Member postings for Graham Wharton

Forgot to say, on the M1 you have the gearbox and single pulleys, whereas I adjust table speed manually. The belt does rub on itself at the crossover, but polycord seems to hold up really well. There is no sign of ANY wear due to rubbing.

Ive just had a thought there that it could be my motor that is in the wrong direction. Perhaps it should rotate clockwise and not anti clockwise when viewed from the front.

Doesn't change the fact that whichever way the motor turns, for conventional milling, you want the table running in the opposite direction to the cutter.

Graham

I have a Junior mill, but I think the principal is the same.

I've never understood why the table goes from left to right. That's the wrong direction when horizontal milling. The cutter turns anti clockwise when viewed from the front in horizontal mode, therefore the table should go against that, i.e right to left.

This is my solution. Simple when you think about it.

The stop mechanism works as expected in either direction.

Graham

It would be good to see a picture James.

Cheers

Graham

I did think about that, but I think doing that will stop any syphoning effect as once the coolant fills a section of the pipe and starts sucking coolant down the pipe with it, it will suck in air through the vent and you will loose the syphon.

It would appear that the combination of a reasonably long tube, possibly with the horizontal section at the outlet from the table and not having the lower end under water has done the trick for my setup.

Do your pipes go straight down from the table, or horizontal. Mine come out horizontal. You can see the section just at the outlet start to fill up, then the pipe goes full bore with coolant, which then starts to fall down the pipe. Once it starts going it just sucks all the coolant from the table under its own weight. With the lower end under water, the top end of the pipe never seems to achieve full bore, i just get a sow trickle as it forces its way past all of the trapped air.

Graham

Here's a picture of the table with drains.

Here's a shot of the the table drain pipes as they go down the back of the mill. You can see they almost go horizontal just before they go into the coolant tank.

And here is a shot of them at the tank, secured just above the coolant level.

And a couple of videos of it draining at full chat.

Ive just been out to the workshop and adjusted the pipes as they enter the coolant tank. I secured the pipes so they feed out above the level of the coolant. This has improved things vastly. and now It clears the table very quickly due to the pulling/syphoning effect regardless of the coolant rate that I throw at it.

Graham

Thanks Neil, It doesn't seem to be the size of the pipe bore that is limiting the flow. If i look at the inside of the pipe, it is mostly empty, there is a small trickle of coolant flowing down one edge of the pipe. Occasionally the pipe does fill to the point that you get the pulling effect, in which case it empties the table almost immediately, then goes back to a trickle.

If i remove the pipe the coolant flows out of the table better. Its only when I connect the pipe that it can slow to a trickle. Actually Ive just had a thought. The outlet of the drain pipe is below coolant level in the coolant tank, so once the troughs in the table fill up with coolant I have a bit of an air lock in the drain pipe. I never achieve enough pressure at the top end to force the air down the pipe and out of the bottom, and for some reason the air in the pipe doesn't bubble up the pipe and exit the top. It just stays occupying the pipe not allowing the coolant to flow.

I'll give it a go tomorrow with shorter pipes that don't exit below the coolant level, and also longer pipes to see if it promotes the syphoning effect.

Edited By Graham Wharton on 27/11/2014 21:30:06

I have fitted a coolant system to my round column style mill. I have fitted a drain to either end of the table, in the trough at the end of the Tslots. The drain holes are at the same level as the base of the troughs. The drain holes are reasonably large at 3/8BSP fitted with 10mm straight through hose fittings, with 10mm I/D hose running about 1.5 metres back and down to the coolant tank. Coolant tank is about 1 metre below the table.

When I run coolant at a fairly fast rate the table fills up and doesnt seem to drain very well. I can see into the coolant pipes and there is only a trickle going down the pipe even though the coolant level is above that of the pipe entry. I can get, maybe an inch deep of coolant and there is still poor flow.

Occasionally the drain pipe will fill with coolant to the point that it syphons down and clears the table in about a second, then seems to repeat the same thing. Table fills up, pipe syphons the table clear very quickly, gurgles as it empties, syphon stops, table fills and the process repeats. Other times it just seems to stick with a piddly flow out of both of the pipes.

Having the table overflow when the table in central is fine as it just spills over into the drip tray, but when the table is off to one side, the coolant will overflow onto the floor.

I can of course reduce the coolant rate down to the point where i'm putting it on at the same rate that it flows out of the table, but sometimes for chip control I just want to flood the heck out of it.

So, whats the trick to get coolant to drain through a reasonably small bore pipe with little or no head of pressure to get it going. Shorter pipe? Larger bore? Smaller bore? U bend/pipe routing to promote syphoning?

Anyone played/tweaked with things like this?

Thanks for any help

Graham

Ive got the Altivar 18 1.5kW on my mill. It never misses a beat. Great little inverters.

You can also find service manuals for them if you look hard enough, although a quick look i couldn't find one for the 28.

