What did you do today? (2014)

[Michael Cox 1Participant @michaelcox1]

Hi John,

I don't really find this a problem. When I am milling I bring the cutter down to contact the work. and then raise it a little, using the Z axis leadscrew. I then start milling using the fine advance on the quill. It is rare that I mill anything deeper than about 6 mm, sometimes as much as 10 mm. This is hardly any distance compared with the protrusion of the mill holder and mill itself so it does not really affect the shadow effect. The ring light is a vast improvement on the directional lighting.

Of course this comment applies to my tiny X1 milling machine. Maybe on a Bridgeport then things are different!!!!

Mike

[Alan .204Participant @alan-204]

Hi John I don't seam to have that problem as the light is on the end of the quill so moves with it, Gary's idea is a real help for this job, I glued the ring light on with epoxy glue I've had for years it's rated at 12 tone so it shouldn't fall of hopefully, had a look at yours Michael it looks well good job there mate.

Al.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Stevenson on 11/04/2014 20:27:47:

… I find mine is OK with the quill fully retracted but once it's out a bit the tool is actually is a circular centre shadow.

.

John,

This is [predictably enough] a common problem in close-up photography.

The best solution I have ever seen is the "Munchkin" Ring Light. This is implemented with fibre optics, but I think something similar [and, hopefully, much cheaper] could be done with LEDs.

It's worth having a look at Chiu's Patent …

MichaelG.

 

 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 11/04/2014 22:08:58

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

After nearly turning over and going back to bed I decided to go to a bootsale this mrning. Result…

7 brand new Dormer drills from 9.0mm to 13.0mm (some repeats) for £3

A set of very nice looking TiN coated 4-facet metric drills by 0.5mm 2.5mm to 12.5mm (9.0 and 7.0 repeated instead of the 9.5 and 7.5) branded 'Brook UK HSS Co'. for £8

Two used but resharpenable Mt0 1/2" machine reamers both fitted with MT0-MT1 sleeves for £2

A rescuable tap marked HB48256 R.R. Ltd (no size) for £1. Did Rolls Rotyce have individual serial numbers for their taps

A big (15&quot adjustable diehead with one set of well rusted die bits for £1. Logo is a man standing next to a target.

One other stall had some nice used bits and pieces, but they were a bit pricey ("£3 and up in that box&quot although three small machine reamers and a tiny adjustable square caught my eye, but i passed on them.

Add in three OS maps for £1 and two dog toys a quid each, I think that was good morning's haul.

Neil

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Made a version of my interface for "Yuriy's Android DRO" to display output of a "Wixey" type angle gauge.

Interface board.

To get it to display the value correctly requires a different CPI value for metric and imperial use. When using in metric mode CPI needs to be set to 254 In imperial mode needs to be set to 10.

I will put the details on my website shortly.

Les

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

Well, today was a learning day for me. Firstly I learned all about deflection:

I won't be doing that again!

But to make up for it I then learned all about VFD drives. A friend of mine had given me a Siemens VFD controller and three phase motor. In the past I have read posts by people raving as to how the VFD and motor has "transformed" their machine. Well all I can say is Clucking Bell! This is just amazing. I have immediately ordered one up for my drill press and in future ANYTHING a VFD will fit or I can make fit will be getting one of these. The Tieg Lathe is a completely different animal AND I now have a Jog function, reverse if I want it, it stops almost immediately and there is plenty of grunt at slow speed. I am astonished. And a complete convert.

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

There I was, happily milling on a piece of the old R & B when the smoke alarm decided to test itself on a pungent and rapidly spreading plume of smoke emitting from the motor capacitor box.

I think, judging by the deformation of the plastic case and the heat damage to the motor box it was very close to catching fire.

The thing is, I was so engrossed with what was going on at cutter level I don't think I would have noticed until a fire was actually established.

Fortunately the emergency stop did its job and major crisis averted, but it goes to prove the efficacy of having a smoke alarm fitted

I think its broken

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Usual Sunday stroll round the pasting tables.

