What did you do today? (2013)

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I had been thinking about posting this thread and JS's post in another thread has prompted me to do so.

This forum is unlike most other model engineering forums that I visit in that very few people post what they are doing, most members on other forums have a build diary going of their current project but looking at the Work In progress section of this forum there is hardly a thing.

So I'll kick it of with what I got upto today. Starting with this 5mm plate

and this bit of scaffold pole

I ended up with this base for my doubled up Easton & Anderson beam engine

and a good start on the cylinder pedestal

Well to tell the truth I had already made a start on the base. So what did you get upto in the workshop taday?

J

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

[John CoatesParticipant @johncoates48577]

I didn't – I'm going in there now. Today I have been mostly riding my motorcycle

Tomorrow I shall mostly be cleaning it !

[Anonymous]

I was tidying up in the greenhouse this morning and was duty tug pilot this afternoon, so not much workshop time. However I did finish cleaning and assembling the connecting rods for my traction engines. I also had a final clean up in the workshop ready for the new (to me) lathe I am collecting on Monday.

Regards,

Andrew

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

Did the washing up. Two loads of washing, cleaned car, hoovered car, made breakfast in bed for wifey, ate last nights left over chineese…then into the workshop! STEAM TESTED MY FINISHED 5" STEEL BOILER…that went perfect but the steam regulater valve came loose, so a complete redesign is under way. I got bored of this so made me a blower valve and fitted that. Cooked me a curry, had me a bath and here I am! Just need 4 cans of Stella' and ive about done!

[SkarvenParticipant @skarven]

I was assemblying and lubricating the front suspension of a 1997 Polaris Indy700 CX snowmobile. Some of the points required a conical grease gun! i haven't seen those for a while. Is that an American thing?

A picture.

or maybe like this?

**LINK**

Kai

Edited By Skarven on 20/10/2012 21:23:56

[SteambuffParticipant @steambuff]

Spent the day at the Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition … Suspect I'll be doing domestic duties tomorrow!!!

Dave

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

CNC milling the steel "table raising" discs for my Worden cutter grinder.

Actually, the mill is doing it downstairs as I type.

Maybe I should go and take the dog for a walk whlst my robot finishes my daily work for me.

Another JohnS.

[magpieParticipant @magpie]

Finished the motor assy for my fibre optic clock. I can post some pics tomorrow if there is any interest.

Cheers Derek

[merlinParticipant @merlin98989]

To the Show at the Warks Showground, a round trip of 150 miles.. First time on my own with the satnav. I upset the Garmin lady; on a straight road to the showground she was telling me to turn left, then a mile further on to turn right, on and on.

I am always careful wherever I park and I noticed that the car park surface was soft but was really surprised to get stuck, with the front wheels (auto gearbox) just digging in. A couple of kind fellas towed me out using my rope. On the way out of the car park I saw at least two other cars being pulled out by 4wd vehicles, so be warned!

Bought a strange hybrid grinder/polisher and, at last, a graduated scale for the mill table.

It was a good show, but no Merlin clock.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Had some problems with the laser cutter getting the bed level.

It's worked by 4 acme screws geared together by some 15 tooth 3mm pitch timing pulleys on the bottom of each screw and a long belt round all 4. move the master screw and the other 3 follow.

 

Problem is slack the belt off to move one screw and the rest move as well so spent about an hour getting nowhere.

 

The pulleys have no boss on them and are loctited onto the screws and even if free there is no room for any other method of fastening. So hobbed 3 new pulleys with flanges and secured these by a grub screw so I can adjust each scrw in turn.

 

Now got the table level to 0.1mm instead of about 2.0mm, It's not critical to 0.2mm but 2mm is a bit much holding focus on 10mm thick material.

 

Emptied four 5 gallon drums of ash from the big wood burner ready for next week.

Off to Stafford Classic bike show on Sunday.

 

[edit] Spent tonight sorting out a big load of early Myford advertising bumf into model and putting old price lists with them, probably stuff the lot on Ebay.