Graham

https://stevenengineering.com/tech_support/PDFs/45A28AC.pdf

http://www.inverter.co.uk/applications/manuals&datasheets/Telemecanique-Altivar28-manual.pdf

Is it the fact that its made of wood? In which case, should we ban articles on machining of plastics aswell. Last time I checked model engineers made models out of wood, plastic, metal and other materials too. MEW is for model engineers, not just metalworkers.

Is it the fact that its only a box? Would people be complaining if the box had been made of sheet metal instead of wood and showed metal bending and welding? This magazine is about workshop tools, machinery and processes. A lot of readers make their own tools. I, for one, always consider making a storage box to protect any tool that I make part of the process of building that tool.

It might only be a box, but there may be tips and techniques that could be picked up from such an article that would read across to model making from wood.

Keep it up chaps, making boxes to store tools that you make is a valid subject.

Graham

Hi Frank,

I did have commenting enabled, but within 30 seconds of the site going live, I was receiving spam posts. I got fed up of deleting them all so turned off commenting.

I haven't done anything with the floor. The base is 6 inch steel reinforced concrete laid down over a damp proof membrane. I put a DPC inbetween the base wood and the concrete, sealed with marine sealant. This wasn't so much about stopping the damp getting at the wood as it is all treated, but I didn't want water seeping under the edges and into the workshop. It seems to have worked ok. Apart from that, that's it. I stand on the bare concrete, as do the machines. I have electric heaters in there which keep the workshop around 15-18 degrees, which rises to about 20-21 degrees when I am in there working (I must be hot stuff) (outside temperature currently 8 degrees). I haven't had any problems with cold feet as yet. If I did, I would just put rubber mats down infront of the machines.

One of the good things about my location is that the fence side of the workshop faces out onto the car park for my house and my neighbours. I've nuked the area around the workshop with weedkiller as no plants should be growing there, so I don't see why any plant growth should affect me. If any do grow, I nuke em immediately. Like you said, not so lucky if you are facing onto a neighbors garden. Plants will hunt out any gaps and destroy them.

Interesting that you are getting boards pulling out your nails. Maybe the decision to go for Paslode Ring Shanked 2.8/50mm nails wasn't such a bad choice afterall. I tried pulling one out (when I shot it in the wrong place) and believe you me, it wasn't coming out in a hurry. I had to hang off the claw hammer. Sofar so good, the outside of the workshop looks like the day I built it (apart from the colour changing slightly).

I wouldn't fix shelving/units to the sterling board directly. Attempt to line all your screws up so they are driven into the studs behind. When putting the sterling board onto the stud work it gives it massive rigidity. It really is strong stuff when nailed down to a frame. I wouldn't have thought it would give much resistance to a single screw being pulled out on a 12mm board though. I didnt leave any gap at all on my interior boarding. They are all tight up against each other. The side boards are gapped slightly, but I wouldn't say 3mm, probably a mixture of 1-3mm on those. I did stick to the 3mm gap on the roof though, as that is exposed to direct sunlight (albeit under fibreglass) and would be subject to expansion. I went by the book on the roof as I didn't want to mess up the GRP stage.

I was amazed when I did the boarding out just how many screws I went through. My initial "I'll do them all at 200mm spacing" and this crappy box of 200 should do the job, didn't turn out right at all. Mine were a mixture of 4 x 30/35/40 whatever I had available. I sunk them about 1mm deep into the sterling board. When I painted I dolloped a big drop of paint into each screw hole to seal them off. It turned out quite well. You can't actually see the screws unless you get close.

Be sure to post some pictures of your new shed when you have them. I'll certainly be interested to see how you get on.

Graham

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to post a link to my website where I have documented the build of my new workshop.

Hope it is of use to someone.

**LINK**

Graham

Derek,

Are you putting a keyway into the bore of the gear, if so, what bore and what size keyway. I'm not far from you and have a good set of metric broaches. Can't help so much on imperial broaching though.

Graham

Paragon Paints and Stationary Engine Parts are the same company. If you order TS Green from Stationary Engine Parts, they deliver you Paragon Paint branded pots.

Cheers

Graham

HI jason,

Sorry yes, I did read that, but forgot about the comment when I came back and decided to post a reply.

I see you can get the inserts from www.shoplet.co.uk for £8 including vat and £3 delivery, or free delivery if you order more than 4. I agree, when compared to the price you paid for the drawers themselves this seems excessive.

I bought some 4m long 0.8mm thick 40mm wide mild steel coiled flat sheet rolls off ebay, and cut them up into short lengths and tack welded together to form custom inserts for my drawers. It was a lot of faff, doesnt particularly look that good a finish, and once you count the cost of the steel, wasnt super cheap either. Could be worth considering though if you have a load of stock lying around. For when you want lots of compartments like I did, I discarded the idea of using wood as you waste too much space with the dividers themselves, although I agree wood does look a lot prettier.

Graham

You can buy plastic injection moulded trays of various different configurations to fit those bisley cabinets. A quick google image search shows you whats available.

**LINK**