Machining 100% FINISHED PARTS on a CNC Horizontal Machine | Fixture Friday 22 

✅ Buy a RotoVise 👉 piersonworkholding.com/4th-axis-vise/

I'm an operator at my shop and over the last couple years we've added 4 SMX's which utilize simultaneous spindles in a single machine, combined with mechanic loading and unloading arms to maximize unmanned time. These have replaced cells which previously used 3 machines to process the part with simultaneous spindle usage. Then the product lines which still require manual operations between machines are moved to Mexico.

There’s always lots of ways of doing things so never stop thinking. I run 3 pallet loaded matsuuras which run 24/7 making 20 different parts at the same time. Sure it’s not as efficient on one hand but the 24+ hour walk away time and lack of duplication of fixtures is amazing. But I have some parts which have hit the volume to outgrow this setup and I’m moving them to a “simpler” machine to free up the flexibility for a new part I’ve got a mad plan to get 3 utterly stripped out robodrills around one robot moving vices. I can install this new for half the price of a matsuura. So while it’s slower and less flexible, I’ve got three spindles making parts unmanned. But the key part is I can load the vices without calling them to a load station. That saves 60 seconds a parts Never stop thinking ❤

It’s like an EZ Bake Oven. Raw stock goes in. Finished part comes out. I love it! 🖖😀

Jay, I think you’re really on it! Having your own product line is simply the best! I developed and manufactured a high performance line of air intake products for motorcycles. ( mostly Harleys)This was in addition to our commercial line of hundreds of repeat order parts. I have to say having your own products simply can’t be beat. We were un able to justify a horizontal for a few reasons even though I would have loved one. Instead we were like you. First opp on a vertical, second on another. This was great when you could get an employee to keep both running at the same time. We actually had a cell of 4 lathes that one operator could keep running at times. These ppl are hard to come by. So what you’re doing is the best. The harder it gets to find good machinist the more you need automation at whatever level you can do. I really love your products! Very smart young fellow are you ( Yoda lol ) . So now that I gave you a great plug how about a nice discount on a future order 😂. Seriously you rock! BTW I’ve been in the business for over 50 years. Never too old to learn new tricks. Thank you for your awesome videos.

Thanks jay you keep pushing this industry foward with many others

Jay, great info as always! I love that you talked about Production Theory and total time to complete part. In small shops (like ours) I think this is even more critical/beneficial. We sacrifice a little per part cycle time to complete entire parts, and usually entire products (multiple parts) in a single cycle using one or two pallets in a machine to get that done (and always a duplicate offline set of pallets to keep that spindle spinning). Doing it this way saves us financial investment into a greater number of pallets, saves us critical shop/storage space and makes it really easy to manage inventory. We need 50 more of product X? Just run that set of pallets X number of times and we have all the parts needed. Keep up the great work, Jay!

Stage one for me with your PPS was just getting several vise setups on pallets. This let me switch between 3 small vises, 2 medium vises or 1 large vise. All trammed and switchable in moments. Stage two was making some fixture pallets with combination of m8 and 8mm bored holes. I made some hold down hardware for that that was very flexible. Stage three was making small part fixtures to go on the fixture pallets. I almost never do this now but it let me easily make a small fixture to test and not use up a pallet permanently. Stage four was dedicated pallets for parts I make. I bought several and machined them for the things I make hundreds of. Stage 5 was pallets from scratch. This is a game changer. It lets me be very outside the box in workholding and has made a massive change to some workflows. I keep 8”x1.25” and 10”x1.25” aluminum flat on hand at all times and bought a 10 pack of pallet hardware. As soon as the cost to try a creative approach drops to a $40 piece of aluminum the creativity ramps up. I absolutely love the pallet system and am about to order my 3rd base from you.

Hi Jay, looks like you are really liking your new Horizontal. I thought you would. I don’t have a Horizontal but I load up my verticals with Op 1, Op 2, Op 3. Etc. so that when I see an M30 I have finished parts plus it increases cycle time, or walk away time. Also many of the parts I make are right and left hand so I try to always be making both at the same time because I can’t sell either one by itself. Everyone has different approach’s, thoughts etc. Great video, keep it up.

Jay I always like to see how you do things, keeping things productive is key. Never used a horizontal machine, but we like to use the Brother R450X2 machines with the rotary table and 4th axis. They are super fast and you can make a lot of parts a day. Thanks for sharing all your knowledge it's much appreciated

Great job as usual. You definitely kept me in the mindset of how to optimize my production, especially being a small shop with limited spindles. Looks like 4th axis and other the Rotovise or the Multi Axis pallet is leading the way for how we might expand our capabilities even more.

I'd personally love to see a challenge or a contest to see who can develop the most efficient production method for a given part. It'd be so engaging with plenty of creative ideas, and benefits your operation in the end. This kind of problem solving is the reason why I love machining/manufacturing, thank you for your videos. Truly inspiring.

very good job mr pierson

I wish i could have series more than ten parts

Thank you for all the great info and theory.

