Member postings for Danny M2Z

G'day.

These drills and cutting tools are still made here in Australia and the quality is first class. I love them.

http://www.sutton.com.au/

Well worthwhile for some enterprising importer to consider them for the U.K. market

Regards * Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 11/03/2014 18:21:03

G'day.

Not about Chronos (of which I know nothing) but I just had a email from ARC Eurotrade informing me that the angular contact bearings for my minilathe that I enquired about a few months ago are now in stock.

Now that's the way to do business, keep the customer informed. (The price is alright too btw).

Regards * Danny *

G'day.

Workshop Practice Series #1 - Hardening, Tempering & Heat Treatment by Tubal Cain is well worth a look at.

Excellent book.

Regards * Danny M *

G'day.

Be careful of the swarf when you machine the stuff and how you dispose it.

As you already said 'spectacular white glare'.

Maybe a bucket of sand could be handy or a CO² fire extinguisher.

I am sure that the more learned members of this forum can point you in the right direction.

And as Clive said, it does make lovely crankcases, my early Mills engines use this material although they had some (chromate?) treatment to make them last. Whatever it was, they still look good after 65 years.

Regards * Danny M *

G'day.

I take care of elderly people for Legacy here in Oz. They like to chat about when they were younger.

One lady used to assemble fuzes at a factory in Wagga Wagga during WW2. She told me that the work was so delicate that none of the girls were permitted to speak during production.

Another elderly lady manned an anti-aircraft gun in London.

* Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 22/02/2014 10:12:32

G'day.

Thanks for all the help. I think that I shall pass on the epoxy filled column!

I am pretty happy with my X2 mill, I've had it 8 years now, so getting used to it's foibles (such don't lean on the head when cutting, allow for the slight backlash). Maybe I got lucky, but it trams accurately to 10ths", 'X' is square to 'Y' and it can flycut aluminium alloy to a rainbow finish. I might try Neil's idea of a stiffening plate though.

One thing that I did discover is that when cutting tools are really sharp (ground, diamond lapped and then honed on a decent stone) the reduced loads on the machine can help to achieve good results.

My only complaint is the sloppy 'Z' adjusting knob, but by keeping the gibs snug and the lock slightly engaged when adjusting it I can live with that. Also, I always adjust the cutting depth in a downwards direction to avoid the dreaded 'head drop' that I have heard about. Even my C3 minilathe turns true and parallel, so I am a happy little vegemite.

Regards * Danny M *

G'day.

I have read online about stiffening/damping the column of a light mill (such as the X2) by filling the column with a dense medium such as epoxy mixed with granite etc. Is this worth the effort? Has anybody actually tried this?

I am 'comfortable' with the limitations of my X2 mill, so am reluctant to stuff it up with an experiment. Any ideas?

* Danny M *

G'day.

Got on with extending a drill to make my long hole.

Found a nice pre-loved 8mm printer rod, it turned nicely with a freshly honed bit.

Very pleased with the mini-lathe accuracy, I pinched the M3 ER 25 collet chuck from my X2 mill to hold the 8mm rod. 0.210" at both ends of the rod using a travelling steady. Over a 10" length I'd say the tailstock alignment is spot on.

Next drilled the end of the rod 10mm deep to take a spigot. The fixed steady kept things aligned nicely.

Next fitted the 4 jaw and clocked in the victim 0.225 drill shank.

Turned down a spigot on the drill shank to fit the hole in the extension rod.

Tested the fit and eased the shoulder with a fine file.

Fits nicely, left a small gap for the silver solder to flow.

Tomorrow it's time to make an alignment jig and braze the two together. Then attempt to drill a 7" long hole through the center of some 15.5mm Delrin rod.

Regards * Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 09/02/2014 10:05:58

G'day.

Thank you for all the replies. I shall try a brazed 5.2mm drill bit onto a stem, otherwise its a 'D' bit.

The .22 is used for benchrest competition, and can put 5 holes in a 10mm group at 50m if it's not too windy.

