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Showerthought: I just hit 10,000 hours on our old core shooter.
That's the machine I trained on as an apprentice, and it's still running the same patterns. Anyone else have a piece of gear that just won't quit?
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stella_ross146mo ago
That old core shooter is a safety hazard waiting to happen. Ten thousand hours on worn parts means metal fatigue and unpredictable failures. My shop had a press from the same era, and it finally blew a seal and sprayed hydraulic fluid everywhere. Isn't keeping ancient gear just asking for a costly accident or a production shutdown?
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jamesr756mo ago
Honestly I used to think keeping old gear running was smart cost cutting. Then our 90s injection molder cracked a platen and took out the whole cooling loop. The three days of downtime cost way more than a new machine payment.
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river_wright5mo ago
That 90s molder cracking the platen sounds exactly like what happened with a 1987 press at a shop I used to work with... we ran it for years thinking we were saving money, then the main bearing seized up and took out the entire drive shaft. @stella_ross14 is totally right about metal fatigue too, that old stuff is just a ticking time bomb. We ended up losing almost a whole week of production waiting on custom parts that nobody even makes anymore... definitely cheaper to just replace it before it fails.
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