Interesting that from 1977 to 1983, 6 years, a ML7R doubled in price.

Found a leaflet on a VM-D miller, can't recall that one ? Looks like a Rodney but slightly different.

Also found two leaflets on the Rodney miller with the designers notes with it, presumably to sell it to management ?

 

John S.

Edited By John Stevenson on 21/10/2012 01:55:33

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Turned down one end of a 33 inch square rod on my 16 inch lathe

Probbly screwcutting it tomorrow

Edited By Ady1 on 21/10/2012 02:02:30

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

My Worden table risers, hot off the press, so to speak. Rather than mounting them in the lathe, I just did them on my CNC mill. 3 3mm thick sheets needed turning on outside, with offset hole, and 2 holes for screws to mounting arbours.

[_Paul_Participant @_paul_]

Put the motor back on the Bridgeport after changing the excruciatingly expensive "clutch" parts .

How is it an American 2HP motor is about twice the weight and size of anything normal I have no shop crane so had to lift the bloody thing up by hand

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi All,

I thought that I'd better add to this thread. I suffer from a bad back after a serious motorbike accident years ago so a pain free day is a bonus and I tend to make the best of them.

Had a varied day today, traditionally we always do our weekly supermarket shopping on Saturday morning so off the local Morrisons at 8:00. Had some maintainance to do so cut back a rampant Wisteria I am trying to kill off – I had sprayed it with glyphosate 4 weeks ago (and managed to kill off a bit of the lawn as well . Then cut the lawns.

After lunch decided to tackle a dicky Z Scale on my milling machine – a variation of the Weiss – equivalent to the Warco WM18. Stripped it off the machine, disassembled it, cleaned it and in the best Haynes manner 'reversed the process' – seems to have worked so far (need a fingers crossed emoticon here).  I was amazed by the stainless steel body. The groove for the slider appeared to have been cut with a blunt cold chisel by a blind rice farmer.  All pictures clickable(except Milling cutters).

Got down to some serious work and tried an assembly of my part refurbished Grinding rest which I managed to rescue from my garage fire. – remember this?

 

I have de-rusted the main components and reassembled it after some fettling, the lower parts are finished. I just have to work on the upper section and make new knobs and handles but it actualy works well using a common handle in each clamping screw..

 

 

I'm also making the accessories again as most were lost in the debris.  Started off by cutting a couple of lengths of rescued steel

and

 

A bit slow as I have no mechanical saw and neeed to use my trusty hacksaw which originally belonged to my grandad. Like me, its a bit rusty and worn round the edges but works ok.

I cleaned them up a bit, removing the rust manually as my acid bath needs replenishing (it's outside – never in the workshop. As I have broken a small tap some time ago and needed to tap a few holes accurately I made a simple tapping guide and turned up a bit of scrap. marked it out and drilled it.

I intend to also use it for BA taps hence the other centre punch marks. a simple device, it works quite well, – seen here in use tapping the square tool holder for the above grinding rest:

It not only guides the tap vertically but also helps to prevent any tendency to bend the tap due to uneven pressure thus snapping vulnerable ones.

See next post as this one is too long (first time for everything)

Edited By Terryd on 21/10/2012 07:49:13

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Saturday continued:

 

Made up a few bits after cleaning up the steel, mostly involving milling and drilling with a bit of turning and benchwork:-

Here are the swivel plate, square tool holder (both from the above rusty bars) and eccentric for slitting saw sharpening. I don't need the latter at the moment but thought I would make one while i was at it. here they are kept together with temporary screws so the hiding fairy won't get them. .

I then cleaned down the machines finishing off by Hoovering all the hiding corners where the brush won't reach – amazing how names can become verbs, a bit like 'Googling' – and swept the floor.

At that I gave up in the workshop as dinner was served – a home made chille con carne made with roasted fresh chilles – delicious.

