Hey John you should check out a wobble broach if you're planning on making these production. All you'll have to do is drill a pilot hole and then drive the broach through. If you're stuck on the milling aspect, use 3D adaptive and contrain it to that one level using a selected chain in geometry, and choosing the top and bottom surface appropriately. Great Vid as always!!
Ahh, that's the quality of Grimsmo vids I've grown to love, the trial and error, the frustrations and successes and the determination to say f*ck it, I'm doing it no matter what. Good job John, thanks for sharing it with us!
While I hate that you had to go through so many iterations to get it working it is kind of refreshing to see that even more experienced guys run in to this sort of thing. It sucks when it gets stuck in your head like that! Glad you got it all worked out; the screws look fantastic. Best wishes, Tom Z
+Tom Zelickman (Inspiration Metalworks) Thanks Tom! Yes I go through SO many iterations of a part before it's running smoothly. I think I posted 20 versions of code for my screws before they were perfect.
Yes I know I will put the most comments up for one video because I cant wait till the end of the video. However, why not rotary broach the torx so that you can do it all on the lathe?
Very cool! I especially liked the edited sequence with all the camera angles. I know just how much work and time goes into something like that. Well done!
John if you want to open up a collet the easy way is to take your oxy-acetylene torch and heat a spot a little above where the slot ends mid way between the slots. get it red hot quickly about 1/2" diameter than quench it in oil. Do this for all three jaws it will open up the collet. I have done this many times with no detrimental effects on the collet.
+Mountain Storm Cool! I'm learning everything as I'm going along and am not willing to get all academic about it, so I'm keeping it simple and easy. Paul Akers 2 Second Lean style!
Dude your killing it. Every time i thought of a suggestion you answered it with "I'm gonna try this". Keep it up, that Lean manufacturing seems to be really helping. Love the screws too, plus its one of the 3Ses getting everything "standardized". Can't wait for the next video.
Maybe some day I'll be able to afford one of your creations. In the mean time, I am so surprised how much I enjoy watching these "how it's made" videos. This one is superbly shot and very interesting to see the process and issues that come up. Great work!!
Hi mate. I'm happy for you that you got what you wanted to achieve. It did remind me of a lecture I had once. There was this cigarette manufacturer that had a gold band on each of their cigarettes. The manufacturer wanted that gold band to be at a very precise length from the end of the filter. They had spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get that gold band in the right place, but finally got it. A survey was done among smokers of that brand, and it indicated that most of the customers had not noticed the change, and furthermore, that they did not even care where that band was. Now I would not say that your predicament would be the same, I don't even know your target market, but it did trigger the thought of that lecture. Sometimes we are obsessed with something that costs a lot of money and research, and turns out to be a waisted investment. Marcel.
+Marcel Timmers Wonderfully said. I totally agree in a lot of instances. I certainly do spend a lot of time and money over engineering and perfecting things that do not need to be perfect, but I like to think of it as adding to the overall product quality and brand image. Plus it's just who I am. One thing I'm trying to keep in focus is "value to the customer". Do these screws add value to the customer? A little bit, some will love them, some won't notice. But I know. I know that it's the absolute best product I can possibly make. Plus it's been bugging me that the screws were one of the only things I don't make in house.
Yes, the problem with having a program that updates all the time is that it doesn't always work like it once did. I have had problems with the updates. One response from Fusion 360 was that it was "Unexpected" I would see if you can turn off auto update on one computer and test the update on the other that updated.
I'm finding the same issue with Fusion360, since the Jan 23rd update. Changing the tolerance to 0.01mm (from 0.001mm) solved it for me. I'm only using a Tormach mill so that's not a problem. Really great video. The macro shots of the screws at the end were a very nice touch. Those things are beautiful!
I was just making some tiny titanium and Inconel parts for a customer, I found that fusion does not like when you do super small parts seems to run slower but maybe that's just my computer need to upgrade. I had issues with some of the lead in and lead outs not fitting within the pre drilled clearance so you may need to fiddle around with those alittle to get the adaptive clearing cycle too work. Also I was using a .02 and a .013 dia. Endmill and drills, I would suggest looking into Harvey tools they are amazing. They are all coated I believe and they are have great Feed and speed charts for all of there tools. I would highly recommend looking into them, as well as the fact that if you order something you get it super fast like next day and they stock a ton of miniature tooling.
For the cutoff you can put a small angle on the parting tool. If the angle is such that the "outer" part parts off first the nib should end up on the piece on the part left in the collet.
Just a stopid question.. why not broach the torx?? A broaching head for a mill you would whip out in an hour or too including the thinking part. And broaches for most torx patterns is available even thou you could prob. make them as well like 10 at a time on your machines - and it wouldnt even take up much production time. Broaching produces a less perfect fit - but would make up in the time / cost of effing up micro tooling.
Hey John, a couple of quick pointers, G5.1 Q1 on our Fanuc controls has a range for smoothing, ex. G5.1Q1R1 would be "rough" and G5.1Q1R10 would be "smoothest", range from R1-R10, the lower the R value, the faster the cycle time, and highest R value cycle time increases, also I turn it off when ever that type of tool path is finished, in some instances it doesn't like that command to be active. if you want to shave a couple of seconds, I recommend tool precall, even at the last tool, not sure if you got that programmed in. Also, Fanuc has a keep relay that will either keep the tool pot in the up position or the tool pot down before the spindle goes to the tool change position, it'll save about 1.5 to 2 sec. per tool change. Regards, Wen.
