geek woodworkin`

i don`t think if i sold my shop and house that i could afford one of those...but they sure are neat to watch.
 
Freightliner is our biggest customer for my "real" job and they have installed quite a few robots for assembling the cabs and other such tasks. It is interesting watching them change tooling. They are incredibly quick and accurate!
 
Seeing that video brought back some memories of a job I had a long time ago when I was working and going to school. I worked as a machinist for a Westinghouse turbine components plant. At this plant we manufactured the blades and some other components for steam power generation turbines.

I saw the propellor being formed by that multi-axis router in the video and it brought to mind that I operated a machine that was called an Excello 210 that did the same thing except in stainless steel. A tool conveyor on the machine carried everything from 3" hog mills to delicate little drills. All the tools were changed automatically and the machine was operated by a program on paper tape. The Excello 210 was a multi-axis machine that we used to machine the "Christmas tree" on the bottom of the blade which held it in the ring, the profile of the ring and tenon on the top that was fitted into the outer ring. It was also used to machine 3 blades out of one block of stainless steel that was part of a ring that was the initial ring to receive the steam that turned the turbine. Some of the blades we made were more than 2 feet long. These blades were assembled into rings, welded and then turned horizontally on a huge vertical lathe to get them round, flat and concentric. Accuracy of the work was measured in 0.0001.

That was nearly 40 years ago, I imagine things have improved considerably since then.
 
awesome video, did anyone else notice that video with Gail O'rourke in it???

seemed like she was getting her own show on PBS...maybe this is old news but it's new to me.
 
Top