I'll start with I've been in the mill turn side of things for 20+ years you can see some of the videos of projects i've done. With that being said I see thing things through a completely different view. So I finally got management to see my point of view and sprung on and ec-400 w/ pallet and vf3ssyt w/ a midaco 4 pallet rotary. current production goes thru 6 setups using 8 vf1's and takes about 13-14 minutes of machine time not including labor in doing loading into fixtures and machines. I used a cross column tombstone and get 10 parts (40 total) on a pallet. Now I'm getting the parts done in 5:15 per part on op 1 in the ec, being able to index the tombstone and attack the other sides saves that manually re-fixturing that drives crazy. the it gets taken to the vert where the second op is done about 2:25 per part. So not only am I getting about 50% decrease in machine time, the labor was cut 80%. and the beautiful part (like you mentioned) is not having a machine waiting. we currently run 2 shifts with about 4 operators per shift for production and now I can have 1 operator on 1 shift produce about 75% of the production. sets up for 8 hours hits start and done, lights out manufacturing. next day unload/load and repeat. and that was the other great thing about the pallet pool, get the one pallet running then start getting the others going and the pallet scheduling side is really pretty slick and simple, just wish they would have done something more like that for a third party changer of the vf3.

In my shop. I call him/ her the best employee. Never complain, never ask for a raise. Ghost is the name. Set up 4 or 5 pallets running 8 parts per pallet. Come in the morning n 32-40 parts done. Horizontal is cool but 5th axis machine with 30+ pallets is the way to go. Now just need more work to put on the machine

I had to watch over two machines one Horizontal that does the first two ops on 8 pieces at once and then one at a time on a cnc lathe that couldn't hold tolerances if you begged god for consistency. After I had to manually debur sand and clean each one being careful not to scratch it. With a cycle time of some 49 minutes for the first two ops. It was hell and I do not want to do it ever again. Even worse was the one where I had to do some 150 pieces of 4mm high shims in 8 hour period which had to have less than 0.05mm flatness on both sides that I used a flat granite block to check and straighten them with a hammer blow (got pretty good by just eyeballing it) and finally sanding again which by the end of the workday i didn't have nails anymore.

There are a lot of ideas and different ways to machine effectively. A basic horizontal machine with 2 pallets why not do op1 on pallet 1 and op2 on pallet 2. vertical with the 4th in place and a rotary system do op1 in the roto-vice and op2 in the same machine on another pallet and in both cases you have finished parts coming out of both machines. On top of this it also depends on the type of work your doing ie: - jobbing shop small volume parts or mass production, and also how much time and money the boss is willing to invest on the job.

Better way to say this is "Who cares if you go 100 MPH for 5 miles if the other 5 are at 35MPH?". Overall part creation time is what matters (in many cases).

Hi Jay, Why haven’t you done those parts on a lathe/millturn…you could easily get them 100% ready off the machine without even touching each single row material…sry for my bad English and greetings from Germany

i always feel like it's a cop-out but if the numbers are large, i'd put this on one of the mill-turns. mill-turns, especially like the ones i got, are the next step in automation for those who have gone from verticals to horizontals. the costs are mad (a used entry-level one from 2010 is for sale somewhat near me and it's a really damn good deal at only $150k) but the ability to just run unattended is worth every dollar (currently close to 6 months excluding putting new material in the bar feeder and changing tools, both done after the machine texts me).

Is there a place to download and print that nice Waste print?

I don't make parts I fix them which is an entirely different set of challenges.

Excellent work! I wonder if you could utilize something like the Mitee Bite Side-Loc Xpansion clamp in order to not have to remove the pallet and make it less movement for the operator.

Hi Jay. I work FMS with two Mazak horisontal machines (HCN 4000) with 36 pallets. Your machine and my machines are the same size. Our aim is to have 100+ hrs on each spindle every week. I run many different parts every day. I need to fit as many parts on the pallets as there is space for or it takes a longer time to change parts. Most better to change one pallet with 6 finish parts than do 3 finish parts. The time to change 6 part doesn't take twice as long as 3 parts. Also I am busy changing tools and other parts. I don't have time every 15 min to change the same pallet. So I wonder why you are only doing 3 finished part on your pallet? It looks like you can do more.

I would like to see this part optimized for a CNC Mill/Turn. Lights out bar feeding!

Thanks for the tips! Btw, RU-vid machine-translates the title and description, I think you turned that on. The translations don't make any sense, I'd rather read them in English.

Hmm i dunno but isn't the cycle time by this way longer compared to earlier vs when you would have multiple parts with the same op? Is the time that the switching takes really so much faster? Compared to switching all of them?

I don't have a fixture or pallet changer for 50k pound parts. Although the manufacturer of my machine does have a pallet changer option which switches out the 4ftx8ft table but thats not practical for our needs and eats up a ton of floor space.

Couldn't u double the parts per pallet by mounting 3 OP1 parts on a pallet like you do for OP2? It looks like there is enough space is it just a question of clamping it hard enough?

The parts I make at work are big enough only one fits on a pallet