Had to pick between a soft jaw and a hard jaw setup for a rush job

Boss threw a 50 piece aluminum run at me at 4pm on Friday. Soft jaws would take 20 minutes to cut but hold better, hard jaws were already set but leave marks. I went with the soft jaws because I hate deburring customer complaints. Ended up crushing the first part because I forgot to update my zero offset after cutting the jaws. Took me another 30 minutes to recut them and reset everything. Got the job done by 7 but almost threw my calipers across the shop. Anybody else have a tooling choice backfire on a hurry up job?

2 comments

2 Comments

lunaw723d ago

Honestly, I think you were already asking for trouble the second you chose soft jaws for a fast job. If time is tight and the parts aren't gonna be seen, a little witness mark from hard jaws beats recutting jaws twice and praying your zero doesn't drift. Save the fancy setup for Monday morning when you can actually breathe.

logan_thomas873d ago

Does this apply to everything now, not just machining? It feels like everywhere you look people are overcomplicating stuff that should be simple, especially when time is short. I see it all the time with friends who spend an hour picking the perfect playlist for a party instead of just hitting shuffle and getting on with it. Or guys I know who prep their workbenches and tools for a weekend project like they're building a rocket engine. Sometimes you just gotta go with the basic option and deal with the small flaws. Why do we always reach for the fanciest approach when the clock is ticking?