Member postings for ronan walsh

thanks ady1

my link to the video i posted doesn't appear to have worked , why can't i simply left click on the mouse and paste the link from youtube like on every other forum i post on ? can a mod help please.

It does work. You have to click the blue link when pasting the link.

Edited By David Clark 1 on 11/11/2013 09:37:56

An amazingly skilled man in sheffield, diesinking dies for the dwindling cutlery trade (made in the 1970's at a guess), he uses next to no tools apart from his hammer and chisels and turns out an excellent piece of work. Its in two parts, you will see the link to the second in the sidebar. let me know what you think.

Edited By David Clark 1 on 11/11/2013 09:37:13

I dug out two of these aldi calipers today while tidying up my toolboxes, they both had dead batteries so i replaced them, they came to life alright but neither will zero, switch between metric and imperial or turn off except by auto-off. Is there anything that can be done with them or are they only fit for the bin ? I have a mitutoyo caliper that is brilliant and never gave any problems and they are all stored in exactly the same toolbox.

my machinerys handbook is so old its carved in tablets of stone, but i'll have a look and see if i can find the info i want. Thanks john and andrew.

Following on from my rotary table question earlier in the week, i have a question about dividing heads. The table on my tom senior universal can swivel (obviously) and the lead screw on the x-axis has a keyway on one end to allow a universal dividing head to be geared to it to cut spirals or helical cuts on gears etc. Has anyone here ever done any of that type of work ? I hope to buy a universal dividing head soon, not that i have any particular work in mind for it, but it is another string to my bow. Does anyone know the maths involved in working out the gearing from the table to the head ?

Thanks for the replies and links everyone, the rotary table is just something i have never seemed to use somehow. I have one now and just wondered how to do some of the trickier work, cam milling for instance ?

Are there any books on the rotary table ? I know there are several on the dividing head but information on the rotary table seems to be scarce. When i was serving my time we done a fair amount of work on the dividing head, what it could do, the maths involved etc, when i asked about the rotary table i was told that in production situations and general commercial engineering that cnc had made them nearly obsolete. A friend gave me an old table a year or two back and i have amused myself cutting arcs etc on bits of scrap, but i feel there is a gap in my knowledge of the thing.

I know that large bore short barrelled firearms , eg centrefire pistols- 9mm, 44's etc, can be rifled by having a reamer shaped broach pushed through the barrel. Rifles have a single point tool pulled through the barrel as it turns. Rifling is only a couple of thousands of an inch deep, but it looks a lot deeper on that cannon barrel. good article here   http://www.border-barrels.com/articles/bmart.htm

Edited By ronan walsh on 13/05/2013 21:11:51

I was given an old good quality rotary table a while ago, its in good condition mechanically but the divisions on the handwheel aren't very clear. is there a simple method of fitting a small dro to read the angle ?

I bought an abwood 4" vice from g and m tools late last year and i am very happy with it , its a properly made british vice so none of the usual problems associated with buying far eastern scrap metal.

ah the joys of the imperial system, converting between fractions and decimals and other rubbish, who'd have thought the far neater metric system was only adopted in the early 1970's - a mere four decades ago.

a proper home workshop and proper (read very expensive) classic bikes in the video below.

**LINK**

Thanks for the input everyone.

Its a shame that most of these companies , with the exceptions of alibre and delcam, don't do a home version of their professional software. I would happily pay for an older version of solidworks, they cannot sell it to engineering companies as its out of date ,so abandon it where as they could get some income from it by selling it to model engineers or other people with a private need for this type of software.

if you download the tutorials in the link below , when you open the program you have three choices how to view them , one of the options is video.

**LINK**

another modelling software is creo elements, which may be of interest to someone, link below.

**LINK**

Nigel sorry i can't answer your technical question , what i learned in college evening classes was modelling in solidworks, opening the model in alphacam , then sending the dxf file to the milling machine. I never used cnc much at work so haven't really kept in touch with what most programmes can and cannot do. I did however briefly use a program called topsolid which was able to generate the g-codes as you worked, i did find this programme to be cumbersome though and a poor substitute for solidworks.

Has anyone tried alibre design p.e. (personal edition) ? I did download it for the free thirty day trial and found it very simple to use , the licence is around $199 which i think is good as its a one off payment .

P.s just checked the alibre website and it appears it does allow a stl export . Determine for yourselves.

http://www.alibre.com/products/hobby/

Edited By ronan walsh on 06/10/2012 17:08:30

Thanks ed and mike, i see the manual now mike. I was thinking this program was like sw in that you for instance , draw a line , after you have drawn that line you dimension it and work on, it appears to be slightly different on delcam.

regards .

p.s , just found the tutorials.

http://www.powershape.com/tutorials/

Edited By ronan walsh on 04/10/2012 23:54:20

Hey jim

http://www.delcam.com/intlresp/powershape_dl.asp?from=PSHAPE

I bought an abwood 4 inch milling vice last month from g and m tools in sussex and have to say i am more than happy with it, despite the fact it is probabily 30 or 40 years old it is perfect. If i were you thats what i would try to obtain.

I have been lucky enough to have had access to programs such as solidworks and alphacam at college and at work ,the solidworks is very quick to get to grips with imho , i no longer have access to this program but have downloaded the free solid modelling software called delcam. It seems to be a great program but i am having problems getting started with it.

Does anyone have any experience with this program ? or would anyone have a link to any tutorials ? Its frustrating to have such a good program and not to be able to get the best from it.