Had a crash at a job site in Akron that changed how I set up my tool offsets

I was running a batch of aluminum parts at a shop in Akron last month and my Z offset was off by 0.003 inches, which caused the end mill to dig into the vice. It ruined the part and cost me about two hours of rework plus a new tool. Do you guys double check your offsets with a height gauge or just trust the probe every time?

2 comments

2 Comments

theaw651mo ago

Oh man, that's a solid point and I gotta say I agree with you lol. I had a similar thing happen once where I was sure it was the offset but it turned out my vise was slightly worn and letting the part shift under load. Three thou is basically nothing, so yeah I'd bet on something loose or your workholding being the real issue.

mark_nguyen951mo ago

Hold up, I'm gonna push back on this a little. If your Z offset was truly off by only three thousandths, the real problem might be your workholding or the job setup itself (not the tool offset). A machined vise should be able to handle that tiny of a miss without a dig-in unless something else is loose. I usually just probe everything and move on, because a height gauge takes way too long for production runs and introduces its own human errors if you're not careful. Three thousandths is basically nothing on aluminum, so I'd check your vise jaws and parallels before blaming the offset.