SCORE!

No "elevated perch"

--it's just that I've had a darex for a LONG time now and I've actually used it to sharpen endmills many thousands of times.

You, on the other hand, have probably never sharpened an endmill in your entire life, yet here you are you are, trying to tell me how great of a job it does....

LOL--not sure what your problem is. You think I don't "build stuff" for a living ?

As though having spent about 2 decades building gearboxes and control surface actuaters, landing gear parts and so forth for commercial airliners somehow doesn't count as "building stuff" ?

And nowadays, I own and manufacture an entire product line--tools for the discriminating model builder; I have a global distribution network comprising over 60 retail sellers in 21 countries across the globe.

I have 3 Fadal machining centers and a Bridgeport FMS 4 axis cell with 80 tools ATC and 8 300 mm work pallets.

I have 2 cnc swiss...Maurobeni Citizen

--a pair of German Lathes made by Weiler...A Hardinge TR and a Tsugami Super precision.

And other small /manual machine tools too numerous to mention...

You think all of the tooling and the workholding fixtures and what not just magically appeared in my shop one day ?

Oh almost forgot--I'm also in the process of building a 5 x 12 foot router, but that is for my oldest son, because I do not want it to stay in my basement forever... maybe I'll post a picture some day...

Sheesh...

BUT IT WON'T produce anything even closely resembling a factory grind....something which you are apparently having an exceptionally rough time comprehending....

I actually do know when and where a factory grind REALLY is needed; and I also know when even a factory grind simply won't do, in which case I either send the work out to a grind shop or else I mount a grinding wheel onto a cat40 holder, dressing it with a macro so that my height offsets remain stable.

Actually, when it comes to 'job shop' work, I've trimmed my customer base drastically over the years by turning away the vast majority of work, to the point where nowadays, any contract work that I DO accept is pretty darned complex, and on a VERY tightly compressed time schedule, specifically, orbital defense and communication hardware where the proposed launch date is under a significant threat of delay.

FWIW, all of those parts were validated as having a 16 finish or better despite their visual appearance...

Pretty sure your idea of a "good finsh" differs considerably from mine; for me, surface finish is a quantifiable technical measurement that defines (and limits) viable process options and ultimately effects customer rejection and mechanical failure rates.

And since anyone who expends additional time and resources in order to produce a finish that is "better" than customer requirements is likely to go out of business fairly soon, through the years it's been important for me to have a fairly thorough understanding of all the variables affecting part finish.

Mostly, though, due to the function of the tools I make, I need a 90 degree 'knife edge' on the finished part...basically a knife edge, in aluminum..the target being ZERO raised burr as observed under a microscope, which is physically impossible in the first place, and the situation only worsens where you have a friggen sub-miniature mountain ridge on your the cutting tools.

I sold all my "spare granite plates" many years ago, floor space is too valuable.....

I'm in need of another knee surgery; I've grown tired of tripping over and having to walk around a bunch of machinery and shit that seldom if ever actually generates revenue.

Sorry to burst your bubble but as I said before, the darex simply is NOT capable of producing anything even closely resembling a factory grind and your attempts at marginalizing my experience and skill level simply is not going to change that fact.

Anyways, I have better things to do...congratulations on your purchase....

--if you got the radius attachment, I'm fairly certain you are going to be hugely dissapointed with it.

Also, you will probably want to get the borazon and diamond wheels--these will give you a MUCH finer grind as compared to aluminum oxide and the green...and while it will do a reasonable job in sharpening the end primary, you'll probably also come to agree that the cam system that lowers the air bar for grinding of the end secondary is an exceedingly hoakey setup and so like me, out of frustration, you'll probably end up routinely doing that by hand on a bench grinder for any tools that are over say 3/8 inch diameter or so.

Other than that, it is likely to save you quite a bit of money if you are currently sending out lots of tools for od grind so long as the vast majority of your work falls into the "utility" category...

In other words, basically it's simply another cool toy unless you would have spent a similar amount of money on outside tool grinding such that a return on your investment will occur within a reasonable time period.

Lay it on a surface plate, touch off on the od with a height gage for a zero reading and then take another reading off of the flute. Now, double the difference and subtract it from the shank dia.

"PrecisionmachinisT" fired this volley in news:z-KdnfhS87r8QjvSnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@scnresearch.com:

Good advice, and simple. Thank you. I do other indirect measurements all the time.

Now, if the beginning of the _other_ conversation had gone this way:

LS - "Wow! I just scored on a tool I've wanted for a long time! yay!" PM - "Well, I've owned one for years, and it's saved me lots of money, but here's what it can and can't do..."