+Li Customs Thanks! I know my machine has R1-R4 for speed vs accuracy, but i don't think that particularly has to do with G5.1Q1. For mine, R1 is for speed, R3 is most accurate for 2D contour and R4 is best for 3D contours. My Post does tool pre-call automatically which is great. I did not know about keeping the tool pot down, very cool! Thanks Wen.
when i was working in fasteners and needed to make a socket head cap screw or even a torx screw, we would drill a hole either the size of the across flats or slightly bigger and then use a broach on a press to form the required shape
Great video John ! I really enjoyed the extra insights into the Mori operation, also seeing other people having battles with CAM software - thought it was just my ineptitude ;-)
Sinker EDM for the hex head socket. Judging from the depth of your socket on your screw you might be able to build your own machine that works just as good as a off the shelf machine. The only thing left would be to get the hex shape carbon rod for your electrode. Build it as an array and you could kick out say 50 or so screws every 20 to 25 minutes. Only thing to prep would be to profile and shape the titanium screw blanks. With EDM you would gain mas produced parts vs 1 screw at a time.
+Kostas Froudarakis Thanks Kostas! I've been sending out my editing for the past year or so but I think I'll start doing it myself again like I did for this vid. It's fun. We'll see how much of my time it start sucking up.
+JohnGrimsmo In any case, I liked the part with the collet. The part I liked was 15:50 up to 16:30... It's always nice when you've done all the troubleshooting and got it to just work. I can just stand there and watch it do its thing. Anyway, cheers! Keep up the good work!
John, May i make a sugestion? Leave a .O50" - .100" shank on your screw with the parting tool. Rapid out to .100 clearance hieght above stock. M5 to stop spindle, M9 coolant off, M0 manditory stop. If the Tormach lathe can beep, add it here.Open door and break off screw manually . Hit go, M4 to start spindle CCW. Finish facing off nubbin.
This was a great video. Please do more of these! As for you cam issue, I have ran into a similar problem with RhinoCam, it would not generate a path and kept locking up my software. For me it was due to the complexity of the model i was using. It had way more "points" than it needed. I went back and simplified the facets/points, and problem solved! Just an idea, the top part looks simple enough you might try re-generating it cad wise with fewer facets/simplify it, and run it through again.
chase it out with a carbide reamer, but 5Cs are supposed to hold +/- 005. Used to work in a fixture shop making pins with an optical grind jig (5c). Honestly man I would just buy the screws and modify them. That's a lot of machine time and headache for something so small. Your shop however, best of luck.
+JohnGrimsmo Buy some better 5C collets. Pre-Sprung collets are already slightly stretched, so they will accommodate nominally sized (i.e. oversize) stock. congrats on the mori, nice to see your business expand.
For the bar stock being oversize, chuck it up in a cordless drill with a trigger lock and wrap emery tape around the end of the stock by the drill. Lock the trigger on and slowly slide the emery along to the other end
John you don't know the pain yet! I've been making some wristwatch hands on my manual mill lately, the second hand hole is .25mm and it's press fit! OMG... Good luck with the screws man! But you can buy the titanium screws no problem, I've done some research back in the day.
+cubixthe Wow that's a tiny part! I'm both fascinated and scared of watchmaking, it seems like it would be way too fun of a black hole for me to get into, so I'm trying hard to avoid it.
Titanium is a "pyrophoric" metal (it emits sparks like flint, or burns when disturbed, machined, etc.). Titanium and alloys of titanium are preferred in aircraft to eliminate unnecessary weight. Titanium also does not corrode. If power tools are used to install/drive titanium or titanium alloy fasteners, enough heat can be generated to ignite the metal. I have installed thousands and thousands of titanium alloy screws on aircraft assembly at Boeing-McDonnell-Douglas. The company outlawed the use of power drivers for screws because of the risk of overheating the screw/fastener. Many of the screws go into nut-clips, or have nuts installed on the opposite sides. Those nuts are usually "deformed" to act as a locking mechanism (unless they go into a blind hole, rivnut, etc.). So there is a lot of friction and heat is developed. The metallurgical properties of the fastener can be destroyed by the excess heat. I've seen sparks and little titanium embers emit from the end of nut-clips etc. It is a good idea to take your time when assembling titanium fasteners.
Make the torx jig so that you can run say 10 sets at a time and make the tool change right. Meaning that it runs one op per part and then next op per part and so on. Set up multiple of them small end mills and make the breakage detection change new tool if it's broken. Then you simply leave it run overnight. Zero cost, $$$ income.
Hi John, I have found that the Tormach 5C collets are slightly undersized, I went out and bought a few Hardinge 5C collets and have never had a problem since
I don't know if its been mentioned, but I'm having the same issue in Fusion360 with the 2D adaptive. Same part, but after the new update I get errors that tell me there is no tool-path selected. The latest update seems to have caused some issues, hopefully it gets fixed quickly.
For the screw heads you should try a rotary broach. I broke down an bought one a while ago for a particular part that needed a hex in stainless steel. It was amazing how fast and easy it was to put a 3/16" hex in just drill with a 3/16 and then lower the broach just like a drill. One pass about .001 per rev it took about 10 seconds. I know they make torx broaches also.
Have you considered removing the majority of the stock by drilling it out first? That usually works well for me when I'm working with fragile tools. Great videos by the way
+IkkFedt That's definitely what I'm doing now, drilling with a 0.059" carbide drill, interpolate with a 1/16" endmill, then pick at the corners with the 0.020" endmill. I'd normally do "rest material" so it doesn't waste time air cutting the middle, but I can't get that working right now.
