Overheard a guy at the shop talk about tool offsets, mind blown

I was grabbing inserts at the supply house Tuesday and this older operator was telling the counter guy how he sets his tool offsets. He said he always touches off using the part surface, not the vise, because material thickness changes everything. I always just used the top of the jaws without thinking. Tried it on a stainless job this morning, saved me from a scrap part on the second op. Anyone else do their offsets off the raw stock instead of the fixture?

1 comments

1 Comment

clark.lily28d ago

Yeah that's the move once youve run enough parts to learn how much your stock size varies. Ive had jobs where the jaws were ground true but the material was plus 30 thou and it wouldve been a cold day in hell before that second op cleaned up.