Blown insert on a Friday run nearly cost me a whole part

I was running a 3 inch aluminum block last Friday at the shop and everything felt fine until the finish pass. The insert let go about halfway through and left a nasty gouge in the sidewall. Had to stop the machine, swap out the insert, and rerun the whole part from scratch. That set me back 45 minutes and I still had to rework the surface with a file. Anybody else had a tool blow up during a critical pass and had to start over?

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1 Comment

kelly.nora12d ago

Tools going bad at the worst possible moment is just part of the game, especially when everything feels smooth right up until it isn't. It's like how a car never breaks down in your driveway, it always waits until you're thirty miles from home on a rainy night. You learn to keep spares handy and expect the unexpected, because that's the real rhythm of getting things done.