Member postings for Neil Lickfold

He has a video of making a lathe too. Not sure what he did for the headstock spindle. Determined fellow thats for sure.

Grade 12.9 cap screws, cap socket head screws, is a very good steel to make axials from.

We had a project at work a few years ago. It used some very large magnets, to pull these parts together, and then to separate by rotating one of the magnets. They came with alot of warnings and had a large container for each. One guy had his swipe card too close to the magnet and it ruined it. Lucky there were new cards on site. I can recall the instructions mentioning not to allow another Neodym magnet to become too close as permanent damage could occur to both magnets. The magnet had a holding power of around 100kg. Our new lifting magnet can hold 350 kg and is the same size as the old 200kg magnet for lifting steel plates etc.

Hi Ed, I sent you a PM message.

Im down the island in Hamilton.

Out here , we call them blade micrometers . A 0-25mm is in a frame size of a 25-50.

Some people look for thread micrometers , and then make up the blades or the forms that are needed. I recently bought a blade micrometer 0-25mm from Aliexpress. I am very happy with it. I got it for measuring the taper on crankpins. Mine came with very thin blades of 0.8mm wide.

As I have a nice non rotating barrel analog 25-50 thread micrometer, if I need a very thin or a radiused blade, I can make them for that micrometer too, and use the extra length, to get by the flywheel side.

Thanks for the post about the collet chuck. I was thinking that it could be held together , like a griptrue backplate does. I was also thinking that 3 screws could be installed , and where the screws meet the lip /flange area, the load could be spread by cutting a flat and then adding some pads to those areas. Then it will be like adjusting a griptrue.

If you can get 4 places it will be quicker to adjust and be just like a 4jaw when using 2 keys. I think M5 would be a good size to use and 0.8mm pitch is fine enough to get the adjustment needed. Not the same as the tapered key that is used in a grip true though. If finer adjustments are needed could use M5 or M6 X 0.5mm threads and make the screws needed.

I have an Optimum one arriving this week. I will take it apart and check the inner taper etc to the body and the rear register at the key part line. Mine is going onto a S7 and also onto a Chinese lathe that I have that takes the 3 bolt mount and a tapered register. So will make a Myford adapter for that lathe to take all the Myford chucks and backplates etc. The only difference is that the adapter will have a locking system of a piece of nylon cord in a slot to make it like a Nylock nut. Have made them before using 2mm and 3mm line trimmer nylon.

I may just be doing this mod to my one as well. I do like the adjustability of the system though. It will mean that the average collets can be used with really good precision if needed.

Thanks again.

Neil

Our lathe came with a snug fitting nose on the backplate, but the chuck was not running true , no matter what key was used to tighten down on test pieces, from, 8,10,12,16,19,25mm samples. So I skimmed the chuck register on the backplate itself, so the flange face had now swash run out, and then took 0.1 off the register. Remounted the chuck, with the screws lightly nipped, and put in the 12mm pin, indicated it to zero near the chuck and looked at it from 30mm out. It was fine. Snugged the screws, and checked all the other common sizes that I use and it was really good, within 0.02mm over the range with 12mm being my zero. I don't do cuts heavy enough to be moving the chuck, and anything with interrupting cuts I use the 4 jaw chuck.

To assemble very tight fitting parts, a very light smear of castor oil , will make the parts easily assemble. The down side is that castor oil can turn to a gum and then make the parts hard to dis assemble. There are some other oils and greases that allow tight parts to easily assemble. One that surprised me is the lube grease for DMG Moori machines grade 000 grease. Really expensive in NZ, but is around 30 pound for a 1 litre bottle that will last a lifetime.

I can not underestimate the cleanliness required when changing chucks or face plates on machines . The screws needs to be really clean and free of any dust, grit etc. So a little time to make sure everything is very clean, really pays off in the long term.

Jason has nailed how to make a test plug for making a new backplate to fit your lathe. To try and get the very close finish, if the compound slide is set at a very shallow angle like 0.5 deg, you can use the movement on the compound slide to make the very small diameter changes. There is no issue with polishing to final size, once you get down to the last thou or 0.02mm on diameter as you sneak to the final size. The register is better to be slightly in the tighter side rather than the looser size. My chucks and backplates came with a relief on the first 3 4to 4 mm of the length of the spigot, so about 1/3 is relieved slightly.

Neil

The most accurate form of the ER type collet I have used, comes from the Japanese company BIG. They have the highest of any specs I have ever seen in a collet , and used one for the First time on Monday to hold a part with an 8mm shank. But the price for the BIG collets and the holder , costs about the same as buying a cheap range Myford sized lathe.

Just to add to the ER situation, What is missing in alot of cases with the collet nut, is the concentricity of the thread to the inner taper on the mandrel or body of the collet system, and then the concentricity of the collet nut to the inner nose taper. When I made my ER spindle nose, having made the thread concentric to the inner 8 deg taper per side, I got all the Regofix nose nuts that I was going to use, and checked them all for the thread fit. It works really well. Another point in my set up, is a slotted pin, that keeps the collet in the same radial orientation. It does limit the closing of the collet to slightly less than the max closing.

There is now a fine thread format nose , where they use a 1mm pitch thread instead of the 1.5mm thread pitch for the collets in the ER20 and up. It makes a significant difference to the amount needed to tighten down or to hold a part or cutter on the system.

Most of the ER systems I see available today, do not hold a part dead true from the initial clamping, and require a small tap or adjustment to hold the part or cutter true. In short you get what you pay for and at some point a most hobbyist just get by and make do with what they have. Most hobbyist are not making a part that has to fit another part made by somewhere else in another part of the country or world.

