Member postings for Neil Lickfold

It is common to drag your hand on the hand wheel of the saddle at the start of all the passes, especially on older lathes with plenty of back lash everywhere. Also to nip up the top slide to reduce it from moving, unless doing the angled topslide way, or the Hardinge way as I call it. There are many ways to skin a cat as they say, and nothing like experience. We are very fortunate for the likes of Ramon who have gone out of their way to record and keep such a great build log of not only how it's done, but shows the equipment it is done on. Now days we are spoilt for choices to learn, and youtube I find has some great things, but there is also some rather nasties their as well. If you never know anything about engineering, I always think some of the old books and booklets are always a great starting place, then move onto where ever for the knowledge. Apprenticeships are no longer what they used to be that is for sure and most it seems are just too keen on the newer ways than learning the old skills. A simple example is making a thread cutting tool, either internal or external.

In my house built 2 years ago, 3phase to the building was the same price as single phase to the building. With the high density housing going up around us, the electric supplier instructs the electricians which phase the house has if single phase, or if 3 phase, which phase is the kitchen. This is to lower the overall current on any one phase for their peak demands. The advantage for me was 3phase to the garage of course. Recently , older houses with the asbestos main boards, are being upgraded with new meters, and 3phase connections at no additional costs. The new connections put the oven, electric hob if separate, on their own phase, with the rest of the house on the other.

So it may check to see if any such upgrades are happening in your area at all.

Chris, very interesting with the Quill and the spring tension. How do you get the pinion to engage into the rack of the quill to reduce the backlash? Or is that the backlash of the micrometer dial on the fine feed you are talking about?

My quill moves on a funny angle with a sideways movement when looking at it from the front. Fore and Arft seem fine. But the real strange part is that you can get the head true to the table over like 150mm or so, on the spindle, then the quill does not follow an angle plate or a bottle square as it is raised and lowered.

I will try increasing the spring pressure, and see if that makes any difference. The other option is to create a locking collar guide like the video link shows, and fit that to the bottom of my mill casting also.

Its been an interesting read for sure. Maybe I need my casing line bored and sleeved etc to properly fix it and have the back section also recut true to the run of the spindle. All of that will be serious work with some of it needing to be outsourced. There is a company with a line boring set up very close to where I live. But that will be if all else fails.If I resleeve I will use the Bronze bush that has the carbon oil retaining pads, instead of just the cast iron.

Neil

The corrosion often creates areas that have oxidised and that is effectively metal removed. Unless you take all the surface area down to the minimum of the depth of the corrosion, it will still be there. Garraflex or the rubberised abrasives are good or non flat shapes. On a flat surface, you will need another flat surface to repair it with. If you just want to shine the surface only and are not concerned with it's flatness, using Autosol , but thinned with turps or a very light oil, like plain unscented baby oil, and using soft material like a lens cloth, will restore the finish. But it takes time. Paper towels and even synthetic clothes material will creates scratch marks. Water will make cast iron rust in humid conditions within a few minutes. The other option is to use an oil based diamond polishing compound and soft balsa wood. Using the makers of the diamond thinning agent or baby oil works great too. The balsa will absorb the diamond and then behave like a lap. Lapidary diamond is water based, so I avoid them for cast iron work and other surfaces that corrode very easily. Balsa wood and Autosol also works very well, and you can see and control the area you are polishing. I get a small pack of mixed sizes of balsa wood from the hobby shop and it's about 4 inches to 6 inches long with varying shapes etc. Usually something in there is about right for the job. Keep each piece with the abbrasive type. I don't mix the abbrasive grades.

Here is the link to Chris Hightower site. Worth looking at what can be done on the Taig system and the ideas that Chris has in what he sells. Not saying to buy that, but worth looking at for ideas etc. His stuff is all aimed at cue making, but the live tooling side of things is what industry is doing.

I really like the Sherline little 4jaw chucks, and also really like their little rotary table/dividing head. Used one when I was working in Pa for a few years. I should have got one while I was there, but did not think of an immediate use for it at the time.

https://www.cuesmith.com/cue-lathes-cue-smith/

Neil

Edited By Neil Lickfold on 10/03/2022 03:19:18

They work well, but secondary drilling of brass with a normal drill bit, they can bite in. A split collar can be made to go onto the shaft and be used as a positioned stop in the back of the unit. They are just as fast as the rack and pinion tail stock units, and the rack and pinion gives a much longer drilling length or reach. The rack and pinion is not as sensitive as the lever one, but in saying that, I have successfully drilled 0.3mm holes for 3d printer nozzles on mine in both brass and steel. I own both having 1st bought the lever one, then bout the rack and pinion with the indexing drill holder attachment. After the one job I did with the indexer drilling, have never used it again, but have never removed the rack and pinion unit either or used the original hand wheel unit. But have kept it for the one day. My tailstock now has a sprung fit caliper holder for a cheap digital read out, and I have made a split collar to be used for a physical stop for drilling constant depth operations.

