jthomson
Tooling my friend, engineering designs, tooling controls As
Tuesday, April 26, 2022, 05:15

machinist you know how things wear after use, tooling, ie check fixtures need to be updated to control tolerances. Gary's method of hand fitting is the best but not useful for mass production. Inspection come into the equation to determine when a product or process requires upgrading or replacement.
It used to amaze me when I would put out a drawing for a large assembly, how many changes it would take to the drawing to get to first production item, then we would look at the assembly fixture and see as many or more changes to it.
I do agree with you, one would think machining a block of steel into a frame should not have that many variables, but throw in a few other parts for an assembly and every additional part adds to the tolerance build up.
In my opinion the biggest issue is pride in your work, it just does not exist as much as it used to be present, a sad state of affairs for the american workforce.
My apologies to the forum, just an old man rambling about what used to be