What Did You Do Today 2021

[Tony Wright 1Participant @tonywright1]

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

I've put the wood away and, to get myself back into the swing of machining metal, I thought I'd spend a couple of days making the precision level whose base casting has been hanging around in the workshop for the last thirty years. The only recent purchase was the vial from Amazon.

Has a slight hump in the middle after milling which I don't really understand.

An hour or so scraping has left it flat enough

Stay well,

Rod

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Slightly convex… Lengthways or across? Or both?

A stress-relieving effect?

Slight wear dropping the table in mid-travel so that on long traverses, it follows a very slightly concave path (so very slightly less metal removed from the centre)?

I've noticed similar faults and not really been able to pin them down, but my mill may have a harder life than yours.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Nigel,

I think that's a good analysis. The casting is pretty much at the limit of the travel on my X axis and is stiff at both ends.

Cheers,

Rod

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

If anything, I would have expected the casting to deflect at the ends (Being slightly less stiff because of the taper at the end of the central rib )

In which case the ends would spring back UP to leave a depression in the middle.

But the "bent" condition has already been corrected .

It is going to be a far neater and better job than mine.

Howard

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

If anything, I would have expected the casting to deflect at the ends (Being slightly less stiff because of the taper at the end of the central rib )

In which case the ends would spring back UP to leave a depression in the middle.

But the "bent" condition has already been corrected .

It is going to be a far neater and better job than mine.

Howard

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 14/01/2021 20:05:25:

If anything, I would have expected the casting to deflect at the ends (Being slightly less stiff because of the taper at the end of the central rib )

In which case the ends would spring back UP to leave a depression in the middle.

Those were certainly my thoughts.  I should have made it clear that it is the travel on my X axis that is stiff at the ends. 

The info that you sent me shows a lot of superfluous machining on the casting but, being from College Engineering Supplies, I guess it was originally intended more as a machining exercise for a student. I'll be going my own way

Rod

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 14/01/2021 22:47:56

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Assembled a new king sized bed yesterday.Couldn't get in the garage today because it was full of huge cardboard boxes. Sabre saw decimated them to recycling centre size in two hours. After lunch watched dog crash to floor as she tried to get into "her new bed" (she sleeps at the bottom of it) so spent the afternoon making a step-up stool so we can get a quiet night

[SaxalbyParticipant @saxalby]

Bought a 40mm shell mill from ARC but the MT2 hiders are out of stock, so decided to make my own.

Turned up between centres and used the Boxfords taper turning attachment. Also put on a screwed ring to extract the taper from the quill.

Barry

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

I finished the level today:

I was fortune to have in my collection a thin brass tube that was a nice snug fit over the thicker tube into which the vial is mounted with the traditional plaster of paris.

Not sure what I'll do with it now – probably put it in a drawer and forget about it.

Stay well,

Rod

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Fitted tachos to the lathe and drill, both of which have VFD motors.

One thing that I frustratingly learnt was that these devices seem to need rather more than a 12V power supply before they will work consistently

Of course, I've managed for years without them but I'm the sort of guy who needs data.

stay well,

Rod

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Actually a couple of days ago… MOT fun. Not a bad fail – brake pads and a suspension ball joint – the removal tool and a 35mm socket to fit it cost as much as the parts. I also used it as an excuse to get a proper brake wind-back it after decades of bodging it, plus a 30" breaker bar (one online video showed someone using a bodged up bar about eight feet long… while someone else used a stilson &#129315

I changed the brake pads, let's just say only the French could decide to fit the handbrakes to the front wheels. Took me ages to work out why the caliper was clamped solid…

As the light faded I tried to shift my lower suspension balljoint with a specially sourced 30" breaker bar.

With an impressive pop as the boot popped off the inner CV joint fell out.

Next morning, thanks to a video that showed the use of a ratchet strap to keep everything put (and my steplad who actually had an unused ratchet strap which we found after an intensive search) getting it off proved to be surprisingly easy.

More complex was putting it all back together with only two hands. Mercifully the CV joint was OK when lined up, and I was able to push the boot back on.

Hardest bits were putting the little sheet metal heat shield on doing up and doing up the nut on the balljoint. Unlike the old one the replacement didn't have a hex socket for an allen key to stop it turning. Had to jack up the wishbone to get enough grip.

Then with the lack of back and forth driving and multiple starts on the drive, went to start up to take it for retest… and the bloody battery was flat.

All good fun, but at least I'm street legal

Neil

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

nothing special but phone call Tuesday tea time and jab just after 9am this morning – system appeared to be running like clockwork

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 21/01/2021 15:09:14:

All good fun, but at least I'm street legal

Neil

And what about the car?

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Yesterday; simple small job, small drill sharpening attachment…from MEW article..

George.

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

I did a steam test on my William. I was only checking some plumbing so it didn't really need it, but do we need much of an excuse?

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Posted by mechman48 on 22/01/2021 11:54:45:

Yesterday; simple small job, small drill sharpening attachment…from MEW article..

George.

Gave my little jig a try out today with some small drills, 1.5 – 3mm, didn't take any pics.. yet but it seems to do the job & produce new cutting edges that look ok.

George.

