's what we do - darn. :)