Metal Working - Procedures When Working With Metal

If you are a new machinist or if you are one who is more experiences than most, then safety is still an important factor to consider when you begin to work on your latest job. There are several other areas that also need to be taken into consideration when you are working with this type of medium - metal. You need to be in a safe environment and by following a few of these procedures, you can ensure you have a safe working area for yourself and your co-workers.

1) Safety

Make sure that you are wearing gloves with metal as obviously there will be sharp corners involved when you are working with metal. Many machinist have decided to not bother wearing gloves and have ended up with missing fingers or worse. It is recommended that a new machinist wears gloves even when picking up any type of metal and not just wearing them when on the actual CNC machine.

Another massive part of the safety routine when working with metals is to use the correct safety goggles. Eye protection when working around active machines is paramount. Although CNC machines do have a plastic guard as standard, a lot of bits of metal or other types of debris could still end up in your eyes. If you are using compressed air to try and clean machines then be extra careful as an eye could get damaged from flying chips as there is usually small slivers that are easily capable of entering your eye.

2) Starting up your machines

One thing that new machinists often neglect to think about is making sure that their machines are properly warmed up before they start working on them. I would recommend allowing your machine to warm up for around 10 minutes before you begin working on it. The warm up for a machine can be set to a moderate speed so not to cause any problems before you start applying pressure to them, very much in the same way that you would not apply too much pressure to a cars accelerator before it is warmed up.

Slowly starting the machine process in the beginning of your shift is the best way to warm up the machine. If you decide to use the machine without a warm up, then it may be possible if you just start your first job of on a slow cycle to make sure things are running smoothly.

3) Cleaning you machine.

It is advisable to be able to clean your machine and also to make sure that the chips and other debris are cleaned away after every cycle. The small chips can get caught up on the various spindles of a machine and cause great problems when they are not removed. You also need to make sure that the chips are removed from the chuck jaws and also the vices.

Making sure that the work area directly below the machine is good practice. By this, I am talking about the floor and surface area where you have been working. Sweep, mop and polish any floor near the machine once you have finished your job. You may slip and fall if the area is not completely cleaned after working on metal. Metal chips can become particularly greasy when work with metal, so be sure to use gloves when you are cleaning them.

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