The Art of Milling and Machining: A Journey of Trial and Error

As I begin this project, I'm about to mill a small slot out of the top of a piece of material. The center of the slot has a hole in it that will allow me to perform an operation on one side and then the other. This means I need to register it to itself, which makes me think about going back to the drawing board. My engineering drawings don't include hole sizes for these specific holes, so I'll simply drill a small hole, likely less than a millimeter in diameter.

I take a moment to double-check that everything is locked down, including the mill speed and the registration system. This is crucial to ensure accuracy and precision. With the speed set at 2.95, I'm ready to start cutting. I slightly raise the level to achieve the desired height, allowing me to cut down to it without any issues. As I begin the operation, I notice that my technique isn't the most accurate possible method for centering this piece on the mill. However, given that this is a prop and not a production part, "good enough" will have to suffice.

The next step involves creating a set of marks on the material to help me re-register it on the mill. I'll be using dykem marking fluid to achieve this. The process of laying out these markings is essential to avoid making big mistakes. For this specific project, the layout will help me figure out exactly how to move the mill to make the necessary cuts.

The next day, I take a closer look at my handiwork and am pleased with the results. My two aluminum pieces are identical, having been cleaned and polished using 400-grit sandpaper on a reference surface. To further refine them, I toss them in the parts tumbler, which uses walnut shells to clean and smooth out any remaining imperfections. The finished pieces look great, almost as if they were plucked straight from my engineering drawings.

I take pride in knowing that I've created something that looks like the original drawing, despite the imperfections. This is what I love about my job – taking a set of blueprints and bringing them to life. As I move forward with this project, I know that there will be more challenges and mistakes along the way. But that's all part of the process, and I'm excited to see where it takes me.

The Art of Making Mistakes: A Maker's Perspective

One of the things I love about making and sharing videos is that we don't typically make how-to guides. Instead, we focus on what happens when you do something wrong – or rather, all the things that can go wrong in the shop. From touching up your paint job to assembling parts backwards, these mistakes are an essential part of the learning process.

As a maker, I believe that embracing mistakes is crucial for growth and improvement. It's through our failures that we learn valuable lessons and develop new skills. And let's be honest – there's something satisfying about looking back on a project and thinking, "Ah, yeah, that was a close call!" Or, as the case may be, "Whoops, did I really just glue my fingers together?"

If you haven't experienced both of these common mistakes, then I'm not sure if you've lived at all. But seriously, it's essential to have some experience with the basics before diving into more complex projects. And trust me, having a few (dozen) demerit badges for screw-ups can be a great conversation starter.

For those who are interested in getting their hands dirty, I highly recommend checking out tested.com – they offer an excellent range of products and tools that will help you navigate the ups and downs of making. And if you're feeling particularly adventurous, why not try adding some of these demerit badges to your shop apron? It's a great way to show off your personality and add a bit of humor to your workspace.

