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News : July 2001
Aerosmith
Left to Right: Brad Whitford
49, Joe Perry 50, Steven Tyler 53, Joey Kramer 50, Tom Hamilton 49
Music and Musings from Jim ...
Well, this years’ concert series is in full swing with a lot of great acts
such as Aerosmith, Tom Petty, James Taylor, Deep Purple, Journey, Styx and
Lynyrd Skynyrd. Some of the bands touring have been around a long time and have
“Hit” songs dating back to the 60’s and early 70’s.
You might contemplate the idea of going to a concert, saying to yourself, “I
don’t know, those guys are all getting old, and they haven’t had a hit song
in 20 years.” By all means, go and see the show, you might be surprised!
Professional musicians don’t seem to grow up and get their heads together
until they are in their 40’s and 50’s. Most of these guys now are clean and
sober; they have a professional trainer, a nutritionist, and a tanning booth and
have been practicing every day of those 20 years. They look better, feel better,
and PLAY better than they did 20 years ago. So don’t think that every older
rock star looks and acts like Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones (who still
is a great guitarist, but rough around the edges), get out and see for your
self.
There is no better way to enjoy music than listening to it live.
By Jim Graham— Shop Supervisor
Tips & Tricks from Leonard
Let the Software do the Work
Recently, a new employee remarked that machinists measuring
tools have not changed much in what seems like a hundred years. This seems to be
quite true. Sure some of our calipers have dials on them now, but micrometers,
indicators, thread wires, and gage pins are as much the same as they were years
ago. These tools are based on solid principles and work well (trigonometry,
simple and complex machines, and the vernier scale to name a few). It then
dawned on me that machinists haven’t changed much either. We still setup and
operate the machine tools the same, do piles of mathematical calculations, and
manage our time the best we can. But we are luckier than those before us with
better working conditions, higher pay scale and now we have computers.
From the time a machinist could purchase a hand held
calculator, computers have been helping the tradesman. Then with the evolution
of the CNC machine tool a machinist could more easily produce accurate profiles
and positions of machined features faster than before. As the machines became
more accurate the engineers became more demanding. Or was it the other way
around? As machined parts became more complex, tolerancing became more precise
and more difficult to check by conventional means.
Coordinate Measuring Machines have made inspections quicker,
more accurate, and organized. The CMM mathematically constructs part features
using exact points taken from the piece being inspected. This allows direct
inspection between features previously requiring multiple measurements from
additional surfaces. Positional tolerances, datum’s, parallelism, circularity,
and feature intersections are easily determined and checked. The computer
calculates difficult tolerances, such as true position with maximum or minimum
feature size, much faster and more accurate than the older, cumbersome methods.
Computers in job shops have never replaced good machining
practices. The machinist is still responsible for his workmanship. As tools of
the trade, however, they are not only helpful but have become indispensable.
By Leonard Fronhofer V– CNC Engineer
Leonard
Fronhofer V performing a final inspection with our new 30 x 50 CMM.
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Fronhofer
Tool Company, Inc.