John, Hardinge collets have more "spring" than other brands. They are more expensive ($34 for normal accuracy), but I have Centaur, Lyndex and numerous eBay/Shars collets and now I only buy Hardinge for this precise issue. Also, as you saw, Hardinge stocks sizes in 0.001" increments. You can also go 1/64" up to the next size without issues in my experience - don't need to use Metric collets. You probably know this but banging on your collets with a screwdriver is pretty much ruining their accuracy - not great.
+Melange Bryce Great info to know, thanks for sharing. For all of my lathe parts I don't really care about collet runout and accuracy because I never flip parts over in the lathe, they all get turned in one op, so I don't even think about it. That being said endmill runout on the mill is a giant concern of mine and is something I take very seriously. I actually filmed a blurb about this while filming the screw vid but decided to make it a separate vid.
Good Morning John, why you dont use Trochoidal Milling for the Screwhead? I think for the inner part it would work fine. Or the helixial milling, Haidenhein "Bohrfräsen" - "drillmilling" can work fine also
ClockSpring on youtube does a decent amount of some really beautiful lathe work and does something specific to break the chip just before parting off. It may be along the lines of what you're looking for (or what you proposed).
If you make you're own titanium screws for you're own knives Mr Grimmsmo eney thing made by you will be that mutch harder for people to copy off of you're Awesome!
I just remembered that I have seen guys put little blocks of rubber in a collet to open it up 1 or 2 thousands of an inch. Hardinge is expensive but they will make any size you want.
+Richard Haisley Yeah I just checked out their website, they list every 0.001" increment! $54 is more than the $12 Tormach collets, but worth it if you need it.
I feel as though you should have a custom screwhead in the shape of the grimsmo logo...and ship your knife with a custom screwdriver to take it apart...THAT would set you apart (knowing you already are set apart for being awesome) 14:20 when dealing with the long processing time I bet it's the super duper minute floating point math it has to deal with; most fine detail stuff can deal with big easy to crunch numbers. Tiny numbers require deeper precision floating point math and that just grinds hard on a cpu.
ER32/ER40 collets have a much wider clamping range than 5C. Too bad Tormach does not offer them, but that's a question of the automatic puller/lever support of course.
there is part off inserts have angle cutting edge instead of neutral which enable you to getrid of the nab so while you are parting off the nab diameter on the stock bar side is bigger then the diameter at the part side ,and parts tend to break off at the smaller diameter , i hope this helps
spectacular video as always, thanks 👍🍻 the chamfer blows me away and the fact you can say that you've made every part of this knife is just awesome(apart from the ball bearings, slipping guys lol )brilliant work mate👍👍👍🍻🍻🍻 and how cool Eric was polishing the stainless screws just shows the level you guys are aiming for. should it shock anyone that you're making your own ti screws? i think not 👍
+SharpStuffau dwayne We do make the cages for our bearings (which almost no one else does except for Shirogorov, but ours are better), but no we don't make the actual balls. We also don't forge our own steel. Glad you're enjoying the journey!
Re: the cutoff process most cutoff tools are ground to 90degs which produces a rod like pip attached to the stock and the part. I prefer to grind mine at a bit of an angle so that the part is the first to be separated leaving a cone shape on the stock at that point until full crosscut is achieved! Hope that's clear as mud!
When buying material, it's a common issue to have it either not conform to specs or have it be on the high or low and of specs. This is across all industries. If you want something that precise, you should have it precision ground when you order it or else expect it to be +/- 0.005 or more.
+Mechanical Engineer I've yet to see a supplier who doesn't provide their titanium stock oversize. This is simply because of its cost, many are looking to do as little machine work as possible on what they buy, and so buy very close to the exact dimensions needed and get salty if it's undersize.
John you guys ever try using a rotary broach in your lathe? Probably be a lot faster if you guys are making a lot of these. Doing some M1 titanium screws right now this way myself
To make the part off better, don't part it off. part it to about .02" ish and then just come in with the back side of another tool and break it off with the spindle turning slow or not at all. You can then rig a bin up to that for the part to fall into. Oh and never cut to zero with the part off blade, that is super hard on them, just go a small as you need to get it to come off.
+Widget Works Manufacturing Inc. Neat idea bumping it off, never thought about that. Also I've never heard that it's hard on the partoff tool to go to zero, interesting.
+michael weimer ME TOO! We'll be sending out the first testing DLC batch very soon. I'll be shooting a lot more video coming up. Doing this video reminded me how much fun it is.
It's interesting to see that your biggest problem is software related. I HATE software that doesn't function the way it should. I gave up working IT a few years ago, having worked for a software company burned me out. It's pretty eye opening to learn most software is developed with so much wrong with it and released to the public. And every single software maker does it. Just stuff that either doesn't work or is so problematic, that fixing it will break something else. Software is evil;-)
If you really want a parts catcher, set up a mesh screen on a servo motor. Set it on a timer with the part run. Have it move in like 5 seconds before the cutoff, then move back out.
+Kevo F Just haven't bought a broach yet, the ones I'm seeing start at like $700 and over $100 for the broach itself. Plus I don't like how it shoves bits of metal down into each corner.
JohnGrimsmo Yea for sure they are insanely expensive. You can drill those chips out after broaching, but still I'm not sure it's possible to get it as nice with a broach as you can with that end mill. Anyway thanks for making the videos man, its cool to see what you're up to.