In conclusion, the art of milling and machining is all about embracing trial and error. Whether it's drilling holes or assembling parts backwards, mistakes are an inevitable part of the process. But by learning from these errors and pushing forward, we can create something truly amazing – even if it doesn't look exactly like our original design.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody adam savage in my cave with a one-day build i have it's been a long time since i've done a uh genuine one-day build uh in the background there you can see a space suit i've spent the last couple of months obsessed and working only on spacesuits but i want to cut my teeth back on the machine tools and i've got some parts to make um i've got some parts to make here they i've got one of these and i got one of these and i got to make two of each of these for a secret project i'm working on and uh just to be clear like parts of this complexity are um i'm working with some collaborators and so the dimensions i have here have to match what they're working on and i am you know most of the stuff i do here the only person who has to adjust to what i'm making is me but if i get something on this wrong i'm affecting the people i'm working with uh this isn't a job for hire it's just a pleasurable job and we will i'll reveal what the what the build is uh but for right now we're just jumping in and my biggest issue right now is i'm working in metric so i've pulled out my metric calipers um the outside critical dimension of this is 102.6 millimeters and what i've got is some beautiful four inch stock it's half a millimeter too small i think i can work with it i'm going to say uh yeah 20 thou i can deal with that um but this is multiple operations uh i've got to i've got multiple turning operations on this and then i've got to put it on my um a rotary table and i've got to do some secondary cuts on this all of this is stuff i am not um highly versed in so uh we're going to increase our machining skills today that's how this is going to go all right so i have to make four of these parts so i've got um oh right all i'm doing is boring it's boring um i've got four of these parts i can get two of them out of this and i'm gonna need to do another one so it's a lot of like whole boring right now what is this thing okay so the first thing is so so this come on so so alexa leave the soundtrack to the lord of the rings so foreign so i'm so bored seriously i'm super bored i'm bored out i'm bored i have bored into this four inch stock i'm just moving very slowly because i want to make sure i get all these measurements correct um so i have seven separate rings to machine for this project this is ring seven and i'm making two of each ring ring seven is without a doubt the most complex of all the rings so i'm starting there with two of those that's what i hope to get done today two of ring seven after that i'm gonna try two of ring six and then the other five are all much more straightforward and hopefully i'll get some tubing so i don't have to just keep on wasting the middle of this expensive aluminum i just i wanted to get started today i've got some tubing on order and it'll get here but for right now i'm just i'm hogging out a lot of material okay right okay so 91 i come out 2.13 2.13 do oh so so this is 91 and 93.13 that's 2.13 2.13 okay that might be cuttable i might be able to cut that off now is that really the case i've got the outer step and the inner step yes and all right um then what i want to do is take off all the burrs on this guy so all right well uh the two parts are cut out they are identical i really like i can actually say that they are identical to within about five microns each in all of the critical dimensions i'm very pleased with that accuracy i'll have to do some polishing on these but that's fine right now i have secondary operations on these which i have to do cuts in this side so i'm going to protect them with a little bit of gaffer tape around chuck them into the six jaw chuck this is literally why i bought the six jaw chuck so that i could grab stuff like this without harming it and do secondary operations on it when you are grabbing material a three-jaw chuck just grabs it you know one two three and it can distort it if you grab it tightly whereas as tom lipton pointed out to me if you get a six jaw chuck it can be your bread and butter chuck and it can hold on to lighter material thank you tom so the outer rings are done and they are polished you can see all the cleanliness that was added to them was sucked away by my hands because my hands are super filthy um i'm very happy with the consistency of these two parts i now have to do multiple secondary tertiary quaternary operations on these so i'm setting up my rotary table let's go over to the mill i may take you along in this journey we don't usually do it this way but what the hey got a long extension cord let's see what we can do so the first thing to do to set up my rotary table to be able to cut some specific angles into my rings is to center it above this so uh i am simply going to get it roughly in position uh and then i'm going to uh get it finally in position both finally and finally finally let's see does that actually oh right nope this is not how it goes do so sorry about that all right the first thing with i'm doing two different operations on this rotary table i'm doing it upright and i'm doing it on the side and i got caught by this before i centered it but i hadn't made it perfectly parallel so now i am parallel to a couple microns across three or four inches um yeah it's very tight so now i'm gonna put it up and then i'm gonna find the center of this guy so let's pull this off i thought i had a wrench for this thing somewhere here all right so uh right let's get this out put that back in the steel drawer oh really you really you can't oh my god you are such a lame lame ass lame-o i guess i'm gonna have to loosen this that's 90 degrees okay so i'm going to tighten this down and i'm going to tighten this down okay so now right we're gonna get in the ballpark am i recording let's just double check hey i am we're getting in the ballpark here oh right oops there's no need to make the job harder so i'm going to put a couple of um center points on here and use them to kind of get myself within a couple thou of center so i've got this issue where this is the ring and i'm about to mill this little slot out of the top of it and it has a center basically that slot has a hole in the in the bottom center of it that should allow me it should allow me it should allow me to i have to do operation on this on one side and then the other which means i need to register it to itself so now that makes me think i want to go to there we go okay so that's zero yep and if that is zero and it's 12 millimeters wide okay let's start it up yeah i figured that speed's okay let's double check that we're locked nope there we go that's locked and that's also locked so that's great everything's locked yeah here we go and i'm slightly