THE MONTHLY TIPS COMPETITION – THE ENTRY THREAD!

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

The monthly ‘Readers Tips‘ Competition in MEW will be continued over to Model Engineer & Workshop.

We have £30 in gift vouchers courtesy of engineering suppliers Chester Machine Tools for each month’s ‘Top Tip’. Email your workshop tips to meweditor@mortons.co.uk marking them ‘Readers Tips‘, and you could be a winner. Try to keep your tip to no more than 400 words and a picture or drawing. Don’t forget to include your address!

Alternatively, make a post in this thread explaining and illustrating your tip!

Every month we’ll choose a winner for the Tip of the Month from the most recent entries emailed to us or posted on this thread. The winner will receive £30 in gift vouchers from Chester Machine Tools. Visit http://www.chesterhobbystore.com to plan how to spend yours! No alternative prizes are available.

Please note that the first prize of Chester Vouchers is only available to UK readers. You can make multiple entries, but we reserve the right not to award repeat prizes to the same person in order to encourage new entrants. All prizes are at the discretion of the Editor.

This thread has been set up to encourage a greater variety of entries and participants. Posting in this thread will be deemed as giving permission for your entry to be included in the competition and published in the magazine.

If you would like to post a tip but NOT enter the competition, please post it elsewhere in the ‘Hints and Tips for Model Engineers’ section.

Good luck!

Neil Wyatt

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I’m currently looking for Tips for ME&W!

Don’t forget, post your tip in this thread if you want to be considered as an entry – many thousands more people will see your tip if it gets published!

[garyashParticipant @garyash]

A great tip I learnt from an old boy at the place where my dad worked. When surface grinding or milling and you need to ‘touch off’ put some coolant/oil on the job and then a small  (less than 1″) bit of thin smooth paper. If pressed flat, the liquid will hold the paper close to the job. Feed the cutter/wheel towards the job until the paper is whisked away, then you are close and can feed very slowly.

Rizla cigarette papers were a favourite and about 3.5 thou thick – a packet lasts a long time if you don’t smoke.

On grinding jobs that had not been pre-machined a bit on each corner avoids the embarrassment of  the first cut becoming impossibly deep.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I don’t doubt  for one second,  that garyash  is fully entitled to submit this as a Tip … but it has inspired me to start a new investigation for my own amusement:

It might actually turn-out to be ‘the oldest in the book’

MichaelG.

[garyash]

On garyash Said:

Rizla cigarette papers were a favourite and about 3.5 thou thick

Please peruse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizla

Paper thickness conversion chart

and perhaps reassess the figure you give for thickness in the light thereof.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

I have two no name packs and they measure at 0.0005” with an SPI Digi mike. Yes that is right three zeros.

[garyashParticipant @garyash]

Thanks for all the interest, unfortunately my time travel machine isn’t working so I can’t verify the thickness of my mentors cigarette paper, although I am pretty sure from his then nicotine stained fingers that he isn’t about today.

I guess as the cheap papers are a fairly modern invention, their use is contemporary with the widespread introduction of milling machines especially as the early machines did not have graduated indexing collars on the feed screws so ‘touching off’ in a poorly lit workshop would be a challenge.

On this basis I hope there is prize for best long established tip!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

🙂

[garyashParticipant @garyash]

As my ‘cigarette paper’ trick seems so widely known I thought I would share another…

When countersinking holes with a rose type bit it is all too easy to end up with a rounded sided polygon filled with chatter flats. One solution is to place a square of emery cloth strip over the hole before starting. Abrasive side down is probably better for the countersink. I don’t  think the abrasive plays any part in the improvement, so perhaps any stiff fabric (glue soaked denim?) will be as good and the cutter won’t be so abused.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

https://tormach.com/articles/11-ways-to-locate-part-zero-on-your-cnc-machine?srsltid=AfmBOoqAgE4ukLyowSkT1oUEEl0cxR0CnlWnaT7sPX7z4Kv-vvNMq3iw

 

Touch off with paper: The traditional old-school method involves holding a piece of cigarette paper (rumored to be exactly 0.001″ thick) on the workpiece and gradually lowering the cutter until it starts to catch the paper. Add another 0.001″ and you are at zero!

See #7

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

‘Forever’ is obviously overstating the case, but:

https://youtu.be/nzWLSgvk3nc?feature=shared

MichaelG.

.

[garyash]

On garyash Said:

Thanks for all the interest, unfortunately my time travel machine isn’t working so I can’t verify the thickness of my mentor’s cigarette paper

You are missing the point. If you want to submit a tip, you verify that it is factually correct or you are spreading lies, simple as.

