What did you do today? (2014)

[NJHParticipant @njh]

OK Graham

So now you too have a bench block. Other than joining the Neil and Norman paperweight club what use do you anticipate putting it to ?

The slips were a snip at £15 – I'm green with envy!

Norman

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Pah! The slips don't even look like here's a single matching pair!

Neil

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Just found a 50 thou slip in a massive box of stuff I bought for 50 p

Add storage and rental and its yours for ?16.50

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

Posted by John Stevenson on 15/04/2014 21:06:30:
Just found a 50 thou slip in a massive box of stuff I bought for 50 p

Add storage and rental and its yours for ?16.50

Really? Look see if you can't find another, just in case I lose the first one!

graham.

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

Posted by NJH on 15/04/2014 20:19:01:

OK Graham

So now you too have a bench block. Other than joining the Neil and Norman paperweight club what use do you anticipate putting it to ?

The slips were a snip at £15 – I'm green with envy!

Norman

Actually Norman, I get to drift out a LOT of roll pins and hardened pins from trigger assemblies. As the bench block is all hollow underneath I would hope my days of grovelling about under the bench with a magnet could be over. Even using a towel on the bench they still somehow escape into the wild.

I will put your name on the next set of slips that come up.

graham.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

After reading the latest mag and the article on the riser block for the VMC mill I decided that I needed to make a couple for two outstanding jobs.

Found a bar of steel on the metal rack that was suitable 6 1/2" diameter seven foot long.

Rung Neil to get him to come and give me a lift but he wimped out [ wot an editor ? ] so had to handle this puppy on me own.

Mucho swearing sweating and finally got this on the saw.

Started to chop a handy sized lump off for future bits and then will cut the two 4" + bits off tomorrow.

This picture timed at 20:19 but the cut has started.

Jobs a good un and this one timed at 20:29 so reckon on 12 minutes per cut.

Wonder what 6.5" x 7' steel bar weighs in pounds ?

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

811

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Felt like 812 ?

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Whimp! Could have cut it by hand in 10 mins.

I picked up a 6in machine vice this evening. Seller had found it too big for his Sieg X2. Vice length = 440mm, Sieg table = 400mm x145mm

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Well perhaps my estimate of the SG of steel at "about 8" was a little imprecise.

But surely you worked all that out, together with the twisting moments before attempting your slinging and lifting

cheers,

Rod

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Actually found on online table that lists 6.5" at 112 pounds per foot so 7 hundredweight.

Might account for me not being able to lift one end by hand ?

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Needed to reduce the flange on a (hardened) recirculating ballnut. Don't have any sensible grinding equipment so I followed Andy Johnston's lead **LINK** and turned it on the lathe using carbide tooling. I found 0.1mm depth of cut and something like 8 thou per rev worked nicely. You have to get the speed right up there, so I gave it 2000rpm and it cut nicely. Took it down from 48mm to 32mm diameter and the length of the flange is 10mm.

This is how it started out:

This is what it's like in action. Stand back!

The finished part:

I actually turned it using an indexable boring bar behind the workpiece with the machine running in reverse. I do this quite a bit, as you can turn inside and outside surfaces this way and also make internal and external chamfers without having to change the topslide. You just need to remember to select the correct direction of rotation every time….

As before, I made most of the parts on the 3D printer to check fit etc and I am gradually swapping the plastic parts out for metal as I make them or they arrive in the post. When you are making parts up to fit an existing complex body it seems to me to be the path of least effort and risk (try modelling a Bridgeport head with all its lumps and bumps this side of Xmas).

Murray

Edited By Muzzer on 16/04/2014 07:20:43

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Great work, Murray

… Love the pic of the sparks flying.

Excellent use of 3D printing, too.

MichaelG.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

The first time I cut a bit of 6" bar in my horizontal/vertical bandsaw, I got just over half way through, and the cut closed up, it didn't break the blade, but I had to get inventive getting the blade out, managed to get the bar, and blade out of the saw, turned the bar 180*, put it back in the saw, fitted another blade, and cut through almost to the other cut. lifted the saw, lifted the end of the bar and took out the first blade, finished the cut. I was making a pin for the ? bucket on a tractor mounted digger. Ian S C

[NJHParticipant @njh]

When you are part way through a small wooden wedge pushed into the cut should stop it closing and gripping the blade?

Norman

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Ian I also found that if you bore out a piece of 2" round stock and then try to slit it lengthways in the bandsaw, it pinches the blade every time. I suppose the answer would be to normalise it with the blowlamp after boring which I obviously didn't do. In my case, I was able to extract the blade from the work (just) using a screwdriver and much patience. After 3 such incidents the blade still cut but had a pronounced series of wobbles. You'd certainly struggle to normalise a 6" diameter bar with a blowlamp….

Murray

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> Might account for me not being able to lift one end by hand ?

Might account for me wimping out…

Neil

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Broke a brand new M5 tap, then shattered a 4mm carbide cutter trying to mill it out. But on a better note I took delivery of a Vertex HV4 rotary table and indexing set. Does anyone know how to remove the handle to attach the indexing mechanism at all please? There's an Allen screw in the end of the shaft but the handle only slides about 1mm after removing that screw an two grub screws in the scale collars.

Cheers, Ed.

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 16/04/2014 19:12:46:

> Might account for me not being able to lift one end by hand ?

Might account for me wimping out…

Neil

Smart move. I have a long story about how I injured my back, usually as I get towards the end of the story people have lost interest in asking me for anything

graham.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

On large bars I now knock in a metal wedge, the original job was hard going, the bit of steel must have weighed 50Kg at least, still got about 400 mm of it, it gets used as a step to climb on to change the belts on my vertical milling machine. Funny thing is that over the years it has become quite strongly magnetic.

I had the opposite problem with a bit of water pipe I was boring to make the power cylinder for a hot air engine, I had taken about .010"depth of cut, and went away for lunch, when I came back the seam was open, when I took it out of the chuck the gap opened to around 3/8". I "V"d the edges, squeezed it up in the vice, and attacked it with the welder, put it back in the chuck, finished boring it, and 22 years on it still runs, smooth as silk. Ian S C

[julian atkinsParticipant @julianatkins58923]

thursday afternoon, silver soldered the outer wrapper to girder stays and inner firebox tubeplate to front foundation ring and throatplate stays on my current build 5"g terrier loco STEPNEY. major big heat up and awkward job done… hopefully now plain sailing to finish. all done with silverflo 55.

cheers,

julian

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

So, today I had set aside to build two jigs I had been meaning to make for some time, for want of a better description they are for straightening tubes. So first of all we need a "bit of stuff" as my uncle would have said:

Lots of holes, 10mm bolt clearance for the saddles at either end and a 10mm bolt through the middle. I am just using Metric Coarse high tensile bolts through the centre to apply the pressure, nothing fancy:

When I had them all finished I set to outside with the angle grinder taking all the corners off and generally polishing them up. That's when I had the second "Oops!" this year with the Angle Grinder and my Left hand, really must pay more attention:

It only starts to smart once you wash up for the day. Blast!

graham.

Edited By Oompa Lumpa on 18/04/2014 19:33:02

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Domestos.

Kills 99.9% of germs

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

You are both a rotten unfeeling pair of Gits!

[D.A.GodleyParticipant @d-a-godley]

Posted by Oompa Lumpa on 18/04/2014 20:30:11:

You are both a rotten unfeeling pair of Gits!

I have just come to the conclusion that you are a very perceptive individual

[Author]

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