That old Bridgeport at the shop near Tulsa taught me something

I was running some parts on a beat up Bridgeport Series 1 last spring at Johnson's Machine down off Route 66. The thing had so much backlash in the X axis you had to creep up on every dimension or you'd overshoot by 0.010 easy. It forced me to slow down and pay attention to climb vs conventional cutting in a way I never did on our newer Haas machines. Has anyone else had a clapped out machine actually make them a better operator?

2 comments

2 Comments

jones.angela8d ago

My buddy had an ancient lathe that taught him the same lesson.

ryanj608d ago

Oh man, I gotta push back on that. A clapped out machine doesn't teach you anything a decent machine can't, it just wastes your time and makes you develop bad habits. Like with that Bridgeport's backlash, you're learning to guess and compensate manually instead of trusting your equipment to hold tolerance. That's not skill, it's making up for neglect. A tight machine lets you focus on speeds, feeds, tool geometry, and chip evacuation (you know, the important stuff) instead of fighting slop. I'd argue that having to creep up on every dimension just teaches you to accept mediocrity, not improve. You're better off spending the time fixing the machine or buying a used DRO than getting good at working around play.