Member postings for Old School

Jason

Thanks for the work you have done I get the error message below when I try to load it. Not brave enough to do the fix will pop the laptop into the local computer fix it place.

"This aplication failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin "Windows" reinstalling the application may fix the problem"

Jason I have just machined the part that change worked, you are right a lot of air milling going to put up with only three more to make.

For the other side of the hub I am going to make a fixture and turn it in the lathe it seems the easiest way yo do it and the lip will disappear as part of the process.

Thats something I have learned on with the next project insert cylinder heads for the tether car engines should be able to make accurate combustion chambers, the volume is critical.

thanks very much

Oliver

Jason here is the link

https://a360.co/2AEutML

I am stuck trying to do the cam for facing a round piece of bar in my KX1 mill.

Struggling to figure out how to put the depth of cut on to face the bar prior to the rest of the operations.

Pobably missing the obvious, but not understanding the height tab settings read the help file but just not getting it.

Any help gratefully received I live about twenty minutes from Leicester.

Thanks

Oliver

I have drawn up some wheel hubs, some of the hub is by adaptive tool paths but the the bearing housing is a conventional hole, I have set the tolerance for that at 0.01mm it's going to be interesting to see how the KX1 gets on. Cut a couple of spare blanks. They are going to be the front wheels of an old timer British tether car from 1954 an Ian Moore No 12.

This car body was made using a blue foam plug you simply shape the foam to make a plug to build the body onto no need to worry about draft angles or getting the plug out of the finished body.

Now cover the plug with glass cloth I use a lightweight cloth around 28g square metre build up a few layers at a time allow to cure rub down till smooth more layers of glass repeat until get to the thickness you want. I use epoxy resin.

Then cut out the foam and melt out the rest with solvent it's quick and easy for complex shapes.

Edited By Old School on 19/09/2019 20:14:46

I build tether cars the forerunners to RC cars they are pretty fast I hold a few British records at speeds from 163mph to over 200mph actual speed.

If I can help I will, I live near Leicester.

I use that company for PCD inserts for turning high silicon content aluminium and parting off inserts for aluminium will try their milling cutters now.

Jason I follow this thread with a great deal of interest, I have a few projects waiting to go onto the machine. Can you reveal your source for milling cutters with the radiused corners please.

Have a look at Arceuro,s Seig SC2 or SC3, i have used the my sons SC3 its a nice small lathe capable of doing real work. I think anything smaller you would struggle making parts for air rifles.

If you can visit Arceuro they have the machines on display and they are very helpful, i live local and use them regularly.

Got it booked Shongola dune express Walvis bay to Pretoria. Did Rovos rail Victria Falls to Pretoria this year.. Rohan Voss,s train set is probably one of the best in the world.

I was also helped along my way to "model engineering" by a clockmaker he taught me to grind lathe tools in hss and make form tools from carbon steel for making pillars and fly cutters for wheel cutting. This person was my father who made his living from making clocks from simple skeleton clocks with escapements you only saw in books to orrery clocks all to his own design and made from scratch.

Thanks Emgee thanks what I use for the final turning to size, the cuts you can take are tiny you can see the tiny bits of metal coming off the piston in the cutting fluid. Its the £30 ones that I use not worth using cheap tools on a lot of time and expensive material.

Barrie 5 of the piston already have new homes in Sweden and Switzerland just got to fit them to the liners, the rest are for my son Aaron

Next race is in Basel over the bank holiday weekend followed closely by one in Poland. Going to miss the nats this year.

With this initial success I have moved on to making some pistons for 1.5cc Kapu tether car engines. The pistons are made from high silicon content aluminium, its nice to machine but wears the tools out quickly.

I make the piston blanks double ended so you can use the other end to hold it while machining. The gudgeon pin holes also go in at this stage.

All set up on the machine and milling under way.

The pistons all hollowed out maching time just over 4 minutes each at lot quicker than doing by hand on my milling machine and the are all the same.

The final operation is to turn them to fit the to the refurbished liners.

I am finally starting to get the hang of Fusion 360 and my KX1

This is the first project it is an adaptor plate for a 2.5cc tether car engine to fit a Zimmerman disk induction system instead of the drum valve induction apparently faster the one at the top is the original one that has stripped threads the blue one a practice run and the one on right the last attempt. Just a little more work to do on it the the big holes have a 3mm countersunk screw it them with a head diameter of 4mm, just waiting for a spot drill to arrive to put the countersink in.

What about a Myford 254S the metric ones are cheaper than the imperial ones. Only secondhand machines now. Very happy with mine.

Surface piercing propellor run with only about half the prop in the water very efficient for fast boats, they give a lovely rooster tail.

One thing I have found with ER type collets is the range the have for example 11 to 10mm it is accurate at 11mm and a bit under but nowhere near as accurate at 10.1mm.

I have moved to 5C collets now and use emergency collets for the odd sizes that I need to hold.

We had a variety of 7 series Myfords my only real memories of the last new Myford was the regular appearance of the Myford service engineers to scrape the bed. My father was a clockmaker who made clocks for a living.

i started off with a Raglan Loughborough lathe the only modification I did was to speed it up, I made the flat belt pulley st work on an old Myford.

Next was a Raglan Little John an ex school machine in pink apparently to attract girls into engineering. I t had a full strip down clean and paint parts replaced as required as that was part of the deal with the supplier so I ended up with a good lathe.

i had this lathe for a long time and it was getting tired and it was part of retirement plan to replace it.

I looked st the Chinese offerings in a similar size to the Little John but they didn't feel right to me then a friend suggested I look at a Myford but not a 7 series. My current lathe is a Myford 254S which I am very pleased with and it won't be changed unless I can find a nice Schaublin.

I am impressed with what you are managing to do with your machine. Must stop using the manual mill and get on with the using the KX1 got some Fusion 360 drawing done just need to get the g code done and cut metal.