What did you do today? (2013)

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Paul, got one of those vices, decent bits of kit.

Whilst you have the grinder out remove the moving jaw and grind the top of the vise.

Then make a new fixed jaw 1/2" higher than the original and fit the old fixed jaw flat on the newly ground top surface of the moving jaw.

With two or thee sets of new vertical mounting loles you will have a vise capable of holding up to 8" wide pieces.

Oh BTW, nice guards .

John S.

[_Paul_Participant @_paul_]

Posted by John Stevenson on 23/10/2012 23:04:00:

Paul, got one of those vices, decent bits of kit.

Whilst you have the grinder out remove the moving jaw and grind the top of the vise.

Then make a new fixed jaw 1/2" higher than the original and fit the old fixed jaw flat on the newly ground top surface of the moving jaw.

With two or thee sets of new vertical mounting loles you will have a vise capable of holding up to 8" wide pieces.

Oh BTW, nice guards .

John S.

John, sheer genius what a great mod….have to make some more jaws now lol

Not everyone appreciates the quality guards, a lot can't even see them

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

> I'm treating the cutter as disposable and at 99p can afford it – just.

Terry – do you jest or do you really have a source of fast-helix carbide rippas at 99p? We should be told!

Neil

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Posted by John Alexander Stewart on 21/10/2012 02:40:05:

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.

I should probably take another picture, but the plates and mounting bushes, etc, are all done. I found a tiny bit of eccentricity; I think that it's because I put in a bit of backlash compensation in the Y axis, and *then* took the mill apart for inspection and cleaning.

Anyway, a tiny bit of filing made the bush holes ok, and the outsides – the eccentricity does not matter.

At least my little KX1-NU cnc machine works pretty well on steel, and I know I need to have another look at that backlash compensation stuff.

Another JohnS.

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Posted by Stub Mandrel on 26/10/2012 19:45:59:

> I'm treating the cutter as disposable and at 99p can afford it – just.

Terry – do you jest or do you really have a source of fast-helix carbide rippas at 99p? We should be told!

Neil

Hi Neil,

Just an eBay Chinese cheapo. I'll let you know how they perform when I get hold of it, in about 3 weeks probably

Regards

Terry

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Do please update when you have tried them.

Is that the next generation of Model Engineers in the picture?

Neil

[Mark P.Participant @markp]

Today I have mainly broken my main computer,don't seem to be able to connect to the internet with it grrrrrr!!!

Mark P.

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Neil,

I will report on the cutters, and in answer to your second question – I hope so. I am building him a simple oscillator and boiler at the moment as an introduction when he is old enough to appreciate i and fire it himself. I am also working on a simple 2 1/2 gauge vertical boilered (DeWinton style) loco for when he is a bit older. I hope to introduce him to machine tools at a later date.

Best Regards,

Terry

[Kevin FParticipant @kevinf]

I had a busy day making some aluminium wheel spacers

Check out my album for images as I'm unsure how to post them on a thread 

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/images/member_albums/110912/385121.jpg

Edited By Kevin Fenrich on 12/11/2012 21:36:03

Edited By Kevin Fenrich on 12/11/2012 21:37:42

[RJWParticipant @rjw]

Had the usual morning coffee in bed followed by breakfast, took the missus shopping then cleared off to the gym for a couple of hours, then followed lunch, then a cuppa in front of the tele!

Waded into unpacking umpteen boxes of tools and gear I transport to France and back twice a year! Then spent a couple of hours going crosseyed trawling eBay and car sales sites, looking for a replacement car after ours decided to lunch itself in France (fallout from a failed driveshaft on the autoroute and unbelievable peripheral carnage)!

Also spent an age trawling eBay's Mac computer sales ads hoping I'll find the holy grail of cyber life for little money and posting a topic on here hoping to be persuaded I'm doing the right thing ……….and at present having my right ear chewed by a very dischuffed wife for sitting in front of this monitor for so long instead of keeping her company …………..

Ah well, tomorrow's another day

John

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Still playing with the laser cutter running the same program over and over on different materials to see what the best settings are for engraving and cutting.

Tedious but it will pay off.

Found out you can make business cards out of 1mm thick stainless sheet and the edges don't crinkle like the card ones do

John S.

[jim bothParticipant @jimboth37830]

made good progress installing me new Crusader lathe.

 

just got to level it now……………..

Edited By jim both on 13/11/2012 03:01:37

[SteamshyParticipant @steamshy]

My single cylinder wobbler as you probably know only goes the one way, so am making a crash box so I can have reverse direction, simple job made harder by using a handy piece of stainless shaft, trying to drill 1.5mm holes in it, Probably wasnt so flippin handy after all.

