A Variety of Tools

Here are some of the items we saw on the tour. The first is a piece of hardware designed by Brian, I believe.


One of the ceiling cranes, moving over to pick up the above part, and take it to a milling machine for further work.






Following is a new machine they are installing. It has one rotating chuck for holding a part, one large multi-tooled head, and a second head for another tool. It is capable of cutting hexagons, for example, by spinning and maneuvering in unison. I wish it was running, so we could have seen it, but we'd probably only have seen a bunch of coolant spraying the window if it was.






This one cuts with a wire.




And this oddity was electrically burning an elliptical hole into a part, while submurged in a special fluid. Puffs of smoke come up out of the fluid bath as the machine hisses up and down, and smells of solder or "magic smoke". They showed us that drops of water sink to the bottom, and sit beaded up at the bottom of the tank.