What did you do today (2015)

[“Bill Hancox”Participant @billhancox]

Over 55 cm of snow in the last 5 days. **LINK**

Temperatures from -25 to -35 C. No lineups at the outhouse and nobody is reading a book while in there. Snow is almost to my waist in the back of my house. Had to use snowshoes to get to the back of the shed and the old playhouse so I could scrape the snow from the roofs. Took the time today to repair 2 pairs of my snowshoes followed by a good coat of spar varnish for both. Also a good dose of mink oil and beeswax for my snowshoe moccasins.

Bill

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Rifle range closed as its 102 º here so no shooting competition today. (Total Fire Ban in Vic. Aust). So I headed for the workshop and decided to try a to grind a 'v'' into a small parting tool.

Setup may fall into the "Do not try this at home' category", but it worked out pretty well in the end.

A Dremel collet (5.7mm) fitted my 6mm X2 Collet, so a thin Dremel cut-off wheel was duly mounted and the mill table controls used to gently make a tiny groove in the 1.5mm wide parting tool. The groove is about 0.5mm wide

Yet to try parting with it but from reading the 'Parting-Off' thread it might be worth a go.

* Danny M *

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Rik… link..

**LINK**

Look under.. Projects.. gear silencer.

George.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Uploaded mod to YouTube…

**LINK**

Nice mod am pleased with it.. the hum in the background I assume is from the motor laminations.. don't know how to fix that so not going to try.

George.

[TSHParticipant @tsh73987]

Neil,

My scope is a 22cm f/6 (i.e. roughly f=1300mm) reflector which I built many years ago using commercially made mirrors—made by David Hinds. The focuser (made in Japan in those days) was bought at the same time from Fullerscopes (which was run by a real character called Dudley Fuller). As configured for those pictures the eyepiece projection gave an effective focal length of about 5.2m.

The mounting is known as a 'Dobsonian' and has no drive. I really must get round to building a driven mount…..

Trevor

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Thanks Trevor,

I hope to upgrade to a 165mm parabolic reflector, so about half the light gathering power of yours.

Neil

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Not a lot today,

Still recovering from the hit to me old age pension after I bought this yesterday for a project.

That's two 30mm, one 40mm, one 50mm and one 55mm. Should have been two 40mm ones but either I speak soft or the guy in the steel stockholders is deaf. Might have to wait until next month for me pension to recover.

[David ColwillParticipant @davidcolwill19261]

Glad to see you've got some work for the super adept!

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

.

I did this. **LINK** and put it on youtube.

I wanted at times a smaller chuck than my spindle would take. So that is how I did it.

Nick

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Nick_G on 12/02/2015 09:58:

I did this.

.

Nice work, Nick

Another set of holes on a PCD … That DRO will have paid for itself soon !!

… and the chamfer finishes it off very well indeed.

MichaelG.

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

For those with out the luxury of a mill with a DRO, a front mounting chuck can be drilled through the chuck as accuracy is not that critical as the fixings do not locate the chuck to the back plate jus hold it there. Just spot through the holes with a drill that just has minimal clearance then drill and tap to the required size.

Nice job all the same.

Bob

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Nice work Nick.. can you give me some details of your DRO set up ( pm me? ) … i.e. purchased from… glass/magnetic scales.. costs etc. as I'm rather taken with it, don't know why, just has tickled my fancy… .. have just bought SWMBO / Finance director Valentines day card.. hopefully earning brownie points for birthday this year, so… maybe?

Cheers

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

.

Hi Mechman,

The DRO displays are these **LINK** and purchased from them.

They do a kit here. **LINK** I have option 3 on the lathe and the option 4 on the mill. (I will probably add a 3rd scale to the lathe cross slide when I can afford it)

I used magnetic scales as my machines are small and I did not wish to lose any of their capacity by using physically larger scales. They are also a breeze to cut to length and fit.

I found Machine DRO / Allendale an easy straightforward company to deal with.

