Writing

Notes from the seam between the shop floor and the codebase — cutting tools, CNC toolpaths, Python automation, and precision metrology.

Cutting Tools·2 min

Cutting a 45-minute job to 20 with custom spline links in Rhino

The fastest way to halve a cycle time usually isn't a faster feed — it's deleting the moves that never touch the part. Here's how custom spline links did it.

June 12, 2026Read

Cutting Tools·2 min

Why I put variable flute and index geometry on a carbide endmill

Chatter is a resonance problem, and resonance is a frequency problem. Variable flute and index geometry attack it where it lives — in the spacing between teeth.

May 28, 2026Read

Cutting Tools·2 min

One tool, four features: designing multi-form cutters that cut cycle time 38–50%

Every tool change is time the spindle isn't cutting. Multi-form tools collapse several operations into one pass — here's how I design them without losing finish.

May 9, 2026Read

ANCA MX7 CNC tool grinder with grinding wheel pack and robot loader

Cutting Tools·2 min

Solving the grinding-wheel pivot angle with Grasshopper

Finding a wheel pivot angle that clears the tool, blank, and machine used to be 3–5 minutes of guess-and-check. Parametric geometry turns it into a slider.

April 21, 2026Read

Industrial robot arm in a manufacturing cell

Automation·2 min

From ERP to robot cell in seconds: automating order creation with Python

Re-keying production orders by hand took hours and invited serial-number mistakes. A Python bridge between the ERP and the cell manager made it seconds.

April 3, 2026Read

Automation·2 min

Replacing the shop's Excel sheets with ToolLink

Spreadsheets don't scale to a shop floor of tools, holders, stick-outs, and revisions. ToolLink moved all of it into one Flask + SQLite app anyone can update live.

March 15, 2026Read

Programming code on a developer's screen

Career·2 min

Should a manufacturing engineer learn to code? What four small tools taught me

The question isn't whether manufacturing engineers should become developers. It's whether the smallest automations are worth the afternoon. They are.

February 26, 2026Read

Metrology·2 min

Machining a deformed 3D-printed aerospace part by solving its true location

A printed part is never quite where the model says. To machine it in spec, you first have to find where it actually is — all six degrees of freedom of it.

January 30, 2026Read

Optical coordinate measuring machine in a metrology lab

Metrology·2 min

What FEA taught me about touch-probe error (and a 27.7% measurement gain)

A touch probe doesn't trigger at the contact point — it slides first. Modelling that sliding with FEA, and compensating it, recovered a 27.7% measurement gain.

December 11, 2025Read

Vernier caliper measuring a machined part

Metrology·2 min

GD&T vs. reality: how measurement uncertainty should change how you tolerance

Every measurement has uncertainty, and that uncertainty quietly eats your tolerance zone. If you tolerance as if your gauge is perfect, you're shipping risk.

November 6, 2025Read

Career·2 min

The shop floor and the codebase: notes from an Applications Engineer

Mastercam, Rhino, and iGrind on one side; Python, web apps, and ERP integrations on the other. The work I care about lives in the seam between them.

October 9, 2025Read

Part machined between centers on a CNC lathe

Cutting Tools·2 min

Lights-out machining from 1 to 20 mm: what it takes to trust a tool overnight

Lights-out production removes the human who catches problems early. So the tool has to be the thing that doesn't create them. Here's what earns that trust.

September 18, 2025Read