[Martyn Edwards 1Participant @martynedwards1]

Started to fit a Machine DRO to my Sieg SX3

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

Almost finished a small fixture plate. My mill is Bridgeport sized and has a large vice and I have found trying to hold small stuff a bit awkward. Particularly at the moment as I am trying to resurrect a Stuart 10V which I bought on Ebay a few years ago.

I wanted the plate to be able to just be dropped in the vice and for it then to be level and square. Cut a 7" length of BMS 25mmx30mm section and squared it up on the mill then drilled/tapped three M8 holes down the X -axis centre line.

I had bought a 200mmx80mmx15mm for this job. Set it level in lathe and brought the two ends close to size and then used face-mill to clean up what was to become the bottom. Turned it over and then drilled and counterbored three M8 holes along the center to match previously machined bar. Bolted the two pieces firmly together and then back into the vice to drill and ream two dowel holes. With dowels made and fitted I then squared up the ends and sides and ran face-mill over the top face. Hopefully all is now square and solid and flat.

Then proceeded to layout a hole pattern for M6 tapped holes (two rows of 9 and two rows of 8), these were then centred, piloted, drilled, lightly c'sunk then tapped M6.

Followed this up with 3 rows of 5.8mm holes (8, 4 and 8), ready to ream at 6mm for location dowels. These were again centered, piloted, drilled and very lightly c'sunk. These dowels will allow me to set stuff up parallel to the X or Y axis very easily.

Part way through all this I then found I did not have a M6 machine reamer, but luckily my mate down the road has spares and am collecting an MT1 and chucking reamer tomorrow.

The first job it will be used for is getting the Stuart 10v sole plate flat. The original builder had filed it but the mounts for the stand (particularly) and the bearing mounts are not perfectly flat and luckily are not at the required dimension so I have scope to correct it.

Colin

Edited By Colin Heseltine on 24/01/2021 17:56:15

[Steve PaveyParticipant @stevepavey65865]

It may look look much, but it represents the last couple of months or more of head scratching and brain stretching. The first test run on my cnc router, and when it finished the cutter was still intact. Yes, I know the stock was slightly too small, but the purpose of the test was really to check that I could sort out the Z heights in Fusion 360.

Thanks to all those on here who’ve helped me along the way.

[Joseph Noci 1Participant @josephnoci1]

Hello Steve. I dug through related posts but did not find reference to what Controller and associated software you are using. Looks like UCCNC?

Joe

[Steve PaveyParticipant @stevepavey65865]

I’m using Mach4 on a Windows 10 box. The controller is an Ethernet Smoothstepper with an MB3 breakout board The spindle is a Chinese 2.2kW water-cooled with a Huanyang vfd. If you search for John Ward on YouTube, he made a similar machine a couple of years ago and has a series of about twelve videos.

Mine is more or less to the stage of working, though I still have an issue with the spindle speed not doing exactly what Mach4 is telling it to do – I think the vfd is affecting the analogue voltage output of the breakout board, so I can’t get the full 400Hz. I’m almost at the point of looking for a replacement vfd with a decent brand name.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Flushed with success at making a tricky little slotted part for my Worden T&C Grinder yesterday, I started machining the radius on the end of the plate that holds the tool-holder and swings round a protractor plate.

It consists of a rectangular steel plate with a bar screwed along each side, and if the bevel is cylindrical it would be a relatively simple rotary-table milling operation. Only it ain't. It's a conical surface I've no straightforward way to mill..

The construction notes show how to turn it, clamped to a faceplate.

After about an hour of very gentle cuts at minimum revs gave only lots of nerve-wracking noises from the headstock for a little rounding-off of corners, I decided this was most unfair on a poor little Myford ML7 manufactured at about the same time as me.

So that's tomorrow's work – but on the Harrison L5 whose much beefier construction and high inertia ought take the strain (still very light cuts at low speed of course), while the bigger faceplate would allow much better support and easier setting-up.

I can't identify Mr. Hemingway's lathe in the kit's handbook, but it does not look like an ML7!

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Nigel,

When I built my Worden, I obviously came up against the same problem. My way around it was to mount the tool holder on the faceplate and use a milling cutter in a tool post mounted spindle, turning the faceplate by hand, thus:

The spindle was a cobbled-together first effort which didn't give a smooth enough result, so I finished off with a grindstone as shown in the second photo.

Not much use to you, though, if you haven't got a tool post spindle!

John

 

Edited By John Hinkley on 26/01/2021 23:17:59

[Clive FarrarParticipant @clivefarrar90441]

No photos as it is to damn cold to go out in the garage.

However I have given myself the challenge of catching a turbot this year and I wanted some watch leads.

Being to tight to pay for a commercial mould (£17) I designed and machined up my own two piece mould out of a block of aliuminium i had lying around.

Aimed for 6oz size and got 6.5oz, because I drilled the dimples a bit deep.

why go to the effort , well why climb the mountain? , and I had a rotary table brand new, 8 years old, still in its packing grease that i decided I ought to have a go with.

I have to say i was VERY VERY pleased with my results so I made a batch of 12 up ready for ………

whenever.

Regards Clive

PS now constructing a crab pot out of old fibre glass tent poles, even tying my own netting. again think of the mountain.

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