With regard to “cheap papers are a fairly modern invention”, please look at the Wikipedia page for Rizla – they are a rather long established company.

[jimmy bParticipant @jimmyb]

🙄

Jimb

[garyashParticipant @garyash]

Sorry if you feel misled by my over-thick paper, I hadn’t realised the pedant police would be fact checking to the thou. Within reason, if you intend to machine the surface the actual paper thickness makes no difference it simply provides a warning that contact is imminent.

On the subject of pedantry, aren’t lies deliberately stated untruths.

My next tip may be don’t bother offering advice.

[garyash]

 

On garyash Said:

Sorry if you feel misled by my over-thick paper, I hadn’t realised the pedant police would be fact checking to the thou. Within reason, if you intend to machine the surface the actual paper thickness makes no difference it simply provides a warning that contact is imminent.

On the subject of pedantry, aren’t lies deliberately stated untruths.

My next tip may be don’t bother offering advice.

Don’t let the idiot stop you posting!

 

Jimb

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

It was a perfectly valid Tip, in principle, garyash

… and as we move incessantly towards everything being ‘automated’ it’s worth reflecting upon how things were done by our forebears.

MichaelG.

 

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

If being a pedant is a skill then some have honed the art to a fine point ! There is a place for accuracy and also for less precise work, the real skill is knowing which is right for the job ? Noel.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

On the same theme of setting the end of a cutter to the work surface.  Many mills have a quill feed as well as a Z leadscrew feed, the quill having a cotter type stop to lock it.  A simple way to pick up the surface, especially if you have DRO, is as follows.

• With the quill unlocked, wind down the Z feed until the cutter is a few mm above the surface and set the Z zero datum.
• Gently feed down the quill until the cutter just touches the surface, and lock it tight with the cotter.  Now the end of the cutter is at Z=zero.
• Use the Z feed to slightly lift the cutter so it clears the surface – when you wind it down to indicate zero again the cutter will be at surface level.

It may be objected that this might damage the cutter, which is why you want to be gentle.  In 20 years I’ve never had a problem.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Another way if you don’t have a quill feed is to use a feeler gauge instead of a cigarette paper, gently feed down until the feeler gauge is just trapped.  Its thickness will give you the Z zero level.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Picking up a hole to drill it out.  Always have a couple of accurate “points” machined on the end of a polished shank (silver steel).  I have 6mm, 1/4″, 10mm.  Make sure the hole to be picked up is deburred, place a larger point in the chuck, and slide the workpiece under the point. use the quill to feed down and it will centre the  piece, pressing quite hard.  Lock the quill to hold in place while you clamp to the table.  Job done.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Centering a drill on a punch point.

• Make sure the punching is clean and deep.
• Clamp the work to the table, put a fairly thin drill in the chuck and position the punching by eye underneath the point.
• Set the drill so its cutting edges are approximately parallel with either X or Y, and feed down with the quill lever.  As the point enters the punch the drill will slightly deflect – set X or Y (as chosen) for minimum deflection
• Rotate the drill 90 degrees and repeat.
• Repeat the whole process until there is no drill deflection.
• Job done.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Setting a drill centre near enough to the edge of the work to drill holes at set distances in from the edge.

• As above, rotate the drill until its chisel edge is parallel to the edge and by eye is slightly too far out.
• Use the quill to feed down – as its edge touches the work it will slightly deflect away.
• Move slightly closer and repeat until there is just no movement when it touches.
• Zero the axis – the drill centre line is on the edge.
• Job done.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

The general theme of the above is that for most practical purposes exact precision is great but not necessary.

Another general tip is that the human eye is remarkably precise in judging parallelism between closely spaced lines.  So for example if you have scribed a line near the edge of a plate and want to mill that edge down to the line, position the plate in the mill vice so the line is about 1mm or less from the jaw edge (which ought to be ground parallel to the base anyway.  With the vice lightly tightened, tap the edge of the plate until the scribed line is parallel to the jaw along its entire length.  Full tighten and check again.  Job done.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, all this talk about how thick Rizla paper is, why not just measure the piece you are going to use, as I suppose if you are wanting to be precise, you’ll have a mic or suitable callipers with you.

Regards Nick.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

A lot of pedantry here? Anyone with a micrometer or even a digital caliper can get an accurate enough for this rule of thumb measurement.

Cigarette Papers

I’ve always used Rizzla green (I don’t smoke though…) They are about 30 microns, which is just over a thou, but that seems to be ideal as the cutter needs to be advanced to enter the paper and I suspect wetting with spittle and patting down onto the work makes it a bit thinner.

Reds are thicker.

Neil

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