Neil

The Taig lathes do offer a power feed,and some people have come up with ways to cut short threads etc.

A guy who sells Cue making lathes in the USA Chris Hightower, is worth making contact with as well. He has a wealth of knowledge with Taig Lathes, and was the first to make a cue making lathe with the Taig lathe system. He has Riser blocks that allow for larger centre heights etc, as well as bearing steady rests, and support for things that hang out the back of the lathe. He also has an indexing plate that fits the spindle etc.

My cue lathe, I don't have the power feed or screw cutting options on it yet, but that maybe changing. I have done several model engineering things on the big bore Taig type lathe that I was not able to make in the Myford S7. Having the ability to hold Ø26mm bar has been the biggest asset, as most mini lathes are only able to hold 14mm or so bar to make bar stock parts from, unless cut into very short lengths.

Taig also make a little compound slide that has been most useful as well.

I would not get too hung up about thread cutting as most sizes used can be done with taps and dies these days. Sets even in HSS are not the commanding price that they used to be. Then there are die holders that you could make for the Taig tailstock arrangement. A friend has owned a lathe for about 28 years and only this year I showed him how to screw cut a thread that he could not get a die for off the shelf. There is the electronic leadscrew project, and oneday, it may well be available for the Taig or Sherline type lathes.

No matter what size lathe you get, one day you may need to make something bigger than it's capability.

Neil

With the Taig system, I made my own headstock, as at the time, as Taig did not offer such a thing. Mine has two different spindles, a 5c spindle and an ER40 spindle. I use the ER40 spindle the most, but I don't think the ER40 is available. The advantages of the 5c, is the range of collets that are available, and that with emergency collets, can cut what ever shaper you want or turn them to suite. The 5c gives you the option of a large bore in a small frame machine, up to about 28mm I think I made mine. I put a 3phase motor on mine and a VFD, to get the lower RPM that I needed. It is a great machine. The other change is I added the Myford Dickson quick change tooling system for holding the same tools as I use in my Myford S7.

Neil

The R215.44 is the iso code for Sandvik Right hand milling insert with a 15mm length insert. These inserts will fit any cutter body with the same precursor id code. They have many different grades for many different materials. Then they can change that code and it becomes obsolete as they go to a newer geometry insert, even though it may still be 15mm long. I got given a cutter body and 1 set of inserts as that is now obsolete. Some places may make inserts that still fit it, but not Sandvik. So the newer stuff is now very positive cutting and reduced power consumption, cooler cutting, and leaves less stress in the material being cut.

Hi Dr Dave, What is the capacity of the F1 mill? What sized cutters are you normally using and what Sized cuts in what materials?

There is one for sale at the moment and looking at the possibilities for it. It has all the original controller, not sure if the software is still there. I know nothing about the Emco F1 mills.

Thanks, Neil Lickfold

With Ba taps I go a slightly bigger drill size. Like 4ba, I drill 3.1mm instead of 3.0 in the drill charts. The thread is still very effective, but is a lot easier to tap, especially into steels. HC steel taps work in the softer materials. But harder materials that are over 20 Rc like 4340, or 4140, P20, etc , some stainless steels , those materials are very difficult with HC taps. Even with HSS taps I go over the normal chart sizes. Interestingly, the Mazak milling machine tapping drill sizes are quite a bit bigger than the normal charts as well.

Have fun in making the parts for the new project you are under taking.

Neil

I have put a Norton stone on a surface grinder and ground it flat. I was not that impressed by it's lack of cutting. I preferred the cutting of the stones that were lapped or re cut on a flat cast iron plate with fine grit. I rework the stones dry. They work very well. The finer the grit the finer the cutting of the stones to a point. 60 grit from a sandblaster will restore the stone to the sharpness or cutting rate of a near new stone.

Ron, I have cut down the holders, and I cut from the underside. On some of mine, I extended the cut to the under body bulk of the tool by about 6 to 8 mm or so. I did this to reduce the overall over hang of the tooling. As I have a Dickson toolpost, the closest it can get to the long work piece is the clamp plate of the boring bar tool block. Yeah some holders are tougher going than others. What really did annoy me, was to find that there are industrial tool holders for small machines that are all in 12mm shank holders for most of the insert tooling, including TNMG16040XX inserts and for holders like you may be looking for. Mitsubishi Carbide, may well have a holder for your insert. I just checked , and they don't do that insert type in the 10-12mm holders. 16mm is the smallest for the MRMN inserts I could find. Some do a cast iron grade insert in the narrow 2mm insert. It is basically flat or inclined with no pressed geometry. These can and are used to make Special radius inserts, and can be shaped with a diamond file, or diamond mounted points with a rotary tool, or on a suitable grinder for grinding carbide. So you could create your 1.2 or 1.5mm radius. Just hold the insert forward a little , then you do not need to modify the tool holder in any way.

