My shop's old Mazak decided to eat a tool mid-run on a 500 piece order

I was running a big batch of aluminum brackets last Thursday, just clocking in the hours. The machine was humming along fine, then out of nowhere there was this godawful crunch and the spindle just stopped. I hit the e-stop and opened the door to find the 3/8 end mill snapped clean off and buried in the part. My heart sank because we were already behind and this was a rush job for a client in Detroit. I had to pull the part, which was scrap, and spend the next hour cleaning chips out of the spindle taper and checking for runout. The foreman came over and we figured out the coolant line to that tool had gotten pinched and the tool just overheated and snapped. Has anyone else had a coolant line fail quietly like that? What's your go-to check before a long run now?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_tessa1mo ago

That coolant line thing is honestly one of those silent killers in a shop. I had a similar situation where the line got kinked under some chip buildup and I didn't catch it until we started getting weird surface finishes. Now before any long run I'll zip-tie all my coolant lines away from moving parts and give them a quick visual check. Its a pain but way better than pulling a broken tool out of a part. Also started putting a temp gun on the tool after the first few cycles just to make sure its running cool enough.

harper_foster1mo ago

3M temp guns are cheap and overrated for a production environment.

ellis.leo1mo ago

Temp guns are good but have you checked your coolant concentration lately?