I then had to chase three items on eBay – two solid carbide slot drills and a ripping cutter, again solid carbide. Managed to get all three for £1.25 as I was the only bidder, combined postage just a few pounds. .  I intend to try milling HSS as was described some time ago on this forum and at that price I won't mind much if I knacker them.

 

Then finished off the evening with a bottle of good French red bottled sunshine with a couple of tenor sax jazz CDs – Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins in the background.

And of course composed a few posts.

However I refuse to go into what happened next but it was a good day, and the back held up,

Well, you did ask

Best regards

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 21/10/2012 07:57:26

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Sounded like an enjoyable day, that is until you got to the bottle of red and the Jazz CD.

Have you given any thought to replenishing your acid bath with the red ?

John S.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Spent a couple of hours fitting a 'Z' axis reader to the Sieg X3, found that the alu. brackets supplied are not square so spent time milling them true. The brackets not being square cause the bar to bow when the screws are tightened up and make it impossible to measure with a dti running up and down the bar. Left it with just a few 10ths to adjust.

Also modified the handles on the mill, the originals are just M8 threaded screws and are awful to use but now after making plain shank bolts it feels totally different when turning the handles. (details available if anyone interested)

Clive

[Kevin BennettParticipant @kevinbennett25223]

spent the last hour making a pallet for a 12" angle plate i sold on eBay and oil waxing it up for shipping. and the rest of the day on eBay as i have 81 items ending today going to busy packing for the rest of the day

than have a few pints of Guinness

Kevin

[NJHParticipant @njh]

What a lot of "Busy Bees" you are!

I spent all day Saturday delivering my wife ( 60+ miles) so that she could "babysit" the grandbrats for the night then returned home ( another 60 miles+) so that I could " babysit" the dog! Not much workshop time yesterday I fear and today? – well I need her back!

Norman

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Terry

"Well, you did ask " – No we didn't and that is definitely too much information!!

I agree with you about Coleman Hawkins however and a while ago picked up a CD of " Coleman Hawkins encounters Ben Webster" to replace an old recording I had. Cool stuff – just the thing to relax with and enjoy a nice mug of cocoa! ( When you give up wine for a bit it tastes foul!)

N

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Norman, 

I don't really like wine but it is so cheap in France I just Have to bring it back in bulk!

T

Edited By Terryd on 21/10/2012 12:37:53

Edited By Terryd on 21/10/2012 12:41:23

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Great work on your restorations Terry. Hacksaws and file handles wear well if you don't mind replacing teh cutting bit.

Addy turning 33in thread in a home workshop is impressive

John – you trying to make lathes obsolete? Inflation 77-83 was astromomic partly due to allowing partner's salary to count for mortgage calculations. I remember getting a 25% pay rise one year. Luckily I got a flat for £16k in 77 just before it hit.(London prices, may mate in Nottingham got a 3 bed detached for same money) I think that flat goes for about £150k now.

Anyway yesterday I moved an 800lb lathe about 10 feet up step and through 2 doors. Took hours allowing for tea breaks (which is also when I mess about here) but I do enjoy the challenge. At the moment I am avoiding going back outside to slash down bushes where my new workshop is going to be. At this rate workshop build could take a year.

 

 

Edited By Bazyle on 21/10/2012 12:38:03

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Posted by Bazyle on 21/10/2012 12:36:58:
…………………………..

Addy turning 33in thread in a home workshop is impressive

…………………..

Edited By Bazyle on 21/10/2012 12:38:03

Hi Bazyle,

I think it impressive just to get 33" square in his lathe, mine won't allow more than 1" square through the mandrel

Mind you, I used to have a 12" but didn't use it as a rule

Regards

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 21/10/2012 13:06:31

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Well I had a break from machining this morning and had another go at getting the 1/2 Scale Domestic to run. It will now go for about 60secs having increased the duration of the exhaust valve opening. I'm sorry it's a bit noisy but not having the silencer fitted makes it easier to drain out any fuel when it floods and being in the shed does not help either

[Author]

Posts