Hi John, Absolutely thoroughly enjoyed watching you work things out and showing this and anything else could also help you find solutions? Take care, you know you are getting into the auto ‘no cables necessary’ type work, (with you controlling the machine from your phone), you will soon be able to firstly make sure the stock is loaded so you can press your phone button for all the cutting to be done and you and Erik can just finish things on the sander etc and hey presto! ;=)
Usually when a cam operation in Fusion stops working for me, I've screwed something up. Try a new test job where you set something quick and simple out and try the 2d adaptive again (it's working fine here)
You need to use a drill to clear most of that material, then you will avoid hogging so much material with a little EM. EDIT: Maybe you dig hog that out, but the corners of the torx could be drilled to save a bunch of milling time.
hi I normally dont point things out but I believe the tool path on the screw could be better if you faced and roughed once instead of using your grooving so much you could put the chamfer and the full contour in two passes with your 35 degree tool then just thread and use ramp out for your threads so you dont need a groove unless you want to then just part it off
Are you running these on a Swiss now? These should be a 3 minute or less one opt part coming off a Swiss with a DC motor to run the end mill for the Torx.
There is a slightly angled cut-off tool for the lathe. (By my memory I´ll say its called right, and left"handed" cut-off tools) If you use that, that little knob, or pin, wont be there on the screw head =) And to pause it for a bit is a good way to break that chip. So great to make everything by yourself!
+Lillebroor I have some angled tools and do use them when making other parts. I don't mind the nib on this part, it gets milled off later. But there will always be some sort of nib on the part unless you can grab it in a sub spindle. At some point it just falls off, or gets pushed off, there's no way the tool will get to zero before the part falls off.
+JohnGrimsmo Yes of course. I was thinking about when I were using a manual lathe. There you can get a wery little, or none, nub sticking out because you feed that slow. You are totally right there :) Well my thoughts were that if the nub were reduced it might be easier to catch when not attach to any chips, in a tray when parting of. But maybe a chip-breaker pause would do just fine. Anyway, great work. As always :D
+Lillebroor I did try the retract when parting off and it totally worked beautifully, so I'll be installing my little parts bin underneath the parting tool again.
John,Interesting video.How did you model the Torx head indent(?); manually modeled , or, downloadable standard file, ... And, do you think you could have done this on the Tormach? Have you ever done Torx Plus?
+ForgottenMan1 I found a Torx screw on mcmaster's website and downloaded it to start from. I have done this on the Tormach for over 450 of my LBS screws, which were also T9 in titanium. Worked great, tool lasted forever now that I think about it.... I've broken more of these endmills on the Mori! Maybe I'm pushing it too hard. I have not tried Torx plus, though it is tempting.
If you have the code from the pivot screw working, why you didn't cut and paste the code for your new screw? Or directly use the same program for the 2 screws. If you upgrade your code for one screw, it will be for the other one at the same time.
+Le_KiD_Qc Yeah I did do that initially, I can't actually copy/paste in Fusion but I could make the code a template and then open it again. I have no idea why it stopped working after doing that. The two screws are different materials so they have slightly different speeds and feeds.
Never thought I'd spend 28 minutes of my life watching a video on making a tiny screw. But I did, and it was awesome!
Keep up the great work!
+ZeitLan Inc. Ha! Thanks for spending the time!
It's good for us to see how your overcome these challenges. You've got no give up... That's what I dig about watching you John.
It feels really good seeing you frustrated. Please feel free to share more. That frustration is often hidden but its a normal part of the process
That was awesome. Thank you for taking the time to share with us.
Liking the new camera angles, transitions, and camera angles. Makes it feel that it has that much more quality in production.
Hey John you should check out a wobble broach if you're planning on making these production. All you'll have to do is drill a pilot hole and then drive the broach through.
If you're stuck on the milling aspect, use 3D adaptive and contrain it to that one level using a selected chain in geometry, and choosing the top and bottom surface appropriately.
Great Vid as always!!
Great vid John!! Loved seeing the thought process and work through!! Thanks! Mike
Great vid, and interesting to see how much work goes into your knives. Awesome attention to details. Love it!!
Ahh, that's the quality of Grimsmo vids I've grown to love, the trial and error, the frustrations and successes and the determination to say f*ck it, I'm doing it no matter what. Good job John, thanks for sharing it with us!
This was an awesome, fascinating video. Thanks for taking the time to share, John.
Thanks for taking the time to video and explain what you are doing and why. Very cool stuff. More, more, more, please !!! Cheers, Gary
+gwcude Glad to know you're digging it Gary!
While I hate that you had to go through so many iterations to get it working it is kind of refreshing to see that even more experienced guys run in to this sort of thing. It sucks when it gets stuck in your head like that! Glad you got it all worked out; the screws look fantastic.
Best wishes,
Tom Z
+Tom Zelickman (Inspiration Metalworks) Thanks Tom! Yes I go through SO many iterations of a part before it's running smoothly. I think I posted 20 versions of code for my screws before they were perfect.
Dude, the sequence with the music was fantastic. Great choice.
Great video, just like your old ones, welcome back......please keep this format coming
Great job at working around the annoying issues to make such a small part!
Thanks for showing us the finished part!
Yes I know I will put the most comments up for one video because I cant wait till the end of the video. However, why not rotary broach the torx so that you can do it all on the lathe?
Very cool! I especially liked the edited sequence with all the camera angles. I know just how much work and time goes into something like that. Well done!
