Muhammad Ali: "The Greatest of All Time"

A recent article in Wired Magazine featured a list of principle forces which spur new innovations. One of the forces the piece discusses is the audacity of individuals. The people who change the world have to have a strong belief that they can do things better than anybody else before them and not be afraid to fail. Creating a device that fit in your pocket that could hold thousands of songs, mass producing all-electric cars, building a lathe that can do 16 operations at a time unmanned 24-7–it takes balls and arrogance to try that stuff.

Audacity is vital and ubiquitous in the machining industry. Machinists constantly brag to me that their latest setup has never been done in a particular way before. I walk into shops and engineers beam as they show off the homemade machines they’ve concocted.

Audacious personalities are often found among the most successful entrepreneurs as well. Groupon believed that retailers would be willing to offer their products at over 50 percent off to the masses and that millions of consumers would bite. Paypal believed it could make people pay for items in a way that had never done before and pay a fee for the privilege. Online brokerage firms turned the trading institution upside down by allowing traders to pay $10 per trade without calling a broker. Screw Machine World (Today’s Machining World) believed it could produce a revolutionary trade magazine for the machining industry, something interesting and readable versus the tried-and-true traditional stale trade rag. We were naive to think that advertisers would instantly flock to us for our high quality, despite our refusal to run their advertorial submissions. Had we known how hard it would be to make money in publishing, we probably wouldn’t have tried it and I wouldn’t be posting this blog.

Naiveté is an enabler of audacious ideas. Often it’s easier to try new things when you haven’t ever seen “the way it’s always been done,” or at least haven’t seen the way things have always been done for very long. That may be one reason younger people often have the fresh revolutionary ideas, while the so-called seasoned experts get stuck just doing what’s worked in the past. Historically most societies have preached conformity. Schools, religious institutions, corporations and assembly lines usually like to discourage audaciousness. Kind of sad, but the world can only take so many audacious SOBs, right? Are you one?

Question: Are schools in the United States inferior?

Post Fight Interview Muhammed Ali after the Rumble in the Jungle

(Reuters) – Industrial production posted its fastest growth in over a year in April, boosted by surging output at utilities and a rebound in manufacturing, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday.

Industrial output grew 1.1 percent last month, the most since December 2010 and nearly twice the pace expected by analysts polled by Reuters.

The Fed also revised its estimates for prior months, saying production contracted 0.6 percent in March and expanded 0.4 percent in February. The Fed previously said production was flat in February and March.

In April, manufacturing output rose 0.6 percent, bouncing back from a 0.5 percent decline in March. A big increase in vehicle production factored in the gains, with output for motor vehicles and parts up 3.9 percent.

Still, the advance in factory output was broad based. Outside vehicles and parts, manufacturing increased 0.3 percent.

Utilities output increased 4.5 percent. Unseasonably warm weather in the first quarter previously had held down demand for heating, the Fed said.

Capacity utilization, a measure of how fully firms are using their resources, rose to 79.2 percent, the highest since April 2008.

Officials at the Fed tend to look at utilization measures as a signal of how much “slack” remains in the economy – how far growth has room to run before it becomes inflationary.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Dear Shop Doc,

We are trying to make a part of beryllium copper that has a .025″ square pin on one side. The length of the square pin is .140″ long, then transitions to a diameter of .035”, and then to a shoulder at .150” diameter. The problem I am having is that we have to turn the raw material down to .035″ before we polygon mill the .025″ square. We’ve done polygon milling on much larger parts but this is our first time on a small part. We are using a CNC Swiss lathe that has opposing X- and-Y-axis gang plates that are controlled separately.

Poly Gone

Dear Poly,

I know exactly what you are trying to attempt. What you’ll need to do is adjust your methodology to account for the fact that you need to turn the raw material from .250″ diameter to .035″ and polygon mill at the same time. What is happening in your current method is that after you turn the .035″ diameter, the material is no longer supported by the guide bushing. To fix your problem, you need to turn the .035″ diameter at the same time you are polygon milling.

Two actions need to be taken:
1. Tooling: In the Z-axis plane, the turning tool needs to be closer to the material than the polygon tool. The reason for this is to turn the diameter before the polygon tool starts creating the fats. I know in most Swiss machines this is already built into the tool holder geometry where the live tools are typically further away from the guide bushing compared to the turning tools. If this is not the case, then you’ll need to make some physical adjustments so that you can set the tools properly – either by shimming the polygon tool or grinding the shank on the turning tool. Then find the distance between the two tools in the Z-axis plane. As an example we’ll use .010″ as the distance between the two tools.

2. Programming: To program this you’ll need to understand how to utilize tool offsets. For the turning tool, just program it in the normal fashion where you call the tool and the offset. For example: T0101 – Tool 01 and offset 01. For the polygon tool just call up the tool position without the tool offset. For example: T0200 – Tool 02 and no offset. For the G-Code, simply add the distance between the two tools to your programming of the turning tool to get to the linear dimension of the .025″ square.

