We’ve been aligning these for 3 days. I am a machinist, this isn’t our thing. But when the customer asks, I say yes.
You gotta learn to not over promise my friend. Stay in your lane and call in help when you get into someone else’s lane.
Saved me lots of headaches.
We were the called in help, lol.
Basically, one of our local shops we do some back and forth with called and needed saving. They do work for these mills, specifically building these kilns. They somehow forgot they didn’t have someone on hand who can do motor alignments.
I can do them. I don’t have the fancy stuff, but really all you need is an indicator and a brain.
I just wasn’t expecting so many, lmao. He didn’t tell me. But we are getting paid well, so I’m not complaining.
I knew a landscaper that ended up cleaning movie theaters. He turned it into a business that he sold for 15 million when he was 22.
Do not stay in your lane. Find and take opportunity. If it doesn’t fit, either learn to improve it or learn to walk away. Either way an opportunity turned down is an opportunity lost.
Go get em buddy!!!!
This is precisely my intention.
I can’t very well expand my business if I stick to doing the same things for the same customers till the day they find someone cheaper than me, or the company switches hands and they want to use a different vendor. Then my business dies because I have no alternate revenue paths.
Plus, aligning motors is relatively simple, easy, and requires very little overhead. It worked well, we got it done in a timely manner, and everyone was pleased. I would gladly do this again.
I’ve also done big fabrication jobs, equipment installations, I’ve even went to go install micarta wear strip lol.
I’ve made a lot of money just doing what my customer tells me. I’ll keep doing it.
You’ll get faster the more you do it.
Oh for sure. We are actually finished now, at first it was taking way too long, but after we were about halfway through we were breezing through most of them.
At least until we ran out of shims. These motor bases were very low, I don’t why they built them that way. And the motor mount holes were incorrect as well. We spent a fair amount of time with an electric die grinder…
Please tell me you grinded the base and not the motor
Guess I better stay in my lane hahaha.
Well shit, hope it goes well then.
It did. We are finished now actually, got home late last night.
I have a nasty fucking sunburn though. Didn’t even realize I was getting it. I’m bringing the term redneck to a whole new level.
They built them low, becose you can shim them up, shining them down gets harder
Obviously, lol
I think that (on average) .375 low might have been a bit overkill though.
I don’t have the fancy stuff, but really all you need is an indicator and a brain.
There’s a whole slew of methods for people who do not have laser set ups or harmonic vibe instruments.
I happen to believe the old school ways result in superior alignments. The new stuff is just faster (much) and adequate.
Is your customer a retired drill instructor? 😝
WHATEVER YOU TELL ME TO DRILL SERGEANT!
That, and “In theory…” are basically my catchphrases at this point.
With rubber couplings it doesn’t have to be spot on
We still try to get them pretty damn close, it helps them last alot longer.
Its worth it. I use rubber coupling and some cv joints in marine propulsion and even though spec is usually .012-.004 I usually try to get .001 or under. Its real nice being able to grab a 100s lbs prop assembly and spin it one handed by the shaft
People on here telling you to stay in your lane are thinking about how to protect their job. You saying yes when customer asks for help is thinking about how to grow a business. This is the way. Keep it up.
Yeah, it’s been working for me for years now, and it’s paved the way to basically all the success I’ve had so far. I’m not staying in any lane lol.
Dont get me wrong, we are a machine shop and I intend to stay a machine shop primarily. But I’m not afraid to send out crews doing sweet little gigs like this either.
Sounds like a great foundation for a mechanical maintenance company that can fab anything it might require in house.
My boss told me when he hired me he doesn’t say no. If a customer calls and wants us to do or quote job, we do it. Keeps me working all year round. Sometimes the jobs he takes suck, but not as much as pogey.
We have the same model. If a customer asks, and it’s remotely possible we can do it, we do it.
We are a machine shop, but next week I’m sending a couple small crews to work a shutdown at one of our major customers. One of the jobs is to take out the bottom panels of a bag house (small silo essentially) and put up new panels in their place. During this same shutdown, I’m also machining auger stubs and fixing the flighting on those same augers, and also having a small crew do some welding on stainless pipe flanges. We will probably even have a couple guys shadowing the mills own millwrites as helpers.
We got into the company doing this shutdown by making a shaker table, which at the time was a big fab job for us, no machining at all.
I’d say something like 65-75% of what we do in our shop is machining, and the rest is mostly fab work, with a sprinkle of demo/installation.
Welcome to ✨⭐️✨consulting✨✨
Where the main rule is, if you are fully booked all the time, time to raise your rates.
That’s pretty cool. Pretty easy making them concentric (accounting for indicator droop!) but how do you measure the parallelism?
One indicator on the shaft, another on the face of the coupling. When they both are dialed in at the same time (within a couple thou anyway) that’s good enough, lol.
Rim and face, or reverse dial. Rim and face is faster.
How many motors is this kiln?
These motors were way way too low.
Nice, biggest I’ve been involved with was 32 fans, belt driven though. Do you do the balancing ? Got any other pics of the kiln ?
I’ve been around belt driven ones before, in fact there was a belt driven one right beside this one lol. We don’t do balancing, no.
I have no other pictures. I try to avoid taking pictures of more than what I’m specifically doing, some places have rules about it.
Alignment of those style couplings isn’t all that critical.
It helps them last alot longer if you get them pretty close axially. A little angular misalignment isn’t a big deal though.
You the one signing the checks for maintenance on these puppies?
Hey, if the customer had an experienced crew ready to go they would’ve called them. Sounds like you were the guy they trusted to figure it out.
Yeah, I was the emergency save lol.
Technically, I was subbing under another shop, who works for this mill alot. They build these kilns. Somehow, someone to align the motors was overlooked.
We came to the rescue.
I’m an electrical engineer who works on radio telescopes. I get to do stuff like this also. Whatever the project requires.
In the Navy it was one of the machinist’s (machinery repairman) functions. I never understood why the mechanics (machinist mates) didn’t do it.
Possibly because they understood the significance of .001”.
It was nice to be needed. Most of my day to day was either throttleman, PMs on the equipment, or engraving name tags. The only real machining I did was when the crap hit the fan.
Is it me or does the cloth on the second moter looks like a lady siting in with cloths?
I enjoyed these extra little jobs,helping out now gets you better later
I think you meant to say
When the customer pays, I say “Yes, with $100 per diem”.
If it makes you feel any better, those paraflex are pretty forgiving.
Easy money homie!
I use a Pruftechnik Rotalign for motor alignments. Definitely to expensive to get for just one job.
We use to just use dial indicators, but that is a dead artform in my industry now.
I’d rather have a machinist do it than most maintenance guys 😂 least you’ll pay attention if the belt is crooked.
We have 110kw motors that need swapping out occasionally.
The guy I call in takes 30 mins to align each one from scratch.
Sometimes you should just turn a job down if you don’t have the correct kit or expertise.
It was taking us about 20 minutes each, after the first few. A little less or more depending on the particular one, some of them we had to mess with the motor mount holes. There was simply an assload of these, that’s why it took so long lol.
I don’t turn down work unless I literally cannot do it. I’m not in a position to.
