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An old machinist in Buffalo taught me to listen to the cut instead of watching the numbers
Back in 2011 I was running a beat up Haas VF2 at a job shop near Buffalo and I thought I had it all figured out because my feeds and speeds came straight off the calculator. There was this old guy named Walt who ran a manual Bridgeport in the corner and he would just stand there with his hand on the table feeling the cut while I stared at the load meter. One afternoon my 1/2 inch end mill started squealing on some 4140 and before I could hit feed hold he walked over, put his fingers on the vise, and said "hear that? that's your tool rubbing, not cutting." He bumped the feed up by hand and the noise went away, and I stood there feeling like a total rookie even though I had been doing this for 6 years. Turns out he had been running machines since 1968 and never once touched a CAM system, just knew the sound of a good chip like a guitar player knows a wrong note. I still use the load meter plenty, but now I catch myself listening first before I even look at the screen. Walt retired about a year later and I never got his number, which I regret. Any of you ever learn something from a guy on a manual machine that stuck with you longer than any class or YouTube video?
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