higher than the level i want to be at so that i can cut down to it it's not bad feels good no chatter okay so now well yeah so i realize my engineering drawings don't include hole sizes for the holes that have to go here um so i am simply going to drill a small hole it is likely to be i mean if i'm looking here at the drawing i'd say i want to go with less than a millimeter really one millimeters all right i'm about to uh 2.95 and then 2.95 that's it beautiful all right zero and 48.49 48.49 so free look i recognize the way i'm centering this is not um it is not necessarily the most accurate possible way to do it however given that this is a prop all right good enough i like that so out and back in all right so so so um now i have to make a set now i have a registration hole this little hole right here that helps me re-register this part back on the mill plus or minus a fraction of a degree which should be plenty for this prop um but now i need to make some marks on it so it's time for a bunch of dykem uh marking fluid by the way if you haven't seen clickspring's amazing uh experimentation with ancient marking fluids with marking different marking fluids he's got a wonderful video that lays it all out and it's very instructional um so yeah i'm basically look a lot one of the reasons you do layout is so that you're you know you don't make big mistakes but for this uh layout is actually going to help me figure out exactly how to like make the mill move so i'm letting these dry and then there's going to be a whole marking period hey uh it's the next day yeah we'll cut right there it's the next morning and this shivering blue orb behind me is in fact a parts tumbler uh and what i did with my two aluminum pieces they're identical the versions of this is that uh i clean them up with a little 400 grit sandpaper on a reference surface uh and then i toss them in some walnut shells in the parts tumbler to clean them and give them a final let's see how they did yeah we're running oh so pretty look at that look at that yeah there's a few little dings and things here and there but overall i am really really happy with these and look i know it's not surprising that it like looks like the drawing but i'm always surprised when the thing looks like the drawing yeah i mean that was my living for decades right take this drawing make this pile of parts look like that drawing that's my job and yet every time i make something that looks like the drawing it's like oui yeah i'm gonna make more parts for this thing but um you know i think that's a reasonable place to pause this video thank you guys for joining me for this sort of contemplative meditative uh exercise and uh thanks for uh hey oh i already said thanks for joining me i'll see you next time cheers bye guys one of the things i love about this channel is that we don't make how-to videos so much as we make what happened videos and what almost always happens are mistakes and screw-ups in fact they're completely integral to making and honestly to being a person and to celebrate this tested has a new batch of demerit badges for the screw-ups you will encounter in the shop from left to right we have touching your paint job assembling things backwards losing a tiny screw or part gluing your fingers together and smashing your thumb and frankly if you haven't done both of these even if you're not a maker i just don't feel like you've experienced enough of the world i'm not saying get out a hammer and smash your thumb but i will tell you that the blackier your fingernail after the injury the less it's going to hurt in the long run i almost forgot these make excellent additions to your shop apron and they are available at tested dash store dot comhey everybody adam savage in my cave with a one-day build i have it's been a long time since i've done a uh genuine one-day build uh in the background there you can see a space suit i've spent the last couple of months obsessed and working only on spacesuits but i want to cut my teeth back on the machine tools and i've got some parts to make um i've got some parts to make here they i've got one of these and i got one of these and i got to make two of each of these for a secret project i'm working on and uh just to be clear like parts of this complexity are um i'm working with some collaborators and so the dimensions i have here have to match what they're working on and i am you know most of the stuff i do here the only person who has to adjust to what i'm making is me but if i get something on this wrong i'm affecting the people i'm working with uh this isn't a job for hire it's just a pleasurable job and we will i'll reveal what the what the build is uh but for right now we're just jumping in and my biggest issue right now is i'm working in metric so i've pulled out my metric calipers um the outside critical dimension of this is 102.6 millimeters and what i've got is some beautiful four inch stock it's half a millimeter too small i think i can work with it i'm going to say uh yeah 20 thou i can deal with that um but this is multiple operations uh i've got to i've got multiple turning operations on this and then i've got to put it on my um a rotary table and i've got to do some secondary cuts on this all of this is stuff i am not um highly versed in so uh we're going to increase our machining skills today that's how this is going to go all right so i have to make four of these parts so i've got um oh right all i'm doing is boring it's boring um i've got four of these parts i can get two of them out of this and i'm gonna need to do another one so it's a lot of like whole boring right now what is this thing okay so the first thing is so so this come on so so alexa leave the soundtrack to the lord of the rings so foreign so i'm so bored seriously i'm super bored i'm bored out i'm bored i have bored into this four inch stock i'm just moving very slowly because i want to make sure i get all these measurements correct um so i have seven separate rings to machine for this project this is ring seven and i'm making two of each ring ring seven is without a doubt the most complex of all the rings so i'm starting there with two of those that's what i hope to get done today two of ring seven after that i'm gonna try two of ring six and then the other five are all much more straightforward and hopefully i'll get some tubing so i don't have to just keep on wasting the middle of this expensive aluminum i just i wanted to get started today i've got some tubing on order and it'll get here but for right now i'm just i'm hogging out a lot of material okay right okay so 91 i come out 2.13 2.13 do oh so so this is 91 and 93.13 that's 2.13 2.13 okay that might be cuttable i might be able to cut that off now is that really the case i've got the outer step and the inner step yes and all right um then what i want to do is take off all the burrs on this guy so all right well uh the two parts are cut out they are identical i really like i can actually say that they are identical to within about five microns each in all of