I'm just a little speechless

[mowens]

My boss is quite the storyteller and I suspect he occasionally uses poetic license to add a little entertainment value, so when he told me there was an engineer who wanted to use a vacuum fixture to hold bare honeycomb core for machining, I had a feeling he was doing that again. Then I talked with my coworker who is on that project and he confirmed it. One of our lab techs had to explain to him why it wouldn't work.

He had to explain to an engineer why something full of hundreds of holes couldn't be held down by vacuum.

[Leehound]

My boss is quite the storyteller and I suspect he occasionally uses poetic license to add a little entertainment value, so when he told me there was an engineer who wanted to use a vacuum fixture to hold bare honeycomb core for machining, I had a feeling he was doing that again. Then I talked with my coworker who is on that project and he confirmed it. One of our lab techs had to explain to him why it wouldn't work.

He had to explain to an engineer why something full of hundreds of holes couldn't be held down by vacuum.

Let me guess. He's college educated?

[CNCAppsJames]

Let me guess. He's college educated?

#TrustTheScience #PeerReviewedWisdom

 

[mowens]

Let me guess. He's college educated?

I would assume so.

[gcode]

He had to explain to an engineer why something full of hundreds of holes couldn't be held down by vacuum.

You should have let him find out for himself.
After all, experience is the best teacher.

[Newbeeee™]

He had to explain to an engineer why something full of hundreds of holes couldn't be held down by vacuum.

Seal the doors....seal the windows....get a larger pump....
 

[mowens]

I thought about telling him that he needs to put little, tiny seal grooves around each cell of the honeycomb.

[jstell]

I thought about telling him that he needs to put little, tiny seal grooves around each cell of the honeycomb.

Or fill all the cells with wax.  Then give it to the engineer to clean the wax out.
"You said we needed to use vacuum.  We needed to seal it so it stayed down."

[Zoffen]

If these are flat 3 axis router parts you might be able to do it....

Depending on how thick the honeycomb wall was you can make custom plastic "Top Covers" that are the shape of your part and then put the "Top Cover" on the honeycomb and apply vacuum. You then machine the inner features and put plastic over each feature as you cut it. Then cut the outer profile. This would be for a router table with a big ass vac pump. You might be able to just lay plastic on the honeycomb and then use a razor to cut out where your features would go as well. As long as you got a big enough part and vac pump you can make some magic happen.

[mowens]

These parts have a compound contour and will be ran on a 5 axis router.

[TylerBeer]

If he's that dumb, imagine if he didn't go to college? Would've asked you to pull compressed air on it

[Jeff]

Reason #479 why engineers are not as smart as the general public thinks they are.

[SuperHoneyBadger]

Reason #479 why engineers are not as smart as the general public thinks they are.

Pfft... Try telling that to my wife's mom. She's still asking me to this day when I'm going to night school to be an Engineer. I figure if I do, I'll lose my few dozen valuable IQ points (you know, the ones over 150) and start making the mistakes I'm fixing every day.

[Jeff]

Pfft... Try telling that to my wife's mom. She's still asking me to this day when I'm going to night school to be an Engineer. I figure if I do, I'll lose my few dozen valuable IQ points (you know, the ones over 150) and start making the mistakes I'm fixing every day.

One of my close friends that I grew up with went to Michigan Tech to be an engineer in 1989. In the late 90's-early 2000's we got into it because he thought he was smarter than me in the machining business. So cocky and arrogant looking down his nose at me because I was "just a shop rat" (his words).
You can't reason with 99% of them. It's futile.

[SuperHoneyBadger]

You can't reason with 99% of them. It's futile.

Of all the engineers I knew in my 20s, I talk to exactly zero of them today. Don't know how it naturally attracts that type, but it does. Civil, electrical or mechanical doesn't seem to matter. They always asked for my help too, because they had no practical knowledge at all, and I was knee deep in chips. But Allah forbid I need a favour from them... No help for the big man when shit hits the fan.

Never having to worry about money must be nice though, I still do from time to time.