Hope this helps, Nick

[“Bill Hancox”Participant @billhancox]

STILL snowing and very cold. I just noticed this local tidbit on the CBC news page. It should be of interest to cat lovers. This clip was shot handy to my home.**LINK**

Bill

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Thanks Nick,

Being on a pension & all that looks like I'll have to extend my time scale to it being a Xmas prezzie & drop a few hints to all the family for contributions gratefully received… unless Messres Camelot & Co smile upon me…

Cheers

George

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Took the dog for his morning constitutional – beautiful morning -26c ("wind chill" -37) and one of these days when you can see forever, and the sound of a passing jet a few thousand feet up makes an odd crackling noise. The sun is just coming up, the snow squeaks under your feet as you walk, and you pray the car starts. (block heater cord broken on it)

On topic- glad that my forefathers decided houses had to have basements – heading down there to do a bit of a tooling tidy up before heading off to work!

John in Sunny Ottawa.

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

My latest quest is to find a spring not the watery type (so put away your divining or dowsing rods) but a tension type spring to replace the one on an old B&Q hand drill stand. You know the ones, cast alloy base and chromed tubular upright post. It has a lever on the side which gives about 2.5" movement and was meant to take ye old Black and Decker hand drill. This I deem may suffice as a holder for the Dremel to enable me to kiss a small divet in a job hopefully enabling more accurate placing of holes when used in conjunction with my cross table. Notably this replacement should not require Arnold Swartzeneger arms and shoulders as it does at the moment.

So fellow questers where do I find a tension spring 3 1/2" long over all with a pull of just a couple of pounds enough to lift the drill (Dremel) back to park position? (waits for cries of how long is a piece of spring?)

Wandered around one of those wonderful modern emporiums just yesterday expecting to find one of those compartmented boxes which contains an assortment of springs, yeah you know, see through lid yellow body full of springs of which most will never have a use. Could I find one? Could I heck as like.

Now that was yesterday I wonder if I can find a suitable rubber band???

Jesse

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Jesse Hancock 1 on 13/02/2015 13:19:06:

So fellow questers where do I find a tension spring 3 1/2" long over all with a pull of just a couple of pounds enough to lift the drill (Dremel) back to park position? (waits for cries of how long is a piece of spring?)

Wandered around one of those wonderful modern emporiums just yesterday expect..

Jesse

Why not just fit a small pulley at the top of the column and use a weight and a bit of string?

Ian P

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

here's some assorted springs **LINK**

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

Great minds think alike and all that. Yes a pulley wheel job done. It's not that I hadn't thought about that but then there's making a suitable insert for the top of the post and so on. I really wanted a quick fix, but I thank you for your suggestion Ian and perhaps as a more perminant job I'll do that one day.

Bob that's the ticket I fancy and it's exactly that sort of thing I was looking for just yesterday, so it's off to screwfix I go.

Cheers Jesse

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Keep meaning to this for my mill with a sash weight. Main advantage is the constant force.

Neil

[ron grimshawParticipant @rongrimshaw76129]

Just stop cursing, broke my 3 jew Pratt chuck.

[Peter BondParticipant @peterbond14804]

Mazeltov?

Took delivery of a LittleRP resin printer this afternoon; the mechanical build side is done. Going to do a few dry runs with the sw before I put resin into it.

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

Got the new Warco WM250V mounted on the bench, so far quite impressed with the build quality, now to strip it down give it a damn good clean then on to the modifications, this is destined to become a CNC lathe. Need to tweak the inverter settings as the ramp up is a bit on the slow side for my liking, One thing I have noticed is the gear train is damned noisy, especially compared to the gear noise from my GH1330!, the gears on these lathes are quite a large module size and ring like a bloody bell!. Not going to worry about that too much as they will all be removed in the CNC conversion.

I'm thinking of 5mm pitch ballscrew for the leadscrew and 2mm pitch for the cross slide, – anyone have any thoughts/opinions on this?

Top slide will be ditched as there's no requirement on CNC machine and looking to implement an auto tool changer using a small rotary table I have kicking around.

Also plan to change the chuck mounting not sure how yet but I hate fiddling around with those silly nuts behind the spindle flange Thinking of mounting a backplate permanently and using front mount chucks.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

CoalBurner – hope you get on OK with all your mods but I shall stick with the basic manual op on this lathe. I quite agree with you though on those "silly nuts", they remain a pain.

Rik

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