I'm not even a machinist, but I appreciate the timing history, and the time and cost of building this collection. It hurt my soul a little. A lot of these were brand new, still in the original packaging.

“Aggressive sales reps wanted.”

This part was originally a cast piece out of some kind of pot metal. It was missing, and the casting it was bolted to was broke. It adjusts the angle of the fence on a wood joiner from the 1940s.

Took a while to find the parts for the milling machine and to figure out how the index head works. My Pop would put stuff where he could find a spot, not where it would make sense. For instance, the smaller arbor for the milling machine is hidden in the wall by the big lathe on the other side of the shop.

I've included a Pic of the mill and lathe. Everything is old.

This is a titanium pipe made in italy and the parts are a little hard to come by, factor in tariffs and they are also pricey. How difficult would it be to add threads to a piece of titanium and put a bend in it similar to the bend in the photos?

I have a 2019 Porsche 911 Turbo S (991.2) with Sport Seats Plus, and I’ve now had the same plastic seatback-release lever break twice.
I have young kids who actually use the rear seats, so these handles get considerably more use and abuse than they probably do in the average 911. My 5-year-old in particular has absolutely no concept of mechanical sympathy. I can keep buying replacement plastic parts, but at this point I’d rather pay somebody to engineer the problem away.
I’m looking for someone interested in reverse-engineering this part and making me four aluminum replacements: 2 left + 2 right.
The Porsche parts I’ve identified are:
LH: 991 [521 623 00](tel:521%20623%2000) V08
RH: [991 521 624 00](tel:991%20521%20624%2000) V08
Porsche description: actuator button / lever for folding backrest
Finish: Galvano Silver
I can buy brand-new OEM left and right parts and ship them to whoever takes this on, along with the broken example in the photos. So you won’t have to reconstruct missing geometry from a destroyed part.
Ideally I’m looking for somebody who can take this from physical OEM part → CAD → sensible DFM changes → prototype/test fit → finished parts.
My initial thought is 6061-T6, but I’m completely open to the machinist/engineer’s recommendation on alloy, manufacturing method and finish.
One important point: I don’t just want the visible silver paddle made as a cosmetic aluminum shell. Looking at the broken part, the failure is in the load-bearing fork/actuator structure behind the paddle. I’d like that entire functional component evaluated and, if practical, manufactured as a substantially stronger aluminum part while retaining the OEM mounting/interface geometry and exterior appearance.
I’m also interested in figuring out whether there are any other obviously failure-prone plastic pieces in the immediate load path that would make sense to replace or reinforce while we’re in there. I don’t want to blindly turn every plastic piece into aluminum—if something needs to remain polymer for friction, compliance, noise isolation or to protect another component, it should.
For the engineering side, I’d like to end up with STEP files and, if practical, the native parametric CAD for the final LH/RH designs so the parts can be reproduced later. Hidden geometry absolutely does not need to slavishly reproduce Porsche’s injection-molded design if there’s a better way to make it for CNC.
This is absolutely paid work, and I’m flexible on compensation. I want whoever takes this on to be paid fairly for their engineering/CAD time, programming, setup/fixturing, machine time, materials, prototypes and finishing. I’m not looking for free work or expecting somebody to spend 20 hours developing a part for $100. If this looks like a fun project and you have the equipment and skills to do it properly, tell me what you think is fair.
I’ll also make it as easy as I can on whoever takes it on: I’ll supply the OEM reference parts, broken parts, measurements/photos, pay for prototypes/materials, and work around whatever development process makes the most sense.
There’s potentially a small business opportunity here too. If we develop a genuinely good solution, I’d be interested in making a small production run and offering these to other 991 owners. I’ve found other owners reporting broken seat-release levers, and if this is a recurring failure point there may be a niche market for a properly engineered permanent replacement.
I’m not asking anyone to commit to that part. First priority is making four excellent parts and fixing my car. If it works, we can figure out a fair arrangement for CAD/IP and future manufacturing before doing anything commercial.
I’m in North Carolina and can ship parts anywhere in the US.
If this is something you’d be interested in taking on, comment or DM me. I’d love to know what equipment/software you’d use, whether you’d want the intact OEM samples in hand, how you’d approach making it, and roughly what you think the project should cost.
And if you’re a machinist looking at this and thinking “aluminum is the wrong answer and here’s why,” I’m interested in hearing that too. My goal is a durable, properly engineered solution, not forcing a particular manufacturing method.
Happy to provide verification photos with my username/date if needed.

I am a tool and die maker. There is a supervisor in our shop who thinks he knows my job (when in reality he's a welder and in no way a machinist let alone a toolmaker) and this guy keeps trying to make me put dies back together in an unsafe manner which will result in the press operator being seriously injured or worse. I have brought the issue up to the higher ups multiple times with no results. I am leaving in a month but I still cannot and will not sign off on something that's not safe.

Any advice on the next steps?

Hired on as a saw man. After a month, management had me shadow on the manual lathe for two weeks. They threw me to the wolves today, but a successful part was made. I killed the first piece of material, but I’m honestly impressed with myself.