John if you want to open up a collet the easy way is to take your oxy-acetylene torch and heat a spot a little above where the slot ends mid way between the slots. get it red hot quickly about 1/2" diameter than quench it in oil. Do this for all three jaws it will open up the collet. I have done this many times with no detrimental effects on the collet.
+Edge Precision Fantastic advice! I don't have oxy-acetylene anymore but propane/mapp should do it too. Great tip!
I'm studying lean and 6Sigma and all that happy stuff right now and it's cool to see such an artistic application of the pull batch process.
+Mountain Storm Cool! I'm learning everything as I'm going along and am not willing to get all academic about it, so I'm keeping it simple and easy. Paul Akers 2 Second Lean style!
Love the new video style!
Obsession and OCD can be a beautiful thing! Your killing it, keep it going!!!
+Adam Hunter Good to know the OCD is being appreciated Adam hahaha.
Dude your killing it. Every time i thought of a suggestion you answered it with "I'm gonna try this". Keep it up, that Lean manufacturing seems to be really helping. Love the screws too, plus its one of the 3Ses getting everything "standardized". Can't wait for the next video.
Maybe some day I'll be able to afford one of your creations. In the mean time, I am so surprised how much I enjoy watching these "how it's made" videos. This one is superbly shot and very interesting to see the process and issues that come up. Great work!!
Loved the troubleshooting R&D session. Ciao, Marco.
Hi mate. I'm happy for you that you got what you wanted to achieve. It did remind me of a lecture I had once. There was this cigarette manufacturer that had a gold band on each of their cigarettes. The manufacturer wanted that gold band to be at a very precise length from the end of the filter. They had spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get that gold band in the right place, but finally got it. A survey was done among smokers of that brand, and it indicated that most of the customers had not noticed the change, and furthermore, that they did not even care where that band was. Now I would not say that your predicament would be the same, I don't even know your target market, but it did trigger the thought of that lecture. Sometimes we are obsessed with something that costs a lot of money and research, and turns out to be a waisted investment. Marcel.
+Marcel Timmers Wonderfully said. I totally agree in a lot of instances. I certainly do spend a lot of time and money over engineering and perfecting things that do not need to be perfect, but I like to think of it as adding to the overall product quality and brand image. Plus it's just who I am. One thing I'm trying to keep in focus is "value to the customer". Do these screws add value to the customer? A little bit, some will love them, some won't notice. But I know. I know that it's the absolute best product I can possibly make. Plus it's been bugging me that the screws were one of the only things I don't make in house.
Ok fair enough, in that case you should do it. I realise that the two things are not the same.
Yes, the problem with having a program that updates all the time is that it doesn't always work like it once did. I have had problems with the updates. One response from Fusion 360 was that it was "Unexpected" I would see if you can turn off auto update on one computer and test the update on the other that updated.
Awesome edit with the collet spreading! :) Who knew collet spreading was so entertaining to watch.
Really good video brother thanks for making it
+KEYBAR Thanks Mike! I had fun with this one.
AWESOME VIDEO! i really love your video format, its deeply interesting and moving makes me care for you and your business!
I'm finding the same issue with Fusion360, since the Jan 23rd update.
Changing the tolerance to 0.01mm (from 0.001mm) solved it for me. I'm only using a Tormach mill so that's not a problem.
Really great video. The macro shots of the screws at the end were a very nice touch. Those things are beautiful!
If there's a will there's a way....So amazing !
Definately a fun vid! don't mind to see more in the future :)
I was just making some tiny titanium and Inconel parts for a customer, I found that fusion does not like when you do super small parts seems to run slower but maybe that's just my computer need to upgrade. I had issues with some of the lead in and lead outs not fitting within the pre drilled clearance so you may need to fiddle around with those alittle to get the adaptive clearing cycle too work. Also I was using a .02 and a .013 dia. Endmill and drills, I would suggest looking into Harvey tools they are amazing. They are all coated I believe and they are have great Feed and speed charts for all of there tools. I would highly recommend looking into them, as well as the fact that if you order something you get it super fast like next day and they stock a ton of miniature tooling.
Those are some awesome looking titanium screws. I would love to see some proprietary ones made up too. Prolly look pretty sweet on your knives.
That is a terrifying toolchanger. Ka-thunk!
For the cutoff you can put a small angle on the parting tool. If the angle is such that the "outer" part parts off first the nib should end up on the piece on the part left in the collet.
Nope.
Just a stopid question.. why not broach the torx?? A broaching head for a mill you would whip out in an hour or too including the thinking part.
And broaches for most torx patterns is available even thou you could prob. make them as well like 10 at a time on your machines - and it wouldnt even take up much production time.
Broaching produces a less perfect fit - but would make up in the time / cost of effing up micro tooling.
Hey John, a couple of quick pointers, G5.1 Q1 on our Fanuc controls has a range for smoothing, ex. G5.1Q1R1 would be "rough" and G5.1Q1R10 would be "smoothest", range from R1-R10, the lower the R value, the faster the cycle time, and highest R value cycle time increases, also I turn it off when ever that type of tool path is finished, in some instances it doesn't like that command to be active.
if you want to shave a couple of seconds, I recommend tool precall, even at the last tool, not sure if you got that programmed in. Also, Fanuc has a keep relay that will either keep the tool pot in the up position or the tool pot down before the spindle goes to the tool change position, it'll save about 1.5 to 2 sec. per tool change.
Regards,
Wen.
