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Walked a job in Tulsa, nobody levels the pallet stock before setup
Got brought in to quote a run at a shop outside Tulsa last Thursday. The fixture plate was way off, and the operator said they level the pallets once a month when they feel like it. I checked three fixtures in a row, all pushed past .005. They had a decent Renishaw probe sitting right there and no one uses it for this. Is this a common thing, or does everyone else actually check their pallet setup before they start cutting?
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harper_foster23d ago
...and once a month, that's insane to me. I mean, we all know pallets drift, that's just the nature of the floor shifting and clamps doing their thing. But .005 off on a fixture plate is a big deal, especially if you're running anything tight. That's not a "we'll get to it when we feel like it" kind of tolerance. I've seen guys chase chatter and bad finishes for days only to find out the plate was the problem all along, and they had the tool to fix it sitting right there. It sounds like they're just hoping the probe is for show, not for actually catching problems before they cost you a whole run of scrap. Take this however you want, but I'd be putting that on the quote as a red flag before I even touched a tool.
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tara_patel23d ago
Man, tell me about it. A buddy of mine ran a job last year where they were fighting a .003 bow in a part for two straight weeks. Replaced tool holders, checked spindle growth, the whole nine. Finally someone threw a NIST gauge pin in the fixture hole and it was the plate the whole time. That shop had a brand new probe sitting in the box too, just never set the calibration routine. @harper_foster is spot on, that kind of laziness costs way more than the time to check it. I'd be walking too if I saw that on the quote.
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