Instead of: LS - "Wow! I just scored on a tool I've wanted for a long time! yay!" PM - "Piece of junk. Dumb purchase. (Even though I own one and have saved a $100K with it.)"

then the rest of the conversation might have gone differently. It seemed to me that your only intent for responding at all was to try to crush my enjoyment of having bought it. Of course I would bite back. Wouldn't you, with the shoe on the other foot?

I just bought a used Solberga 2HP drill press with power-down, in very nice condition. I was happy about it. Was that a stupid purchase, too?

Lloyd

Were there no other comparable sales nearby? That's the usual approach.

At this point, the County is legally cornered by state law. So sad.

This may be the key. Bob may have been unwilling to hire a mean-enough lawyer: 49000/3= $16,333. It sounds like a lot of money, but was repaid in the first year. But, this should not have been necessary.

Joe Gwinn

It is very possible that there were not any comparable sales. Plus, it is easy for the county to dismiss them during hearings.

As far as I know, and I do know, he did hire a lawyer every reassessment, and was not successful. That info is publicly available, that is how I know.

This is why I strongly feel that it is unfair.

By the way, this math does not quite work like this.

1. The fee is 1/3 of the first year's reduction, in this case,

This is about 9k in my case, which is the amount on the check that I mailed yesterday.

1. The fee is contingent upon reduction, you owe lawyers nothing unless they reduce taxes.

So, in other words, there is not much risk in retaining a lawyer.

Robert Heinlein had an interesting idea, he proposed that the owner would set the property value upon which he was assessed, however, that value was also considered a listing price, and if somebody arrived with that much cash, you either sold, or raised the value until they dropped their bid. If you did that, you owed 3 years back taxes at the new value...

I can see the flaws, but also has some merit.

I believe that it is a few thousand year old idea, this is how property taxes were assessed in Judea or some such.

It is not a bad idea, though, as you say, it has flaws. Such as, say, oil being discovered under someone's field.

Because the Assessors Office valued the commercial property too high considering the prices at the peak of the real estate market. And the only way to prove that the assessment is too high was for Joe to sell the building - then they place the new valuation at the actual sale price which dropped Iggy's property tax bill. For a while...

But don't worry, Iggy - You don't have Proposition 13, so the State Assessor is free to crank the valuation back up almost at their whim when they decide they're going broke again, and the only way out is to sell it yourself. And when it happens, you might want to look for a new shop in a lower tax state.

-->--

As you noted elsewhere, it was 1/3 the difference, or $9K. And it was a contingency fee at that.

Yes. And Bruce Bergman probably cracked the code.

This is a big reason that northern industrial states are busily deindustrializing.

Joe Gwinn

Bruce, it will remain to be seen. I am hopeful that they will not increase my taxes too much. I will try to not apply for any permits.

Not that hard, and can be done on a vertical mill, or a surface grinder. There is a fixture with all the right angles built into it for this purpose. You put the cutter in a 5C collet, and take several passes under the grinding wheel, indexing the cutter to hit each flute. If you have to take off a lot, then you need to mess with the "gashing" on a 4-flute to retain the center-cutting feature.

I have some ghastly pictures on my web site, but haven't done this in close to 20 years. It probably only makes sense to do it on 1" and up end mills.

Jon

I was spoiled by starting out with Pratt & Whitney Stellite cutters. When those finally wore out, I got some plain HSS tools and they were used up in minutes. I couldn't figure out what was so different until years later I finally found out those P&W cutters were Stellite! Now, I only buy solid carbide in the small sizes (up to 1/4") and M42 and M57 Cobalt cutters in larger sizes. The Cobalt cutters last at least 3 X longer than HSS and only cost a few cents more most of the time.

Jon

Great, and now you are in the same boat as Bob! When the next assessment comes around, they will start jacking up the value of the building, and you won't be able to disprove their valuation. Pretty soon, they will have it right back to $670K! Have you already figured out who to sell the building to?

Jon

Jon Elson fired this volley in news:g4adndJAe6hOYjrSnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Of course, once you re-grind one, that advantage is mostly lost. The gullets are still coated, but the primary and secondary reliefs are not.

Lloyd

Cobalt is not a coating; it's a premuim grade of tool steel that's been formulated with a higher cobalt content, for the purpose of increasing red-hardness and abrasion resistance.

"PrecisionmachinisT" fired this volley in news:vJGdnaDui86CoTTSnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@scnresearch.com:

Correct; I saw "coated" when he wrote that. Cobalt alloy cutters and drills are more than "just a few cents more".

Lloyd

Wait until you see _Modern Machine Shop_ in June. There's a cutter grinder in there that dreams are made of. $800,000, but man, oh man. It will grind logarithmic reliefs on your gear hobs, from both sides at once d8-)