Basic Mill Project Class

I just finished a demo part for the class I’m developing.
Took me about 2.5 hours, not including finding all the tools and getting the vise swept in.

I think x2 three hour classes with 3 people would be manageable, but I’m aware of the issue of no shows.

The first class would be getting the overall dimensions of the block cut and the pocket.
The second class would show them how to use a sine bar to cut the angled face( thanks to @Photomancer for showing me how to use it) , then wrap up with cutting the legs.

I’ll let y’all know when I create the class.

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Having taught a few hands on Bridgeport classes, I think you are underestimating the needed time by at least a factor of two.

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Someone else said the same thing haha.
Honestly I wish we could get honorarium for 1 on 1 or 1 on 2 instruction. It’s a tight area and a powerful machine.

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You should think this particular ‘wish’ through more thoroughly. You are basically wishing for other people’s money (our membership dues) to flow to you, a individual person, while the benefit flows to another 1 (or 2) individual(s). There is a more obvious and appropriate solution for your issue: just charge money for the class to be paid to you directly and people either will or won’t feel there is enough value there to take you up up on your offer.


On the other hand, if you want to try to use DMS honorarium system, you can consider teaching a single skill at a time per class, rather than try to bunch it all up in one class, i.e. 1st class is squaring up stock (although this is effectively covered in Mill intro classes), 2nd class covers precisely placing and cutting pockets (I would hope that the class is completely comprehensive with regard to this activity, i.e. all types of pockets and all types of mills and all types of techniques), 3rd class on using sine bar (same caveats as just previous), etc.

Ideally the skills and learning you would be imparting would be above and beyond what someone might be able to get from watching a Youtube video, reading a Wikipedia page, or using something from a MOOC or a Moodle-like service.

I didn’t realize I could charge for my time independently. My concern is that the machine shop committee should receive their portion of the honorarium since I am teaching on their equipment, and the committee will purchase stock for the students to create their project from. I feel I can give a lot of value to 2/3 students at a time. More than that, the students will largely be standing around and watching. I realize the honorarium quota is not going to change anytime soon, so lets leave it at that.

Regarding the second portion of your post, I have structured my class to teach the students enough to make my part. I find that when students have an end goal (specific part) in mind and learn skills to make the part, they retain more of what is taught, as opposed to trying to teach them all the possible uses and tools for the mill.
This is a practical hands on class for beginners. I want them to feel good about making something, to be comfortable running and setting up the machine, and give them a taste of what can be done on the machine.

Personally, I would suggest you should just be teaching/demonstrating the what it takes to make this item. You can fabricate one, having the students each help with the milling or doing specific set technique. They should understand the basic milling part, you’ll be teaching how to use that skill to:

Square up a block:
… Have examples pre-made of each step, and show sequence.
Planning cutting sequence - considerations:
… Why cut angle, legs, or pockets in a certain sequence:
…vise pressures/deformation
… alignment issues
Choice of cutters sizes:
…Multiple passes vs single pass
… Surface finish and over-lapping cuts
…Cutter fluke length considerations with smaller diameter cutter:
…Smaller diameters, Flex and have less flute length
Special considerations for deep pockets
… Clearing chips out of slots and pockets based on cutter size
Setting up Angular cuts:
… Using sine bar,
… Precision angle
… Tilt table

At the end of the class they’ll understand and be able to set-up and do angular cuts, deep pockets/slots, work planning sequence, fixturing, cutter selection. They have their block of material to go do it.

You should be able to have 5 or 6 students in my opinion. I’m guessing you can do this in about 3 hours (the second time and beyond)

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@Photomancer

I think that your suggestions are great in order to accommodate a larger class size. I don’t think they would be comfortable enough running the part on their own without someone to guide them. I may have to break this into 3 classes, or have your intro mill class as a prerequisite.
I don’t want to have to babysit people for an additional 3+ hours after a 3 hour class, I don’t have that kind of time to spare, hence my aim to have small class and the students working on their parts in class while I’m there with them.

@mblatz

Your point of teaching classes one on one for an individual rate would suit what I want to do (guiding a couple students to making their parts) from beginning to end. I will investigate how to set that up.

I absolutely think the Bridgeport class is a prerequisite. They shouldn’t be using the machine until they have that required training. So if they learn the skills to make this, unless they’ve taken a Bridgeport class, they can’t do anything.

This is teaching some intermediate skills via a project used to demonstrate them that they’ll do after the class where they can practice those skills. If they don’t have the Bridgeport class, they wouldn’t be allowed to use the Bridgeport.

There are enough people that have trained on the Bridgeport you should be able to fill classes - even if you set class size at 3 or 4. For most people this is an actual use of what they learned to make something. Very warning, at last Friday evening’s Bridgeport class only 3 of 6 showed up (this is the first time it happened - I know one person decided at the last minute to take a laser class and didn’t bother cancelling)

But if you want to teach one on one, you can do that. But you’ll have to go buy your own material for them to use - our teaching material was purchased for teaching Machine Classes which means at least three people.

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