+Li Customs Thanks! I know my machine has R1-R4 for speed vs accuracy, but i don't think that particularly has to do with G5.1Q1. For mine, R1 is for speed, R3 is most accurate for 2D contour and R4 is best for 3D contours.
My Post does tool pre-call automatically which is great. I did not know about keeping the tool pot down, very cool! Thanks Wen.
Really nice video! Looking forward to the next one ;)
when i was working in fasteners and needed to make a socket head cap screw or even a torx screw, we would drill a hole either the size of the across flats or slightly bigger and then use a broach on a press to form the required shape
Really enjoyed this video.
+Steve Welborn Thanks Steve!
Stuff like this is why I subscribed although I don't really care about knives.
Great video John ! I really enjoyed the extra insights into the Mori operation, also seeing other people having battles with CAM software - thought it was just my ineptitude ;-)
Sinker EDM for the hex head socket. Judging from the depth of your socket on your screw you might be able to build your own machine that works just as good as a off the shelf machine. The only thing left would be to get the hex shape carbon rod for your electrode. Build it as an array and you could kick out say 50 or so screws every 20 to 25 minutes. Only thing to prep would be to profile and shape the titanium screw blanks. With EDM you would gain mas produced parts vs 1 screw at a time.
Excellent video, really great work and great editing in the video too!
+Kostas Froudarakis Thanks Kostas! I've been sending out my editing for the past year or so but I think I'll start doing it myself again like I did for this vid. It's fun. We'll see how much of my time it start sucking up.
+JohnGrimsmo In any case, I liked the part with the collet. The part I liked was 15:50 up to 16:30... It's always nice when you've done all the troubleshooting and got it to just work. I can just stand there and watch it do its thing. Anyway, cheers! Keep up the good work!
John,
May i make a sugestion? Leave a .O50" - .100" shank on your screw with the parting tool. Rapid out to .100 clearance hieght above stock. M5 to stop spindle, M9 coolant off, M0 manditory stop. If the Tormach lathe can beep, add it here.Open door and break off screw manually . Hit go, M4 to start spindle CCW. Finish facing off nubbin.
This was a great video. Please do more of these! As for you cam issue, I have ran into a similar problem with RhinoCam, it would not generate a path and kept locking up my software. For me it was due to the complexity of the model i was using. It had way more "points" than it needed. I went back and simplified the facets/points, and problem solved! Just an idea, the top part looks simple enough you might try re-generating it cad wise with fewer facets/simplify it, and run it through again.
chase it out with a carbide reamer, but 5Cs are supposed to hold +/- 005. Used to work in a fixture shop making pins with an optical grind jig (5c). Honestly man I would just buy the screws and modify them. That's a lot of machine time and headache for something so small. Your shop however, best of luck.
Pick up some "emergency" collets. They're set up so you can machine them to size
+Geof Dumas Good call, didn't think of at at the time.
+JohnGrimsmo Buy some better 5C collets. Pre-Sprung collets are already slightly stretched, so they will accommodate nominally sized (i.e. oversize) stock.
congrats on the mori, nice to see your business expand.
For the bar stock being oversize, chuck it up in a cordless drill with a trigger lock and wrap emery tape around the end of the stock by the drill. Lock the trigger on and slowly slide the emery along to the other end
I particularly appreciated the "Grinding Music".
John you don't know the pain yet! I've been making some wristwatch hands on my manual mill lately, the second hand hole is .25mm and it's press fit! OMG... Good luck with the screws man! But you can buy the titanium screws no problem, I've done some research back in the day.
+cubixthe Wow that's a tiny part! I'm both fascinated and scared of watchmaking, it seems like it would be way too fun of a black hole for me to get into, so I'm trying hard to avoid it.
Titanium is a "pyrophoric" metal (it emits sparks like flint, or burns when disturbed, machined, etc.). Titanium and alloys of titanium are preferred in aircraft to eliminate unnecessary weight. Titanium also does not corrode. If power tools are used to install/drive titanium or titanium alloy fasteners, enough heat can be generated to ignite the metal. I have installed thousands and thousands of titanium alloy screws on aircraft assembly at Boeing-McDonnell-Douglas. The company outlawed the use of power drivers for screws because of the risk of overheating the screw/fastener. Many of the screws go into nut-clips, or have nuts installed on the opposite sides. Those nuts are usually "deformed" to act as a locking mechanism (unless they go into a blind hole, rivnut, etc.). So there is a lot of friction and heat is developed. The metallurgical properties of the fastener can be destroyed by the excess heat. I've seen sparks and little titanium embers emit from the end of nut-clips etc. It is a good idea to take your time when assembling titanium fasteners.
Make the torx jig so that you can run say 10 sets at a time and make the tool change right. Meaning that it runs one op per part and then next op per part and so on. Set up multiple of them small end mills and make the breakage detection change new tool if it's broken. Then you simply leave it run overnight. Zero cost, $$$ income.
You can't leave a cnc unattended
viperz888 Yes you can
***** only if you want to be fired.
viperz888 What kind of a shop fires people for getting the shop free money? I wouldn't like to work there.
+viperz888 we leave them unattended all the time, usually run a 3 hr cycle right before I clock out.
I love this channel.
+Steve Walker Thank you Steve, more to come!
No, thank you good sir! Your striving is an inspiration.
Hi John, I have found that the Tormach 5C collets are slightly undersized, I went out and bought a few Hardinge 5C collets and have never had a problem since
You can buy Hardinge collets in custom decimal sizes.