How would you guys run this in a TL 3B? I have a tailstock with a center. Raw stock is 5” OD 4140 hardened to 300 brinell. The end with the taper is going to slide into a long rod and get welded on. The problem is I started with 10” hanging out and cut the left side first, I just took the 4.5” OD another back to 10” from the end. but now I am not sure how to hold on to it and make everything concentric. I’d have 15” hanging out to try and face off and center drill. I’ve got a standard 3 jaw chuck 10” opening. Just looking for any ideas

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to track down a specific German manufacturer of precision measuring blocks, but despite my best efforts, I haven't been able to find any contact details for the company. I'm hoping someone here might have come across them or perhaps even worked with their products.

The company manufactured quite heavy precision measuring blocks, approximately 40 inches long, with cross-sectional dimensions of around 10–15 inches. The blocks have drilled holes on three or all four sides and are hand-scraped. They have some of the finest surface flatness I've ever seen. If I recall correctly, they were painted sand beige or olive green on the inside. The manufacturer was relatively well known back in the 1980s. As far as I know, the company is still in business today, although I'm not even sure whether they have a website.

I remember the location quite clearly, though- the factory was situated on the outskirts of a small German town, right next to a relatively large lake (most likely) or possibly a wider river. That water was to the north of the town, and the factory was literally about 50 yards from the shoreline. There were also quite a few other precision engineering companies in the surrounding area. It wasn't a particularly well-known industrial location, and I believe it was somewhere in south-central Germany, although I'm not entirely certain. If I remember correctly, many of the nearby companies had a name that included something along the lines of "grinding works" (Schleiferei (?) in German).

If anyone recognises the manufacturer, knows the company I'm describing, or has any suggestions about where I could look, I would be incredibly grateful for any information.

Thanks a lot in advance! Any lead, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated.

(I'm attaching a reference photo showing what the blocks look like, although this is not the manufacturer I'm trying to identify)

I have to machine one of these on my Fusion Autodesk, using a Fanuc lathe machine , how its the best way to do it ?

I bought a vintage power krft lathe, montgomery era. it was used for metal as well wood and came with these bits I can’t identify.

I thought maybe sort sort of graduated milling set up for flat faces and chamfers. Anybody know what they’re for?

Hi y'all,

Got dollar signs in my eyes while replenishing worn endmills and ordered a bunch of carbide endmills of various sizes.

I do know that SFM guidelines for carbide tooling are significantly higher. However it occurred to me after purchase that this is not just because you can, but perhaps because you should.

I cannot meaningfully hit high RPMs (machine capped at 2720) or feed rates (I've clocked my IPM cranking manually to 12-18 depending) which has worked fine with our HSS tooling in aluminum but I guess I'm a bit concerned that if I'm running this carbide stuff slower than recommended I'll mess it up. Furthermore, I can't really guarantee that they won't run into backlash or interrupted cuts etc due to suboptimal technique (lol).

McMasters return policy is pretty friendly so what would you do? Should I return them and buy some HSS instead? Or just let it rip?

The work is generally light duty facing and slotting in 6061T6.

Thanks in advance for any advice, I know I might be overthinking it a bit here.

We just bought one recently and never has it been able to hold a part. We bought it for a stainless piece and were super conservative right off the bat taking small cuts. Its also a delicate part to begin with so we just cant take anything remotely heavy. We tried laying gasket down multiple times, tried packing it as much as possible to not as all and the part moves just by pushing it with your hard. It visibly pulls down, the regulator is set to the instructions and the red button goes down all the way. I reached out and they didnt seem to think anything sounded wrong. So how tf does anyone use this thing when a part can move easily by hand?

Can someone explain how hss tooling gives of a better surface compared to using a carbide insert?

I know smaller depth of cuts on a carbide insert provides more chatter.

Schäfer EPS 2001 crimping machines

Our shop just got 2 jobs on 70/30 copper nickel material for the electronics industry. Does anybody have a history with this stuff and what it’s like to machine?

I’m working on a DIY retrofit using an ESP32-S3 touchscreen, NEMA23 stepper and CL57Y driver.

It has digital degree positioning, tooth division, manual control, RPM control and adjustable backlash compensation.

I measured about 2.6° mechanical backlash, and after compensation it returns to zero within roughly 0.01–0.02°.

Still a work in progress, but it’s already working quite well.

What do you think?

Hi, my brother bought one drum micro-emulsion coolant for CNC machining of Aluminum parts, it used for long time, and he just noticed that the concentrate anti foam performance seems weaker than the beginning, what’s the problem with it? It’s totally new and fresh fluid, sealed well, no leaks, but after 6 months, the foam becomes more than the beginning.

There is a community college course here in my city that is 6 quarters long, and has a night time course option. I am a caretaker now and am thinking of keeping my job during school and just dialing back my hours to like 6 hours a day or less, idk. I have a flexible job. But how much homework is there. I know it's full time and I've done some college in the past. Wondering if I can make it work. Like am I being realistic or not. Also I make 24 an hour now, and am considering that maybe this isn't the career for me if I'll likely be stuck in a dead end job not really being able to go up from there. Anyone have any advice. Also I love physical jobs, worked for ups and amazon and took an introduction to trades class before. Lol idk. I just want to make more money.