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Quality inspector with a level and a legend about my fixture
Had a quality inspector walk over to my machine last Tuesday while I was running a big batch of aluminum plates. He stood there for about 10 minutes, not saying anything, just watching the cycle. Then he points at my soft jaws and tells me they were worn beyond tolerance, and that I was risking a scrap rate of at least 15 percent. I told him I checked them that morning with a dial indicator and they were within a thou, and he just shakes his head and pulls out a tiny pocket level, sets it on the jaw face, and says the bubble proves the whole fixture is tilted. That level was about as precise as a yardstick for measuring a fingernail, but he was so confident I didn't argue. I let him watch me re-indicate the vise, showed him zero runout on the same jaws, and he kind of shrugged and walked off. He never apologized, but the part came out fine. Has anyone else dealt with an inspector who trusts a bubble level over a tenths indicator?
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derek93921d ago
I had almost the exact same thing happen at my last shop, except the guy used a 6 inch torpedo level on my fixture plate. He swore the table was off by half a degree and wanted me to shim the whole setup, even after I showed him a .0005 indicator sweeping the plate dead flat. These inspectors come out of a class where they learn to eyeball stuff and then scare you with big scrap numbers. A bubble level has maybe a .5 degree resolution on a good day, which over a 6 inch jaw face is something like .050 of an inch, not a thou. The math never works out but they say it with such a straight face that you start second guessing yourself. You did the right thing by re-indicating right in front of him, because the part is the only argument that actually counts. Let him walk off without an apology, that shrug was probably the closest thing to one he's got.
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