2017cnc10-11

26 www.CNC-West.com CNC WEST October/November 2017 known for our underwater prowess. That led to other jobs for Kodak, theme parks, and even a sonar company.” All AMI’s machining equipment was older and as a result slow. They didn’t have crazy production runs so it wasn’t an is- sue until their next big customer came along and needed them to manufacture cam plates, oil pumps and other items for Har- ley Davidson engines. “We have a standing order to produce as many parts as we can,” details Scott. “It was a different kind of manufacturing than we were used to, but made it work for us. In the back of my mind I always thought speed was a sales tool used by the manufactures and that gains in production would be minimal. Boy was I wrong.” AMI always bought used and always paid cash because Grandpa Harold thought “new” was a waste of money. “We got our first new machine after Grandpa Harold had passed away,” tells Scott. “I liked the thought of hav- ing something faster. We bought an Okuma Genos M560 from Gosiger who is the California Okuma distributor and it was a big wake up call. The large expense was quickly overshadowed by doubling the production of the old machine.” AMI discov- ered a love of the Okuma brand via an older lathe, but the Ge- nos M560 was their first foray into the Okuma brand mills. “We liked it so much we bought a second and then a third machine over a couple year period. We traded in our old lathe for a new Okuma Captain L470M and even purchased a MB-4000 hori- zontal. I’m a big fan of Okuma and Gosiger to say the least.” For most, a single revelation in production throughout their career is all that can be hoped for. Scott on the other hand is very lucky and has experienced it twice, once with new ma- chines and then again with workholdings. “I originally contact- ed Chick Workholding Solutions because I was tired of messing with steel vices from the stone age,” describes Scott. “I began to look at the concept of it being a workholding solution and not just a way to clamp a part. What really impressed me with Chick was how some of their suggestions didn’t make them any money.” Chick helped Scott deduce that instead of running the cam plate out of plate material and struggling to hold it accu- rately that they run it out of extruded bar on the lathe. They run it, flip it, run it flip it and hold .001 on thickness and +/- .00025 on parallelism. It then goes to the mill for critical bor- ing. “The mill used to have a 4-sided steel vise setup,” explains Scott. “Now we have a 12-station Chick MultiLOK system for flexibility. The MultiLOK can easily change from dual station clamping, to single station, or Faceplates for quick change fix- tures. The machine runs all day long. We reload it before we go home for lights out operation. The old setup was netting us only 8-12 parts per day, but now we get 36 consistently. There was no huge capital investment like buying a new machine, just a little retooling and rethinking the way we looked at the part. Need- Left - Scott’s first underwater housing for an Agfa 1680 camera. Top right - Cam plates for Harley Davidson Engines. Bottom right - Sonar housing head. Arrow Machine Industries has milling, turning and 5-axis capabilities.