I don't know if its been mentioned, but I'm having the same issue in Fusion360 with the 2D adaptive. Same part, but after the new update I get errors that tell me there is no tool-path selected. The latest update seems to have caused some issues, hopefully it gets fixed quickly.
For the screw heads you should try a rotary broach. I broke down an bought one a while ago for a particular part that needed a hex in stainless steel. It was amazing how fast and easy it was to put a 3/16" hex in just drill with a 3/16 and then lower the broach just like a drill. One pass about .001 per rev it took about 10 seconds. I know they make torx broaches also.
Have you considered removing the majority of the stock by drilling it out first? That usually works well for me when I'm working with fragile tools.
Great videos by the way
+IkkFedt That's definitely what I'm doing now, drilling with a 0.059" carbide drill, interpolate with a 1/16" endmill, then pick at the corners with the 0.020" endmill. I'd normally do "rest material" so it doesn't waste time air cutting the middle, but I can't get that working right now.
great stuff!!
John,
Hardinge collets have more "spring" than other brands. They are more expensive ($34 for normal accuracy), but I have Centaur, Lyndex and numerous eBay/Shars collets and now I only buy Hardinge for this precise issue.
Also, as you saw, Hardinge stocks sizes in 0.001" increments. You can also go 1/64" up to the next size without issues in my experience - don't need to use Metric collets.
You probably know this but banging on your collets with a screwdriver is pretty much ruining their accuracy - not great.
+Melange Bryce Great info to know, thanks for sharing.
For all of my lathe parts I don't really care about collet runout and accuracy because I never flip parts over in the lathe, they all get turned in one op, so I don't even think about it. That being said endmill runout on the mill is a giant concern of mine and is something I take very seriously. I actually filmed a blurb about this while filming the screw vid but decided to make it a separate vid.
I'll Second the Rotary Broach idea. It will save you so much time.
Good Morning John, why you dont use Trochoidal Milling for the Screwhead? I think for the inner part it would work fine. Or the helixial milling, Haidenhein "Bohrfräsen" - "drillmilling" can work fine also
I admire your desire to have everything perfect. Keep these videos coming! Curious on specs on your other camera setup
+Glass Impressions The one on the tripod? It's a Panasonic AG-HMC40, it's my dad's camera on permanent loan. For this film I used a GoPro Black.
This may be time consuming and frustrating, but in the end I think it will pay off. Nice work
+blazemaestro1 Thanks!
Consider buying Hardinge collets. They spring open further than any other brand of collet i have used.
ClockSpring on youtube does a decent amount of some really beautiful lathe work and does something specific to break the chip just before parting off. It may be along the lines of what you're looking for (or what you proposed).
If you make you're own titanium screws for you're own knives Mr Grimmsmo eney thing made by you will be that mutch harder for people to copy off of you're Awesome!
+Adam Pasquale Thanks Adam, my thinking exactly!
I just remembered that I have seen guys put little blocks of rubber in a collet to open it up 1 or 2 thousands of an inch. Hardinge is expensive but they will make any size you want.
+Richard Haisley Yeah I just checked out their website, they list every 0.001" increment! $54 is more than the $12 Tormach collets, but worth it if you need it.
I feel as though you should have a custom screwhead in the shape of the grimsmo logo...and ship your knife with a custom screwdriver to take it apart...THAT would set you apart (knowing you already are set apart for being awesome)
14:20 when dealing with the long processing time I bet it's the super duper minute floating point math it has to deal with; most fine detail stuff can deal with big easy to crunch numbers. Tiny numbers require deeper precision floating point math and that just grinds hard on a cpu.
ER32/ER40 collets have a much wider clamping range than 5C. Too bad Tormach does not offer them, but that's a question of the automatic puller/lever support of course.
there is part off inserts have angle cutting edge instead of neutral which enable you to getrid of the nab so while you are parting off the nab diameter on the stock bar side is bigger then the diameter at the part side ,and parts tend to break off at the smaller diameter , i hope this helps
+baslious Yup I do have some of these angled inserts and I use them for other parts. I don't mind the bigger nib on this part, it gets milled off.
perfection is the enemy of the best
I see you're using the tool-break detection; I don't know how I was able to do long runs without it before HSM!
Did you try using a rotary broach for making the torx, instead of milling them?
spectacular video as always, thanks 👍🍻 the chamfer blows me away and the fact you can say that you've made every part of this knife is just awesome(apart from the ball bearings, slipping guys lol )brilliant work mate👍👍👍🍻🍻🍻 and how cool Eric was polishing the stainless screws just shows the level you guys are aiming for. should it shock anyone that you're making your own ti screws? i think not 👍
+SharpStuffau dwayne We do make the cages for our bearings (which almost no one else does except for Shirogorov, but ours are better), but no we don't make the actual balls. We also don't forge our own steel. Glad you're enjoying the journey!
Re: the cutoff process most cutoff tools are ground to 90degs which produces a rod like pip attached to the stock and the part. I prefer to grind mine at a bit of an angle so that the part is the first to be separated leaving a cone shape on the stock at that point until full crosscut is achieved! Hope that's clear as mud!
Hi John. Thanks for sharing your torx making process. Have you considered broaching the torx head? Might be quicker.
+Seventy7 Industries A lot of up front cost to buy the broach. We'll see what endmill life looks like after running a bunch.
When buying material, it's a common issue to have it either not conform to specs or have it be on the high or low and of specs. This is across all industries. If you want something that precise, you should have it precision ground when you order it or else expect it to be +/- 0.005 or more.
