June 2008 Edition

LEONARDO’S NOTEBOOK

Eggs and Chickens, Something Must Come First

While it may not be art to rival DaVinci’s, Leonardo’s skills with a CAD/CAM package let him program a job that looked like it would bring in long-term work to his start-up job shop

“Leonardo’s Notebook” is an imaginary account of the lessons learned by the fictional Larry Denardo’s challenges and solutions in starting his own job shop.

When I told my boss, Al Saunders, that I was leaving Code Red Manufacturing to start my own job shop, he said, "I’m going to miss you Leonardo, but probably not all that much." I’m Lenny Denardo. Al hung the nicknamed "Leonardo" just after he hired me. Maybe it was my Mona Lisa smile, or maybe Al was just having fun.

"Thank’s . . . I think," I said.

Big Al was the merciless guy who had me multitasking on the CAM system with dozens of rush projects, and he wasn’t going to miss me much? Hah!

My new shop, One-Offs And Beyond, was in some bargain space I rented on the other side of town. I bought a used, but respectable, CNC lathe and a vertical mill with money borrowed from family members. I also bought a seat of the CAM system I had been using for years at Code Red. It wasn’t cheap but I knew my business would rely on it for the efficient turning of short-run jobs.

On my last Friday at Code Red, Big Al called me into his office. He had a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a plain donut waiting for me. That was Al at his magnanimous best. He asked me if I had any work lined up.

Eggs are Good, but Chickens are Better

"A bunch of small jobs," I said. "Maybe enough for a few weeks."

"Those are eggs," he said. "Nothing wrong with eggs, but you need some chickens. Chickens lay eggs, lots of eggs. Remember that, Leonardo."

He told me I could take the rest of the day off if I finished the job I was working on and dismissed me away with a wave.

Saturday morning was my official opening date when I went to work for myself at One-Offs And Beyond. For two weeks I was in happyland, knocking off all those little jobs I’d lined up. By Friday of the third week, however, I was looking into the future and had the sickening realization that there wasn’t much work on the horizon. Then the phone rang.

"Hey Leonardo," said a voice I remembered all too well.  Big Al growled in my ear, "what are you doing this weekend? I got a little job that might be just up your alley – but I need the part Monday morning."

Later that morning I was looking at drawings of a wishbone bracket for mounting an experimental device on a Humvee. The long-delayed field demo was scheduled for early the next week and no one had thought of making a bracket to hang the device on the Humvee until the last minute.

The wishbone bracket looked like one of those wacko modern art sculptures – all curves, no straight lines. Even worse, the drawings were not in machine code but component coordinates.

Tricks and Treats

For two long days I was in the zone, using the CAM tricks I’d relied on at Code Red:

• Smart Toolpaths – I used a library of my favorite cutting strategies and applied them to the part. Once the parts and toolpaths were linked, I just clicked a button to get an updated toolpath any time I made a change to the part.
• Free Form – Working in different layers, I created logical stretches of toolpaths that the CAM system would later bring together like puzzle pieces.
• Mirror Imaging – When I needed a holding fixture, it was easy to create from the mirror image of some critical part features.
• Verification – A color-coded 3D image of the part showed me where I had removed too much or too little material so I could tweak the paths by hand.
• Backplotting – Watching an animated graphic of the toolpaths let me know that I could run the job safely without crashing the tool.

When I arrived at Code Red early Monday morning Big Al was waiting for me.

"Just like old times, Leonardo. I’ve got a couple more jobs for you if you can get them back to me early next week."

"No problem," I said. Code Red and Big Al were my first chickens coming home to roost.

Ben Mund is Marketing Manager for CNC Software, Tolland, CT, developers of Mastercam. His content was composed by Joel Cassola, freelance writer.

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