Andy

[Anonymous]

As part of my fix it, fit it, sell it or bin it program in the workshop I have finally got round to repairing the casting and refitting my Ainjest high speed threading unit, after my wobbly with it. I've also fitted a new bar for the trip stop, as the original bar supplied was for a 25" between centres lathe, not the 40" model. It all seems to work, and more importantly trip, as it should. If anything it seems slightly easier to get the half nut engaged than it used to be, even at 10tpi and 540rpm. That might be because I've filed some of the trip parts to give a little more clearance when engaging the over centre lock. I'm looking forward to some experiments in high speed threading. Here's the unit fitted on the right hand side of the lathe saddle:

As expected most of the standard bolts in the unit were metric, but bizarrely one custom bolt was 5/16" BSW. Fortunately I've got quite a good range of taps and dies.

Regards,

Andrew

[Anonymous]

After freezing parts of my anatomy on the gliding airfield today (for my annual refresher course, wherein one makes an idiot of oneself in front of an instructor) I cleaned out the coolant tank and replaced the pump on my Bridgeport. I've only had the replacement pump on the shelf for three years, so it still counts as an current project.

The original Bridgeport pump failed with a shorted winding, so I bought a secondhand Bridgeport pump on Ebay. Then that failed with a shorted winding. The new pump is indeed new and is generic, not a Bridgeport part. I will be interested to see how it performs. If this one fails I'll have to assume that there's something wrong in the electrics of the Bridgeport. Generally three phase induction motors are pretty bomb proof electrically, so to lose two of them may be regarded as carelessness rather than misfortune.

The new pump takes about twice the current, and hence is twice the power, of the old Bridgeport pump. I wonder if the original was a little underpowered?

Regards,

Andrew

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Most things on Bridgeports are underpowered.

One week and two days before this POS Bridgeport of mine gets dragged off screaming to be shipped to India to make more crap.

Very fitting.

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

This weekend,
Well

It was my youngest sons 23rd wedding aniversary and meal etc; held at my house this weekend, so no chance of being in my workshop… Still got body's in variouse rooms BUT as haveing my boiler delivered Mon I have slave labour after they get over all the Vino, food and champers consumed.

Should be interesting as it is copper Mig welded, 5" g B1 so big.. all bushes bronze, and silver soldered in, will post pics if anyone interested,

John
Most Brigeports were designed for light school (could be wrong) use, ergo the teacher standing over the pupil pos; max 6mins (he has about 30 in the class) then saying now turn it off and go sit down. Bob

[Derek DroverParticipant @derekdrover32802]

Last night I finished plumbing the injector on my Simplex.. now to make the whistle then strip it down and reassemble steam tight for its maiden test.

Today I shall be rewriting my CV as I'm being laid off !!

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

Hi Derek
Hope all goes well with you not a pleasant thing to happen. As far as the maiden test is concerned we have a micro brewery near us and the landlord and his wife first owned it plus the pub, but they retired like most of us old kodgers, but.. well the son took over and made a beer called Maidens Voyage, well we immediately called it maidens water (his surname is Stone) work out the connentations of that. must say a nice session beer. Well we all were close to being barred until he worked out that would be about 70% of his lunchtime profit gone.

Derek I think all of us wish you good luck and hope everything comes together again for you .
and please keep us posted.

Bob.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Bob,

Please post the pictures of your MIG welded copper lump.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I thought that it was a Tig welded one From Steam Technology via Hotcoals that was due last summer? or is it another boiler??

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Commiserations Derek,

I hope something worthwhile for you turns up soon, and teh Simplex gives you plenty to keep busy.

Neil

[60019Participant @60019]

I reached the point where I could prevaricate no longer. I placed the eccentrics onto the axle and pressed the little end journals into the cranks. The process left me in admiration of the 70 year old bench vise handed down to me by father, and more importantantly with an axle that rotates freely! Still a long way to go, but this was a big moment for me.

Mike

[Mark P.Participant @markp]

Steamed a 3 1/2" Brit!

Mark P.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Burned, bruised and bleeding!

Spent most of today cleaning and renewing the seals on the vapouriser for my wife's LPG Zafira. I've done it before on an Astra and a Vectra. Vectra is an easy, 10-minute job to remove. Astra is abit tight. The Zafira is so crammed in allow the best party of an hour juast to get it out! I had to remove a lot of wiring and conncetors to get at it and it was still advanced yoga combied iwth left-handed blind spannerwork to get it out.

Finally got it all back together – and the solenoid wasn't switching the gas in

Turned out I'd bent a pin in the connector trying to fit the wrong plug when working blind. But I think I set a record for removing and refitting the second time around.

Praise be – it worked on the second changeover (the first one purges the air in the vapouriser).

Now I'm just licking my wounds from wrestling with a hot engine!

Neil

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