Apart from cleaning the bore every few hundred rounds (and then re-fouling it with a few sighters), I prefer a polished steel rod compared to a plastic coated one as there is less chance to pick up embedded crud.

To protect the 'crown' (muzzle hole) I always clean from the breech end, and as the chamber (the bit where the shell case fits) is accurately reamed and polished I am keen to preserve it's integrity. Hence my requirement for a bore guide. Since I lapped the barrel, the cleaning requirements have diminished, but inspection with a bore scope shows a build up of residue in the 'throat' (the bit in front of the chamber) after about 200 rounds. This build up does nothing for accuracy.

I know that I could have just asked how to drill a long hole in a bit of plastic, but I thought that a bit of background info might make it more interesting and explain why the hole accuracy is important.

My next project is a barrel harmonic tuner btw, and a bullet concentricity (run-out) gauge is well under way. This uses a Mitutoyo DTI to see how wobbly things are.

Regards * Danny M *

G'day.

Here in Oz I am able to participate in rifle shooting competitions.

To clean a .22, a bore guide is advised to keep the cleaning rod from damaging the bore. It is inserted where the bolt normally resides and has a hole through the center to guide the cleaning rod accurately into the barrel.

Having just obtained some Delrin I am wondering how best to make the hole for the cleaning rod (0.20" dia). My first thoughts are to make a 'D' bit. The required hole is about 7" long. I do have a lathe. Any ideas how to do this job?

Regards * Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 07/02/2014 07:10:48

G'day Bill.

At least we still have some 'quality' manufacturers here in the land of the kangaroo. Our Frost drill bits and cutters are equal to anything in the world and worth every cent. Won't find them in bunnings though!

With all the 'downsizing' of Oz manufacturing, how long can this last though?

Albury Tafe just dropped their engineering courses, moved them to the Wagga Wagga campus, so sniffing around to see what kit they are disposing off.

We live in sad (scary) times.

* Danny M *

G'day.

I second the 'egg-box' idea. Years ago one of my soldiers showed me his garden shed. He was an amateur DJ and liked to play the drums. His garden shed was lined with egg-boxes and from outside any noise was just a low rumble. As the 'Housing Officer' I had to respond to a complaint from a neighbour. My report noted that a passing car was noisier, no further action required.

* Danny M *

G'day George.

I like your soft jaws, what a lovely idea - well done!

* Danny M *

G'day.

Bore one penny to half thickness, leaving the rim intact. Turn another one to half thickness of a diameter to fit exactly into the first piece. Carefully sweat together with a tiny trace of solder. You now have a double headed penny, which can be useful in some situations.

* Danny M *

Aaah, lead pipe, very useful stuff to melt down (do it outside). I use beeswax for a flux (also salvaged when a local tannery closed down, 20 kg in the 100 year old chimney. Until a builder mate demolished an old church I used to use discarded wheel-weights from a local tyre depot, but it is a pita to remove the steel bits with a magnet over the simmering pot.

The lead is put to good use as fishing sinkers or as projectiles for my .45 muzzle loader. This in turn means that I can recycle a feral deer ( As they are here in Oz) into steaks, trout flies or sausages.

Regards * Danny M *

G'day

An old aeromodelling friend has in a locked metal safety cabinet 2L of nitrobenzine, 500ml of amyl nitrate and a half used 500ml bottle of propylene oxide. They were used as legitimate fuel additives many years ago for racing control -line models before the first and the last were banned. We are still haggling over the amyl nitrate though, as it is not banned - just impossible to obtain.

As for sulphuric acid, the local cheap auto parts store sells dry-charged batteries, but no acid for them. My neighbour had to come begging for some to fill his new motorcycle battery from my anodising supply.

If you really want fun & games, try getting pulled over by the police for a random breath test when you have been flying a model with a miniature diesel engine, the car smells of ether and there is a box behind the driver's seat with a large jar prominently labelled 'DOPE' . Fortunately, it all worked out ok in the end.