+Mechanical Engineer I've yet to see a supplier who doesn't provide their titanium stock oversize. This is simply because of its cost, many are looking to do as little machine work as possible on what they buy, and so buy very close to the exact dimensions needed and get salty if it's undersize.
John you guys ever try using a rotary broach in your lathe? Probably be a lot faster if you guys are making a lot of these. Doing some M1 titanium screws right now this way myself
To make the part off better, don't part it off. part it to about .02" ish and then just come in with the back side of another tool and break it off with the spindle turning slow or not at all. You can then rig a bin up to that for the part to fall into. Oh and never cut to zero with the part off blade, that is super hard on them, just go a small as you need to get it to come off.
+Widget Works Manufacturing Inc. Neat idea bumping it off, never thought about that. Also I've never heard that it's hard on the partoff tool to go to zero, interesting.
Rask video in the near future? I'm stoked to see the DLC and other finishes.
+michael weimer ME TOO! We'll be sending out the first testing DLC batch very soon. I'll be shooting a lot more video coming up. Doing this video reminded me how much fun it is.
I love this!
It's interesting to see that your biggest problem is software related. I HATE software that doesn't function the way it should. I gave up working IT a few years ago, having worked for a software company burned me out. It's pretty eye opening to learn most software is developed with so much wrong with it and released to the public. And every single software maker does it. Just stuff that either doesn't work or is so problematic, that fixing it will break something else. Software is evil;-)
thay would be incredible to have anodized titanium screws
If you really want a parts catcher, set up a mesh screen on a servo motor. Set it on a timer with the part run. Have it move in like 5 seconds before the cutoff, then move back out.
What about a rotary broach? Hex ones are something like $50 for small ones. Dunno about torx
Is there a reason you're not just rotary broaching it? You can get the torx broaches all the way down to T6 as far as I know, not sure about smaller.
+Kevo F Just haven't bought a broach yet, the ones I'm seeing start at like $700 and over $100 for the broach itself. Plus I don't like how it shoves bits of metal down into each corner.
JohnGrimsmo Yea for sure they are insanely expensive. You can drill those chips out after broaching, but still I'm not sure it's possible to get it as nice with a broach as you can with that end mill. Anyway thanks for making the videos man, its cool to see what you're up to.
Hi John,
Absolutely thoroughly enjoyed watching you work things out and showing this and anything else could also help you find solutions?
Take care, you know you are getting into the auto ‘no cables necessary’ type work, (with you controlling the machine from your phone), you will soon be able to firstly make sure the stock is loaded so you can press your phone button for all the cutting to be done and you and Erik can just finish things on the sander etc and hey presto! ;=)
Usually when a cam operation in Fusion stops working for me, I've screwed something up. Try a new test job where you set something quick and simple out and try the 2d adaptive again (it's working fine here)
You need to use a drill to clear most of that material, then you will avoid hogging so much material with a little EM. EDIT: Maybe you dig hog that out, but the corners of the torx could be drilled to save a bunch of milling time.
hi I normally dont point things out but I believe the tool path on the screw could be better if you faced and roughed once instead of using your grooving so much you could put the chamfer and the full contour in two passes with your 35 degree tool then just thread and use ramp out for your threads so you dont need a groove unless you want to then just part it off
you should have boreable collets John a lot more flexability for oversize material
Are you running these on a Swiss now? These should be a 3 minute or less one opt part coming off a Swiss with a DC motor to run the end mill for the Torx.
Also do you really need a torx head or could you replace it with an alternate that's easier to mill?
There is a slightly angled cut-off tool for the lathe. (By my memory I´ll say its called right, and left"handed" cut-off tools) If you use that, that little knob, or pin, wont be there on the screw head =) And to pause it for a bit is a good way to break that chip. So great to make everything by yourself!
+Lillebroor I have some angled tools and do use them when making other parts. I don't mind the nib on this part, it gets milled off later. But there will always be some sort of nib on the part unless you can grab it in a sub spindle. At some point it just falls off, or gets pushed off, there's no way the tool will get to zero before the part falls off.
+JohnGrimsmo Yes of course. I was thinking about when I were using a manual lathe. There you can get a wery little, or none, nub sticking out because you feed that slow. You are totally right there :)
Well my thoughts were that if the nub were reduced it might be easier to catch when not attach to any chips, in a tray when parting of. But maybe a chip-breaker pause would do just fine. Anyway, great work. As always :D
+Lillebroor I did try the retract when parting off and it totally worked beautifully, so I'll be installing my little parts bin underneath the parting tool again.
On the collet hole size thing ... just machine the hole to correct size surely ?
John,Interesting video.How did you model the Torx head indent(?); manually modeled , or, downloadable standard file, ...
And, do you think you could have done this on the Tormach?
Have you ever done Torx Plus?
+ForgottenMan1 I found a Torx screw on mcmaster's website and downloaded it to start from. I have done this on the Tormach for over 450 of my LBS screws, which were also T9 in titanium. Worked great, tool lasted forever now that I think about it.... I've broken more of these endmills on the Mori! Maybe I'm pushing it too hard. I have not tried Torx plus, though it is tempting.
If you have the code from the pivot screw working, why you didn't cut and paste the code for your new screw? Or directly use the same program for the 2 screws. If you upgrade your code for one screw, it will be for the other one at the same time.
+Le_KiD_Qc Yeah I did do that initially, I can't actually copy/paste in Fusion but I could make the code a template and then open it again. I have no idea why it stopped working after doing that. The two screws are different materials so they have slightly different speeds and feeds.