Member postings for Andrew Tinsley

I usually find most people to be helpful and polite. There is a small minority who do annoy me, one in particular seems to have a degree or two in supercilious comment. For some reason he hasn't joined in this thread!

Andrew.

Hello Derek,

I purchased one second hand a year or two back. It works well within its specified limits. A very useful bit of kit, despite anything to the contrary, you may have heard.

Andrew.

Clive is right on the money. I have seen this type of block (with offset holes in the V) used to remove the link pin on Colt style 911 pistols. This I hasten to add was a gunsmith friend of mine, who operates in the USA.

I believe that Brownells sell the offset hole block in the US for this very purpose.

Andrew.

I use shellac in the form of flakes. Much easier to use than iso cyanoacrylate. Easier to centre as it doesn't grab and lower temperature required to fix and remove an object.

Andrew.

Just back from experimenting in the workshop. Phil P's suggestion of drilling a long hole with a diameter to suit the small end of the taper and then counter boring with a larger hole to suit the thicker end of the taper, works a treat.

No sticking and very little slop, if any. A perfect solution and easy to implement too. A little more work than Andrew's method of a single hole in a sheet of MDF, but much better vertical location.

Thanks to all those that replied, pity I didn't think of this solution in the first place!

Andrew.

Thanks all,

Andrew, I tried the single hole in MDF and found that it provided poor location, such that adjacent reamers could clash. It obviously works for you, but I didn't much like it. Everyone is different!

NDIY, I have not got the faintest desire to produce anywhere near an accurate MT taper, I want one with some slop, although not as much as I got using Andrew's method. An accurate MT taper in wood is a pain as the tapers frequently stick. I did a trial with an ancient 2MT reamer and found it an awful solution,

Phil and Rod, your two ideas are well worth trying. I will give the stepped holes a try first and report back

As an aside I have had milling cutters and drills and taps in wooden blocks for maybe 40 years and never had a rusting problem. I have used softwoods exclusively. Maybe the rusting problem is specific to some hardwoods?

Thanks again for the suggestions,

Andrew.

I have stored my milling cutters, for years, in wooden blocks having the appropriate shank sized holes drilled into them.

I would like to do the same sort of thing for my machine reamers on MT1 and MT2 shanks. They both have roughly the same taper angle and I started looking for cone cutters that would approximate the same taper angle. None of the cheap Chinese cone cutters that I have are suitable (too large an angle). In the distant past I have seen adverts for cone cutters with a smaller angle and wondered if they would have been suitable. The problem is that no manufacturer (understandably!) defines the rough taper.

I wondered if anyone else has found something suitable? Alternatives would be to make a single flute cutter to the average taper angle. Or maybe have two pieces of thick ply suitably spaced with a small hole in the bottom piece and a corresponding larger hole in the upper piece.

Any other ideas for storing such machine reamers without damaging each other would be very welcome.

Andrew.

Thank you both for your speedy replies. The small ARC set looks just the thing!

Andrew.

I am looking for the above, for an ML10 fitted with a Myford quick change toolpost.

I could make them, but I am up to my ears with projects as it is! Arc don't seem to do them (my first go to). There are lots on Ebay, but what the quality is like I know not. I need HSS tooling as the work is too small to accommodate indexible tips.

Can anyone recommend a decent product?

Andrew.

Hello Keith,

A very senior moment. I did intend to type selsyn. However I just happen to be doing some plumbing and using a stelson! A red face and apologies to all.

Andrew.

I believe it is a stelson, used to transmit rotation via a shaft to an inaccessible location. The rotation was usually a control input.

They were used on submarines and later to control very high voltage sources such as pressurised Van der Graafs and other linear accelerators.

I had some on a 3Mev Van der Graaf that I used to produce proton and alpha particle beams.

Andrew.

Hello Howard,

After some disasters with reaming, many years ago. I made myself a floating reamer holder and have never had a problem since.

Well worth the effort for anyone who does reaming! Even if you get the tailstock dead on horizontally, pound to a penny the centre height of the tailstock isn't the same as the headstock. My Myford is definitely out vertically and that helped to muck things up all those years ago! It took me ages to realise what was going on.

Andrew.

Thank you all. I have tried one reamer and according to my precision bore gauge, it is within less than 0.5 thou of nominal size.

If it had not been for the two experts disagreeing, I would never have given it a second thought and just used them as normal!

Andrew.

Hello Andrew,

The flutes are as sharp as the lead in, which made me think that the flutes had been sharpened too. I was always under the impression, that it was the lead in that was resharpened, until I read conflicting statements from GH Thomas and Professor Chaddock. One said that the diameter of the reamer was reduced on sharpening and the other claimed the diameter was the same. Now this may have been a simple typo or confusion with hand reamers, but they were talking of machine reamers. Hence I have been uncertain of the truth ever since!

It does seem logical to only sharpen the lead in portion of the reamer, so maybe that is what has been done, To be sure, I can bore a single hole with any reamer and check it with a precision bore gauge.

Thanks,

Andrew.

I have inherited around 50 MT1 and Mt2 machine reamers. They have all been resharpened and have not been used since. I assume that they are now undersize, which isn't a problem as I can machine rod to fit.

However what is the best method of measuring their diameters? Using a micrometer gives very inconsistent readings and I am a little bothered that I might damage the flutes. I suppose I could use them to ream a hole and then measure the diameter, but I don't fancy doing this for 50 reamers!

I feel I am missing the obvious! has anyone got any suggestions?

Andrew.

Thanks everyone for the advice, looks as if I may well be testing the water and making up a 5/8" arbour.

Andrew.

I have a Centec 2B milling machine that has 2MT tapers in both the horizontal mode.

I have a large quantity of cutters of all types including gear cutters. The machine is equipped with a 1 inch horizontal milling arbour. The tooling I have includes 5/8", 7/8" 1", 11/8" and 11/4"bore cutters.

Horizontal arbours in 2MT fitting seem to be almost non existent, so how would one make up suitable arbours?

Most commercial arbours and spacers seem to be made by cylindrical grinding to fine limits and then hardened. Not something I have the kit or skills to do. I doubt if I am capable of turning an arbour to fine limits. So how accurate would one need to be to turn an arbour, including the 2MT taper? I could make a good job of the spacers and I suppose that case hardening would be better than nothing?

Any suggestions would be most welcome. The alternative is to sell off the non inch bore cutters and replace them with inch bore alternatives.

Andrew.

Rather than spend big money on a lathe, I would spend it on a quality turntable. A Sony from the 1970's isn't exactly top of the range Hi Fi.

Andrew.

Very common to have small DC power supplies having a much higher voltage with no load. At their rated maximum current then the voltage will drop to the specified value. They are simple cheap unregulated supplies.

Work out (or measure) the operating current for your ring light and if it is somewhere near the maximum current stated on the power supply, then you have no problem. If it is much lower, then use a dropping resistor to reduce the voltage. LEDs are not too fussy about the supply voltage.

Andrew.

Thanks everyone,

There is little difference in cost betwween BMS and EN16T, so I will go for the latter. Despite the past ill usage, the vice seems to be in VGC, so I shall treat it to a new handle and jaws, maybe even some paint after I have cleaned it up.

Andrew.