the critical dimensions i'm very pleased with that accuracy i'll have to do some polishing on these but that's fine right now i have secondary operations on these which i have to do cuts in this side so i'm going to protect them with a little bit of gaffer tape around chuck them into the six jaw chuck this is literally why i bought the six jaw chuck so that i could grab stuff like this without harming it and do secondary operations on it when you are grabbing material a three-jaw chuck just grabs it you know one two three and it can distort it if you grab it tightly whereas as tom lipton pointed out to me if you get a six jaw chuck it can be your bread and butter chuck and it can hold on to lighter material thank you tom so the outer rings are done and they are polished you can see all the cleanliness that was added to them was sucked away by my hands because my hands are super filthy um i'm very happy with the consistency of these two parts i now have to do multiple secondary tertiary quaternary operations on these so i'm setting up my rotary table let's go over to the mill i may take you along in this journey we don't usually do it this way but what the hey got a long extension cord let's see what we can do so the first thing to do to set up my rotary table to be able to cut some specific angles into my rings is to center it above this so uh i am simply going to get it roughly in position uh and then i'm going to uh get it finally in position both finally and finally finally let's see does that actually oh right nope this is not how it goes do so sorry about that all right the first thing with i'm doing two different operations on this rotary table i'm doing it upright and i'm doing it on the side and i got caught by this before i centered it but i hadn't made it perfectly parallel so now i am parallel to a couple microns across three or four inches um yeah it's very tight so now i'm gonna put it up and then i'm gonna find the center of this guy so let's pull this off i thought i had a wrench for this thing somewhere here all right so uh right let's get this out put that back in the steel drawer oh really you really you can't oh my god you are such a lame lame ass lame-o i guess i'm gonna have to loosen this that's 90 degrees okay so i'm going to tighten this down and i'm going to tighten this down okay so now right we're gonna get in the ballpark am i recording let's just double check hey i am we're getting in the ballpark here oh right oops there's no need to make the job harder so i'm going to put a couple of um center points on here and use them to kind of get myself within a couple thou of center so i've got this issue where this is the ring and i'm about to mill this little slot out of the top of it and it has a center basically that slot has a hole in the in the bottom center of it that should allow me it should allow me it should allow me to i have to do operation on this on one side and then the other which means i need to register it to itself so now that makes me think i want to go to there we go okay so that's zero yep and if that is zero and it's 12 millimeters wide okay let's start it up yeah i figured that speed's okay let's double check that we're locked nope there we go that's locked and that's also locked so that's great everything's locked yeah here we go and i'm slightly higher than the level i want to be at so that i can cut down to it it's not bad feels good no chatter okay so now well yeah so i realize my engineering drawings don't include hole sizes for the holes that have to go here um so i am simply going to drill a small hole it is likely to be i mean if i'm looking here at the drawing i'd say i want to go with less than a millimeter really one millimeters all right i'm about to uh 2.95 and then 2.95 that's it beautiful all right zero and 48.49 48.49 so free look i recognize the way i'm centering this is not um it is not necessarily the most accurate possible way to do it however given that this is a prop all right good enough i like that so out and back in all right so so so um now i have to make a set now i have a registration hole this little hole right here that helps me re-register this part back on the mill plus or minus a fraction of a degree which should be plenty for this prop um but now i need to make some marks on it so it's time for a bunch of dykem uh marking fluid by the way if you haven't seen clickspring's amazing uh experimentation with ancient marking fluids with marking different marking fluids he's got a wonderful video that lays it all out and it's very instructional um so yeah i'm basically look a lot one of the reasons you do layout is so that you're you know you don't make big mistakes but for this uh layout is actually going to help me figure out exactly how to like make the mill move so i'm letting these dry and then there's going to be a whole marking period hey uh it's the next day yeah we'll cut right there it's the next morning and this shivering blue orb behind me is in fact a parts tumbler uh and what i did with my two aluminum pieces they're identical the versions of this is that uh i clean them up with a little 400 grit sandpaper on a reference surface uh and then i toss them in some walnut shells in the parts tumbler to clean them and give them a final let's see how they did yeah we're running oh so pretty look at that look at that yeah there's a few little dings and things here and there but overall i am really really happy with these and look i know it's not surprising that it like looks like the drawing but i'm always surprised when the thing looks like the drawing yeah i mean that was my living for decades right take this drawing make this pile of parts look like that drawing that's my job and yet every time i make something that looks like the drawing it's like oui yeah i'm gonna make more parts for this thing but um you know i think that's a reasonable place to pause this video thank you guys for joining me for this sort of contemplative meditative uh exercise and uh thanks for uh hey oh i already said thanks for joining me i'll see you next time cheers bye guys one of the things i love about this channel is that we don't make how-to videos so much as we make what happened videos and what almost always happens are mistakes and screw-ups in fact they're completely integral to making and honestly to being a person and to celebrate this tested has a new batch of demerit badges for the screw-ups you will encounter in the shop from left to right we have touching your paint job assembling things backwards losing a tiny screw or part gluing your fingers together and smashing your thumb and frankly if you haven't done both of these even if you're not a maker i just don't feel like you've experienced enough of the world i'm not saying get out a hammer and smash your thumb but i will tell you that the blackier your fingernail after the injury the less it's going to hurt in the long run i almost forgot these make excellent additions to your shop apron and they are available at tested dash store dot com\n"