In your particular component, (using the example of .010″) you’ll want to program your turning tool to .150″ in the Z-axis to account for distance between the turning tool and the polygon tool. This will give you the net result of producing a .025″ square that is .140″ long. If you need to contour the shape of the square, then the programming gets much more complex and you’ll do just the opposite of my example. You’ll have to use the polygon tool offset and omit the turning tool offset, then control the path of the polygon tool in the program. However, you’ll still need to keep the turning tool in front of the polygon tool and account for the difference.

Happy Machining!

David Cogswell
Director, Precision Machining Operations
Bal Seal Engineering,
Medical Products Group

Dear Shop Doc,

We are having trouble with chatter while turning on our 20mm Swiss CNC lathe. We recently replaced the guide bushing bearings and we have the bushing adjusted so tight that the bar is a press fit inside the bushing, but it still chatters. We have also tried different tool geometries and slowing the rpm down. Nothing works. Can you help?

Squealing in Wheeling

Dear Squeal,
I’m pretty sure I see the problem. These are some of the possible causes of chatter while turning on a Swiss:

1) Incorrect Tool Geometry: Positive rake tools cut more freely and can reduce the cutting pressure, which in turn can help eliminate chatter. Smaller nose radii also generate less pressure. However, this effect is minimal compared to reducing the feed rate or the depth of cut.

2) Guide bushing is too loose: Obviously not the problem here, but when the bushing is too loose the bar can move about during turning causing chatter.

3) Guide bushing is too tight: While this seems counterintuitive, over-tightening the guide bushing can cause chatter. A typical driven bushing has two angular contact bearings in the front and one or two bearings at the rear. When the bushing is run too tight, the back bearings will compress under the load caused by the bar moving forward, and the front bearings will unload. With the preload on the front bearings being pressed out by the bar being forced through the bushing, the bearing set is unable to support the cutting forces created by turning. This is probably your problem. This situation will lead to the back bearing failing, followed soon after by the front bearings. There is no need to run the bushing as tight as you describe. If you are after better roundness use ground bar stock. The bushing should be adjusted snug to the bar but still be loose enough that you can rotate it by hand with the bushing locked. You should feel some drag on the bar when you rotate it.

4) The cut exceeds the driven bushings’ rigidity: Lathe spindles and driven guide bushings are rated by the manufacturer with a figure known as the “maximum chip section.” It is usually given as area in square millimeters. You calculate this figure by multiplying the depth of cut by the feed rate. On a typical 20mm Swiss this can range from 0.3 square millimeters to 0.8 square millimeters for a heavy duty driven bushing. Let’s assume a 4mm DOC. Take 0.3mm (0.0118″) and divide by 4mm (0.1575″) and the result equals 0.075mm (0.003″), which is the maximum feed rate possible before the bearing in the bushing becomes overloaded and chatter results. Repeating the calculations for the stronger guide bushing you will find that you can feed up to 0.2mm (0.0079″) per revolution before you will overload the bearings. This may also be the source of your problem while over-tightening the bushing is compounding the problem.

Dan Murphy
Regional Sales Manager
Tsugami/REM Sales

In this file photo, assembly line worker Carrie Atwood moves a seat into position for a Chevrolet Volt at the General Motors Hamtramck Assembly plant in Hamtramck, Mich., Wednesday, July 27, 2011. A report released Wednesday, May 9, 2012 showed Detroit had the second-highest gains in manufacturing jobs of the top 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S., following Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Huffington Post: 05/09/2012 1:40 pm

Reversing the trend of the previous decade, Detroit has added more manufacturing jobs in the last two years than all but one other metropolitan area in the country.

A report released Wednesday from the think tank Brookings Institution, “Locating American Manufacturing: Trends in the Geography of Production,” ranked 100 major metropolitan areas’ manufacturing jobs growth from January 2010 through 2011. The Detroit metro area came in at number two, with a 12.09 percent increase, following Charleston, SC with 14.4 percent.

It’s a big change from 2000 to 2010, when cities across the country lost manufacturing jobs, and the job growth in the South slowed. During that time, Detroit lost 52.1 percent of its manufacturing jobs, compared to the nationwide average of a 33.2 percent loss. But now, the report’s authors say, the Midwest is seeing job growth in this area at a rate more than double the South.

Not surprisingly, the report lists Detroit’s manufacturing specialties as transportation and machinery. While the auto industry’s struggles drastically impacted jobs in the area, in the last two years Michigan industry created 34,000 new jobs.

The Brookings report’s authors say companies are more productive when they cluster in locations around specializations, but since the 1980s, manufacturing has become more decentralized as companies moved of metropolitan areas in search of paying lower wages. So what’s the reason for the shift back to Detroit?

According to the Detroit News, union workers’ concessions with the Big Three in recent years lowered wages to the point where manufacturing employers would return. However, the authors claim the findings show regions can’t solely attract companies with low labor costs. They argue that federal policy needs to be enacted to encourage clustering, including supporting research and development and assisting supply chain improvement. There’s also the question regarding how much of the increase is a temporary jump after the lows of the recession, and how much is long-term.