Have been keeping my eyes open for some time as my stocks of good high tensile cap head / socket head screws are running very low so am pleased that I managed to buy a jam jar full of assorted sizes £1.50.

However, today's main boot haul came in a manky looking box the seller had chucked on the ground. I didn't give it much of a look and thought I was buying ally plate but when I got it home I donned the marigolds and groped through the filthy crud. Underneath the ally I uncovered treasure.

Apart from the ally bits there was:

A "WHITEHOUSE" planishing hammer.

2.2 kilos of plumbers solder.

2 x copper tipped plumbers soldering irons

Length of 16mm dia. solid round stainless.

A new syringe of silver solder paste.

A 3" length of 1.5" dia. solid copper

and this:

A 36 ounce ingot of "CERRO MATRIX". I have googled this stuff but info is a bit thin on the ground. It seems like it might be a type of white metal or BABBIT metal. It is non magnetic, looks and feels like lead and scratches like lead. I might try my hand with a bit of casting – bearings maybe?

Two quid the lot – bless the boot for all it provideth

Rik

in hunter gatherer mode – again!

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Rik, that cerro is normally called 'Woods metal' and used for filling pipes to enable them to be bent easily, it melts in boiling water as a rule.

You melt it and pour it into a pipe, let it set, bend pipe and melt it out again.

It's still available **LINK**

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Lofty – diamond info there – thanks for your helpful reply.

Rik

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I heard from the local bee shop that the Son had taken a swarm at their apairy, as it was quite chilly and windy I thought nothing more about it. Today I went to the orchard to take some scrap wood down for burning and as I walked through my hives I spied a swarm up in the Ivy at the top of an apple tree. Out with the ladder and on with the bee suit and armed with a pair of secatuers and a small wood saw I went after them. As luck would have it I had also taken a Nucleus box with me with 6 combs of foundation. I cut away all the Ivy strands and got to the main branch and proceed to saw through it. Got it free and came down the ladder with the branch and swarm in one hand and the saw in the other. Placed the branch across the top of the Nuc. box and they slowly went down into the frames. My bees are very well trained and they know what to do ! After a while I closed them up and left them to it, a nice cluster of bees on the front face of the box to call the stragglers in. Tomorrow I will give them a feed of sugar water to help them build comb. Spring feed of sugar water is 1lb to a pint. I lace it with Thymol to help knock out Varroa. That was my mid-day job.

Clive.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Last night I started a de-rusting experiment on my finds. I cut the top off a bottle of cheap diet cola and dropped the rusty bits is (after dismantling the diestock and dies with a bit of gently heat and 'sunny jim&#39. I drank too much of teh cola so i had to top it up 25% with water.

After a day the diestock is looking much nicer already, as its that tap. The other bits of the diestock are looking less improved, so I scraped off the lose rust and changed for a new lot of cola (neat this time). I think it may be that they are at the bottom, of the bottle. Anyway, i'll give them a few days and report back.

The non-dormer drills are excellent; they are split point not 4-facet above about 7mm. Even my weedy drill press managed to drive the 12.5mm drill into a random chunk of mild steel (probably EN3).

The reamers and their taper adaptors turned out just to be grubby, not rusty. Just need sharpening. I must make an MT1 adaptor for my grinder.

And… last night and today i started a really silly little project that I won't reveal unless it works, because if it doesn't… let's just say I declared war on the scrap bin.

Neil

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Clive – Your bee posts are way of off model engineering but I still like to read them. Please keep them coming – bees are good!