After looking at the comments of the ATO video, the motor can not be switched into reverse from the VFD. All it can do is control the motor rpm above the speed of the sprung switch for disconnecting the capacitors, even though they are not connected. To run in reverse the wiring of the motor will need to be altered.

So it looks like a single phase to single phase inverter can be used on a motor that has a cap start still enabled or having the cap start disabled. If the cap start is disabled, then instead of the 0.75kw unit, you will need their 1.5 kw unit. As they say that a 2 times the capacity of the plate rated power is required for the start of a singlephase no capacitor start motor.

On my mill drill recently, I did find a use to be inverting my saw blade and to run my motor in reverse. So for me, I will need a replacemant 3phase motor and single to 3 phase VFD unit .I am thinking of getting a 1.5kw motor that can run at the higher 2880 rpm. That way I can double the rpm and still have the same torque as the slower 0.75 kw motor at 1/2 motor RPM. (25hz the motor would be 1440 RPM) . The gear box lowest speed is still slow enough for everything I need, but the top end is really on the slow side, so that is why I am considering the bigger faster motor. They used to may the Mill I have with the 2880 2 speed motor but stopped doing that line of Mill drills. Maybe that could be in another complete thread. With the 3phase motor and controlled braking, I will be able to more easily do tapping of holes as well.

As for buying the VFD, I have bought all of mine off the local motor sellers. They used to sell complete VFD with a motor package, but no do this service. None of the vfd have ever given any trouble. They also sell the 3phase mototrs to suite the application etc.

ATO do make a single phase to 3 phase motor invertor and on their youtube video, do answer a lot of the comments questions about the setting of their drive etc.

Neil

At the moment, there is a change happening with parting blades and inserts. The change is that instead of the insert having a taper shape to it, the new ones have a negative taper, so are slightly smaller at the front. The holder is now a flexure, and is expanded to take the insert. So in some cases, the replacement inserts are no longer available. That leaves them with buying a new blade or doing some deal with x number of boxes of inserts a discounted blade. I have not seen the free blade offers yet. In the 3mm for sure they are a through coolant design as well as a no coolant models. I have both the 2mm wide insert parting blades a a 1mm wide HSS blade that came with the original Dickson quick change tool post and holder sets. I got a spare HSS blade back in 1987 with the set and have never used it yet.

I really like the insert blades for parting off larger diameter stuff that is near solid or has a larger diameter than 1/2 inch in steel . They work well in most materials. For really small stuff or brass and Ali parts under 3/4 inch that are thin walled or need as sharp an edge as possible after being parted off, I use the HSS. The carbide will often leave a burr or quite an amount that will need to be addressed afterwards. Used carefully the Inserts will last a very long time and you can get a lot of parts parted off or grooved etc.

The insert parting works really well when parting off within 10mm of the chuck, even with 4340 bar.

Neil

I tested tonight 2 different VFD's to see if they interfere with the TV and they did not. Mine do have a built in filter to the mains supply. Also all my shop and house wiring is going through the new breakers with the earth leakage things.. Either called ELCB (older models) or an RCD (the newer one.  The RCD maybe doing some filtering as well, I just don't know. Back when I had an outside shed, when the old fuse was changed to the new RCD breakers in both the shed mini power box, and the supply fuse changed to an RCD, the interference that we had in the house from some machines, was eliminated. Maybe look into an RCD in the house fuse box for that circuit.

Neil

I have made parts between centres, where I use the centre taper to be the driver. I make the taper as big as I can and make the parts with excess material on that end to allow for the bigger centre. I just take light cuts and no drive dog. Works a treat. My head stock end centre has a shoulder so it pushes onto the face of the chuck jaws. I trim the 30deg deg angle to suite the centre taper. Some jobs I end boring the centre, and if it is not required to be changed with the tailstock end, have make the taper more shallow at 10 deg per side. It gets an better grip on the bar that way.

Does not suite everything, but does help if the drive dog becomes an issue with the turning of the part.

Mine does not have the sold extra material on the saddle casting like your one does. For sliding things I made , I have just draw filed or milled a flat where the locking screw sits. Mainly as the things I was sliding needed to be orientated and it gave more area for set screw to lock against. I like the way that the brass piece is the fine adjustment. To make a semi locking device on threaded items, I have cut a slot and used a small piece of Oring material to create the locking resistance. On bolts that need the nylock type feature I insert a piece of weed trimmer line nylon.

Neil

My S7 does not have any area like your lathe does for the stop as you have described. My only way , is going to have to make a block to the bottom of the leadscrew cover bracket. Will take pics and show what I make to help with those who have the older models like myself of a S7. Mine is from 1972 as best as I can tell.

Neil

What a good Idea. What are the details to buy one please.

Thanks ,

Neil Lickfold