Member postings for Carl Wilson 4

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for your excellent advice and the picture, which tells a thousand words. That is most definitely a gear you have got there my friend. The process you described is what I have had in my head so far, so it is nice to hear it vocalised. I am glad to hear that it is usual to cut the full depth in one pass. Obviously my machine does not have the rigidity or power of yours, and I reckon I'd get a poor finish if I did that in Delrin, but it is good to know.

Your words of wisdom re set up, workholding and clamping are just what I'm looking for. It is all the little tricks that make the job so much easier. These are the types of things that in our society are being lost. And it is a tragedy because we are the Nation who industrialised the world; we make things, it is who we are. I am determined to hoover up all these skills. In fact I seem to be becoming something of a collector of them.

I will keep you updated on my gear making attempts.

Carl.

Hello Billy,

Thanks a lot for the advice. I might have known there'd be a Workshop Practice series about it. I will get that. I also have Chapman's books on workshop practice...and my training, which seems like the lifetime ago that it was.

Any advice or little tips and tricks I'd still be greatly pleased to hear. I am sure I will have further questions...When I did my engineering training in the Royal Air Force they told us "If you don't know what to do, do something, then measure it..." I have always found that sound advice. I find if you set off, even if it is in the wrong direction that will point you to the right one. So I will learn by doing and with the culminated wisdom of you kind Ladies and Gents.

Thanks again Billy,

Carl.

Tapping directly into Aluminium...dodgy at best. As an aircraft man I like to see it helicoiled. I suppose It is ok, per se...but on something precision like a milling machine it is definitely a bit cheap and nasty. Even on a cheap and nasty milling machine.

Hello Ladies and Gents,

I have decided to have a go at making some gears. I've wanted to master this for some time, and I have a Harrison M250 that has a full set of metric change wheels, but is lacking the ones to machine imperial threads. I sense a project coming on...

Right. So I have a Chester Eagle 30 Mill/Drill. Made in Taiwan I know but she's a fair old beast. I also have rotary table, indexing plates and so on. So I can cope with that side of things. Material wise I was looking at Delrin or black acetal, or something similar as the change wheels are fairly lightly loaded.

I imagine it is a case of mount blank, mount cutter, bring the two together, depth tooth (possibly using a fixed stop on the table's travel?) then index, depth next tooth and so on and so forth.

And here it all gets a little hazy...the detail in between those steps is where I'm vague. I would appreciate a bit of advice or information on things like set up, what is the best way to mount the blank, will I need to make an arbour of some type supported by the tailstock, or can I turn a portion of the blank down and use this to hold it? Any pearls of wisdom you care to throw before this particular swine will be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Carl.

Hello Becky,

Yes, I was looking at the WSE 200 and it does look like a great machine. It is a lot like my old Sealey unit was. I well remember Waddington, used to often get detached there as I was on Nimrods at Kinloss, we used to go and play with the R's at 51 squadron. Well I say I remember it, at least the bits of it I spent not in the pubs in Lincoln... I assumed you were an Electronics Technician, being Royal Signals.

I have a BOC account as well, but I'm seriously looking at going to Hobbyweld. Works the same as BOC but much cheaper. When the girl at my local stockist explained it to me I thought she was having me on!

Yes, always plenty of positions in ROV's for ex military technicians and especially for someone of the skill and calibre you display. If you are interested in finding out more please feel free to PM me and I can give you more details and give you some people to contact.

Best Wishes,

Carl.

Hello Becky,

I started out with a reasonably priced TIG unit that was by Sealey. Although they have links to the UK (Bury St Edmunds) They are in fact made in China...but hey, it had AC/DC functionality and for the price was a great little unit. Trouble was it was only just 150A and no variable frequency or pulse.

I soon realised I needed both these capabilities so I got a unit from RTech. These are a sort of halfway house - part Chinese but re-assembled and checked in the UK and with European power electronics. So still within a sensible budget but more functionality. Quite a good compromise, I thought.

I would echo Jeff's words on cleanliness and triangular waveform, but I reckon if you can get the pulse and frequency right you'll be good. I looked at your website on model truck construction and I have to say it is impressive. Whatever you are doing with your current TIG unit it seems to be working.

Do you have a BOC account for your argon? Another tip I'd like to pass on to you (and anyone else TIg-ing in the UK) is a company called Hobbyweld. They do gas bottles for the likes of us and they are considerably cheaper than BOC. There should be a stockist near you. You can find out here:- www.hobbyweld.co.uk

I am Merchant Navy...sort of. I work in the Offshore Oil and Gas industry. My job is to maintain, modify and fly Remotely Operated Vehicles. These are large underwater robots equipped with robotic arms. They can be fitted with a variety of tooling and are used to build subsea oilfields. A sort of underwater tractor.

You are right to assume a military connection though. I am ex Royal Air Force. I was an Aircraft Technician for 13 years until I left in 2002.

Best Wishes,

Carl.

Hello Rebekah,

Speaking as someone who has done the cheap chinese machine tool bit, I would buy the biggest most capable machine you can afford that fits into your space requirements. In my experience it doesn't matter what you think you'll be doing with it, you'll always need a slightly bigger/slightly more powerful one than you think. So, buy the best and cry once.

There are some decent Taiwan made machines out there, they are sturdy enough and not too pricey. Chester do some decent ones. A really good book that gives excellent advice and good all round general information is "The Milling Machine" by Harold Hall. It is part of the "Workshop Practice" series. It tells you all about rotary tables, clamping, and all the myriad of other milling machine related topics you'll want to know about.

Avoid anything made in the US. Worse than Chinese...threads tapped directly into aluminium anyone? No thanks.

I would also recommend another book by Harold Hall, "Milling: A Complete Course", also Workshop Practice series. Again a lot of very useful, practical information, hints and tips.

Hope this helps. Even if you've now bought your machine I would still recommend the books.

Carl.

Hello Becky,

Hi, interesting reading this and your other posts about your mobile crane project. I have done some TIG aluminium work both in my job and as a hobby. I have a 200 amp pulse TIG welder from RTech. I have attempted to find specs on your WSE 200 unit but without much success. Does your machine have variable frequency? I feel that frequency of the AC welding current is the key to welding thin material as it really focusses the arc. The other point that is important is having a pulse setting. What this does is modulate your welding current using pulse width modulation.

What this amounts too is that it prevents thermal runaway and everything ending up as a melted mess. You set a maximum and minimum current and the machine switches rapidly between these two. So the pool forms but never gets out of control due to the cooling in the low current switching period. With pulse you can weld right next to an edge without melting it. I guess if the balance was more positive that would keep it cooler too but it is probably best staying with about 50/50. I think also a lanthanated tungsten is best for aluminium.

So, higher frequency if you can and pulse if you have or can afford to get a machine that has it. I am at sea at the moment but I am going to experiment with welding some thin aluminium sheet when I'm back in the UK in about 10 days. I will let you know my findings re frequency etc.

Carl.