Rik

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Cerro Bend was always a good joke at tea break time. We used to make tea spoons from it and have a good laugh when the end dropped off as some unsuspectiing bod stirred his tea with one.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Hi Rik, I do make models, look in my photos and see. The bees fill the rest of the time. I make a lot of my own hardware for the bees. I also build hives for people who have no interface between hand and brain. I charge them the minimum hourly rate. Now is the busy time as I take swarms and set them up in the Nucleus boxes, then every day I feed them sugar water, so I have to buy sugar in 5Kg bags from the supermarket. This I do until the first young bees hatch out and by then the hive can support itself. In the time scale that is usually about 4 to 5 weeks. I cannot feed them too much as they will fill comb that the Queen needs to lay eggs in so I inspect and judge from that whether to feed on.

Clive

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

"as they will fill comb that the Queen needs to lay eggs in"

Hello Clive – Are you saying that the bees convert your sugar into honey?

Rik

PS Your Evening Star loco looks to be coming along nicely. Will you build the boiler yourself or farm it out (as I would). I don't think I'd be capable of doing a "proper" job of the painting either – how about you?

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Hi Rik, No, the bees consume the sugar to build comb on the wax foundation. They are given sheets of wax in a frame and the bees then cluster on it to make wax and they then create a comb of cells that the Queen can lay eggs in and the Larva can develop in.The sugar is a stopgap feed and speeds up cell making. As soon as the frames are made up I stop sugar feed. It is not a good thing to have sugar in honey! As such i would never feed sugar to a hive when honey gathering is going on as it is not needed. Sugar is a winter feed just to ensure the bees do not starve.

Re. the Evening star boiler, at the last quote it was £1300 and as a pensioner I have other things that take priority more than the boiler. I believe the waiting time is some 12 to 15 months to make. I am hoping to get contact with a small workshop who have facility for brazing up a boiler. There is a boiler advertised in the forum, 'For sale' ads. At the moment i am looking at making up the cab and bits.

Clive

[Martin Walsh 1Participant @martinwalsh1]

Just finished off the Hemmingway chip tray for the super 7

Best Wishes Martin

Edited By JasonB on 14/04/2014 17:11:17

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

A quick look at the cola experiment shows that it is working very well. the half-obscured logo on the diestock is now wholly visible. In a bit I'm going to give everything a good going over with a brass brush.

Neil

[GaryMParticipant @garym]

For those model engineers with a 'bee' interest in the UK. 'The wonder of bees' on BBC4 8PM tonight (14th) might be of interest.

Gary

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

.. and the results are pretty impressive. Unfortunately a few teeth are badly damaged on one die block, though it may be usable. Loads of markings have appeared A and B on each block and on the diestock, together with 5/16 and other numbers on the die blocks. The tap looks almost like new. Some really heavy rust is loosening, but leaving rough patches, but most of it has just gone leaving dark staining. Another day should see it through.

Then proved that an LBSC end mill from silver steel actually works!

Followed by checking one of the lad's 110V transformer – blown circuit breaker.

Neil

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Neil,

Did you really doubt that anything by Curly was suspect?

Geoff – Gardening is really a PITA!

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Modified 23 electric motors, six 2.2 kw, the rest 0.55kw to fit obscure hydraulic pumps, yesterday afternoon.

Did I mention I hate electric motors ?

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

John, they wouldn't happen to be Chinese motors would they. Earlier in the year I had to modify, and rebuild some for a friend who builds agricultural equipment, these things with a pump on the end flogged out the bearings after about 10 hrs of use. Ian S C

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

Well, I just couldn't let Rik and Neil get ahead of the curve with their bounty so I went off to my local tool Emporium and had a good raid of the back shop, this was the haul. First off, a shedload of tapped angle plates angle gauges and of course the big block, it is Red, I don't have a Red one!

The interesting one is the small red plastic box – it is a box of Sandvik Carbide scraper blades, I know where there is a holder for those.

Next up, the box of slips:

I now need only the .050" so not bad. And of course a "proper" Bench Block to replace the couple bits of plate I have been using, It was very rusty a couple of hours ago:

I daren't say how much I paid for all the blocks and angles as it wouldn't be fair on Niel but the slips cost me £15

graham.

[Author]

Posts