In the 60's, my chemistry teacher once made some phosgene gas (in the fume cabinet) and explained how it was a deadly WW1 poison. Also we regularly used chloroform to put frogs to sleep, and then we had to cut them up with their tiny hearts still beating. In the science lab we had Röentgen tubes, a Wimshurst machine and lots lovely toys for a 15 year old to play with. For one open-day I was allowed to make a Jacobs Ladder and on another to run a current through soapy water and stick a lighted taper into the bubbles (much to the amusement of the visiting parents). The Wimshurst machine was also handy to hook up to the steel grating over the windows for when an unsuspecting 4th former tried to retrieve a tennis ball that, handily, just fitted into the mesh.

Somehow, I suspect that that sort of thing does not happen anymore, which is a pity, because by such 'hands-on' experience one learns very quickly about science.

* Danny M *

Here is a magnet pair from am ex-military magnetron. Quite useful in the workshop for cleaning the floor. A one microsecond pulse with a peak power of a Megawatt, it was fun to light a fluoro tube in a tree and get the new Artillery persons looking for the power lead..

The compressor was used to pressurise the waveguides in a radar system, ie; all leaks were outwards. With a start capacitor it turned into a nice airbrush supply.

In the 1970's Ian Miller ran a great series on airbrushing using re-cycled fridge compressors in the Aeromodeller magazine.

I recently re-cycled my 15 year old Panasonic microwave oven btw., the lights went out. Sign said 'No User Serviceable Parts Inside'. A one Amp slow-blow fuse (in a socket) was the culprit. A new one soon fixed that problem. Now I wonder if I had called a sparkie would have he charged me an arm and a leg to fix it or tried to flog me a newer model (and taken away the old one to sell with a new fuse)?

Danny M *

Hi Brian. I grew up in London during the '50's. Nothing was wasted, everything was repairable. Even my school shoes were re-soled and heaven help me if I scuffed the uppers.

When I moved to Australia I did a few trips to New Guinea. At Mt. Hagen in the 70's, B-26's, Mustangs, Thunderbolts and every Japanese aircraft that ever served in the Pacific were lying scrapped next to the runway. It was nice to see that the majority were Japanese though. Bulldozed off the strip as rubbish

.Most of the 'goodies' (altimeters etc) were long gone though, including the weaponry, although I still have a aluminium crucifix made from the remains of a Japanese ' Betty' (according to the maker). by a local bloke.

I wish that more of the parts would have fitted into my kitbag.

Yep, our local tip has been sold off, privatised and out of bounds. Makes a mockery of 'saving the planet' unless somebody can make a quid out of it!

* Danny M *

G'day all.

With due respect to the 'What Did You Do Today' thread I thought a bit about where I obtain some handy materials at a fraction of the cost of a commercial supplier. I live 'out of town btw' (Oz)

For example; Dismantling a pre-loved printer reveals a whole 'Aladdin's Cave' of useful bits and pieces. (Once you get the ink off your hands).

Lovely free-cutting (very) precision ground steel guide rods (with corresponding bronze bushes). Lots of interesting gears, worm drives and stepper motors, opto- interrupters and screws galore.

Disk drives reveal powerful magnets, worm-screw drives and more optical devices .

A vehicle has windscreen washer (coolant pump?) motors and 12V worm driven power window/mirror drives. Just there for peanuts at the wreckers.

The heads on an extinct video player also use very good bearings and the door brake mechanism is soon reworked into a friction timer for model aircraft.

Why waste all these goodies at the tip?

I am NOT a greenoid paranoid climatoid btw, but I do like a bargain. Let's face it, some people throw away perfectly repairable/ unfashionable junk (to them). To keep the planet happy, and my budget affordable, re-cycling somebody's discards into a useful item is the way to go.

Any thoughts on this?

* Danny M *

In Oz - Oxy Torch = Hot Axe

* Danny M *