Detroit ranks sixth in total number of manufacturing jobs, with 187,821 in 2010, comprising 10.7 percent of the metro area’s jobs. It ranks 25 for payscale, with an average rate of $67,804, compared to the area’s average for all jobs of $50,266.

“This operational expansion further exemplifies our commitment to innovating our company and serving our customers,” said Piotr Galitzine, chairman of TMK IPSCO. “This improvement will enable us to increase our capacity in an extremely busy market.”

To commemorate the start of the project, Galitzine and other leaders of both TMK IPSCO and the surrounding community, will participate in a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, May 9, from 4 to 5 p.m. Central time, at the site of the facility – 7501 Groening Ave, Odessa, Texas.

The new facilities are expected to create several skilled labor jobs, and the site is projected to be fully operational by the end of the year.

The new site will streamline the company’s Premium operations, which are currently spread out over many sites and buildings. Consolidation of these operations will provide improved production and reduced response times for customers. The high-tech equipment in the new construction will include quality labs, laser length measuring systems, a bar code pipe tracking system, climate-controlled operations and modern employee amenities. The site will contain three pipe threading lines and one tubing line, which will continue to cover the Odessa plant’s current capabilities of 2 3/8” to 13 3/8” size range.

TMK IPSCO operates in North America as a division of TMK, a global market leader in energy pipe production. TMK operates 24 production facilities around the world. TMK product offerings include a wide range of seamless and welded energy tubular products including oil & gas drill pipe, well casing and tubing, line pipe, LD pipe, standard pipe, hollow structural sections and related services. TMK also manufactures premium connections for oil and natural gas drilling and production under the ULTRA™ Premium Connections and TMK Premium brand names.

Tim Thiessen

Tim Thiessen, who was promoted to Vice President of Sales from the position of Senior Regional Sales Manager in 2011, now manages an extensive group of CNC machine tool sales professionals, including 6 regional managers, 3 sales engineers, 5 product specialists and the inside sales department. Having worked with Okuma for over 20 years in each of the positions he now supervises, Mr. Thiessen is well versed in the duties and responsibilities of each role and can manage the team’s resources accordingly.

“Our customers are busier than ever and are operating leaner organizations. They need help to continually improve their manufacturing processes and stay competitive. This organizational structure helps us and our distributors focus on the needs at hand, ensuring that the most qualified individual is able to assist the customer”, stated Mr. Thiessen.

The delineation of the sales roles creates a dynamic that allows each group to focus on specific responsibilities. The regional managers work closely with distribution management and sales staffs, the sales engineers provide product and processing expertise and the product specialists assist the distribution sales staff and customers in identifying the appropriate products and options for given applications and manufacturing needs. In addition to providing sales and engineering expertise, the product specialists also provide product training for both distributors and end-use customers.

The organizational structure will provide distributors and end-use customers with specific points of contact within the Okuma organization and will help focus attention on helping manufacturers become more productive and efficient.

Customers are transferable if the manufacturing skills can be proven and maintained. When new operators come in and fire everybody and then try to hire people back for less money, they are courting disaster. Even if the judgment they make is that the previous management was a bunch of bozos, adding layers of chaos to the existing complexities of revolving ownership is arrogant and dumb. Usually old companies in manufacturing do not fail because the workers were paid too much, but because they were unmotivated and poorly managed. If workers understand the expectations of the owners and know the negative consequences of not meeting them they will generally produce.

I talk to auctioneers who look at lots of deals of machining firms and they tell me that few viable companies sell for asset value these days. In 2012, a skilled workforce and motivated management team has real value – not Silicon Valley kind of numbers, but significantly more than two years ago – before the world started to turn.

Question: Do you think gay marriage should be legal throughout the United States?

Watch a Video of Barbara Streisand singing “People.”

…and some not so good ways.

We tend to assume that if we work hard and save money then one day we will end up wealthy. This is wishful thinking. We are more likely to end up with some modest but useful savings. If you want to accumulate serious wealth then there a number of approaches you can use and some are much more effective than others. The best ways are as follows:

1. Start your own business and eventually sell it.
2. Join a start-up and get stock.
3. Exploit your skill as a self-employed expert.
4. Develop property.
5. Build a portfolio of stocks and shares.
6. Inherit wealth.

See more details here.

SELLING stuff to foreigners tends to be the last hope for economies whose own consumers are unwilling or unable to part with their cash. The current slump is no different, with rich-country hopes heaped on export-led growth. A new report—Trading myths—published today by the McKinsey Global Institute investigates trade, exposing a number of fallacies about how trade has developed over time, the things that are bought and sold internationally, and the impact of open markets.

The first myth (some are more mythical that others, but it’s a good theme for a paper) is that advanced economies are losing out to emerging markets, so that trade deficits are ballooning.  That’s not the case, as the chart below shows. In fact, the bigger story is not a myth but the mystery of why net trade is so stubbornly stable. Britain’s currency, for example, has depreciated by 20% since 2008. On paper, that should boost exports and lower imports.  In reality the trade pickup has been poor.