Something that I make alot is what I call a distortion bush . I make a bush nearly finished size. Part it off the bar. Then hold it in the lathe chuck I am going to use, normally a 3 jay chuck, or even in an ER collet. Bore the inner over sized when it is lightly held in the chuck. Then tighten to close to the holding amount on the chuck, or collet, and finish the inner bore to being a close fit to the part and the end face. When released on tension, but not loose, the part can be inserted, clamped and the operations completed. This works very well for a few items that need a precision second operation.

5C and the ER systems have been mentioned alot, but with the ER systems, I have found that the cheap collets are not worth the time or money spent. I have some cheap collets that are just junk and should never have bought them. Others have got cheap collets and most seem to be fine for them. It all depends on what you are making, and the level of precision that is required. The AA graded collets seem to be just as accurate as the RegoFix High precision collets, is what I have found, when all else is correct.

Neil

You can't just add water to a simple hot black bath. It requires sodium Hydroxide as well to get the boiling point higher. The water level can drop, but the temp needs to stay in the range for that material. Re heating a pot needs to be done slowly and the whole process takes a lot of care. I did hot black for a few years with no real issues. Made black mostly A2 tool steel parts. I used an electric top initially, then went to small gas burner. The chemicals only last so long and then it needs dumping and starting again. Fortunately, at the time, they needed a strong alkaline mix to neutralize and acid process, so instead of buying sodium hydroxide to essentially tip down the drain, they used the old blackening mix. It worked well for the time. Now they don't do that process at all.

For the most part, the cold black is good enough and some of the newer etch paints are really good too. Recently learnt that letting the bits rust, then treating with a rust converter is what some are doing, and so far it seems to work well.

I used last year for the first time, a 5C collet system, that is open and closed with a small key, on the side like a regular chuck key. The repeatability was great , and after using it for a couple of days, for the few off parts we were making, preferred it to the collet closer type. I liked the feel that you get when doing up a collet to hold a part. It had all the other advantages of the 5c system, like being able to use flange dead stop plates etc for holding parts to length on a 2nd op for example. The other was the use of emergency collets or collets that you can make to your specific size shapes etc. Yes it seems a lot of money up front, but long term well worth the money. I am in the process of looking for a 5c adapter chuck for my Myford S7.

It needed a D? plate to be fitted to the lathe and cut to the supplied specs to suite the body of the collet chuck and was then indicated in place with the 4 adjusting screws onto the inner reference edge.

Neil

Thanks for the feedback. When I do get around to making it, I will keep the kit as is, and use bigger bearings and make it for MT2 direct fit to the Myford S7. While making it, I will make different holders for using different sized HSS while at it. I am hoping that I can also incorporate the over cap setup for OD broaching to 8mm or so . I may have to do the OD broaching on the mill yet, not sure. After making things and doing some testing. I am sure that there will be some small things that can make a big difference to how the process works. Today when I was running the nc lathe, I tried some different inserts to see how much difference was in the spindle loadings. The spindle power difference was as much as 5% from the insert geometry being tested. So it got me to thinking about the rotary broaching. The insert that made the smallest chips, used the lowest amount of power.

Thanks Howard.

That site answers all the questions I had. Yeah I won't be making the external broaching now, not with those sort of forces for an external broach. Milling it will be.

Baz , I was looking at making it larger, with larger bearing etc, and putting a #2MT on the spindle end. Then make it an over cap design for broaches and only have a thin section then have the back end all relieved out at around a 5 deg taper. I will make my initial ones with O1 and if they seem to be working , then will make them from HSS and get them commercially heat treated. While make the current kit will make a bigger unit at the same time for the outer stuff. I won't need larger than 6mm for my internal hexes. I have some hss for making the various broaches that I need. I suppose that carbide is too brittle for broaches.

John, I can get the hexes that I need wire cut from a friend that runs an edm wire cut machine. The radius from the wire will leave a nice corner radius on the parts hopefully. I have access to a cutter grinder to make the broach inserts in hss. .

Out of curiosity, what diameter do you make the broach for say a 4mm hex key? Do you make them 4.02mm or so?

Neil

I have just received my little kit from Hemmingway Kits. I do like the well explained instructions and great drawings.

My question is, does anyone use or have made a broaching tool for making an outer shape, like putting a hex on a part instead of trying to set up the mill and cut the flats required on the part?

I remember back in 1982, seeing that the inside of capscrews hex was clearly done with rotary broaching instead of the now forged formed heads that we are used to seeing , and thinking about it, some of the water fittings had been rotary broached for the inner hex as well.

In my case I am going to be just putting hexes inside some brass bits and some 6mm hex into some special screws that I can't buy anymore.

I want to make some ali parts from a material that I can not by is hex form, and want to make the part all on the lathe without having to set up the mill to get the 3/8 and 1/2 inch hex on the parts.

Cheers Neil

Carefully stoning and polishing the slides of the cheaper calipers, gives them the nice feel of what the Mitutoyo ones does. I did that to my Insize calipers. Made the world of difference. When needing to use the calipers for something that matters, I use it like a comparator and use a set of gauges to preset the caliper on. Where ever possible I prefer micrometers for measurements.

I have found that the stops are only any good if you are gentle in winding to them, especially on the cross slide. When I made 1000's of parts a way back in 1996 on my Myford, I created a fine cross slide lead screw. I modified an imperial set, so used the dial, with 100 divisions, and removed the original feed screw from the adapter. Then made a new 0.5mm pitch screw, M8X0.5P and made a new nut. The adapter had the thread for the assembly to go together.

It meant that I could turn the dial 1 rev and it was 1 mm in diameter. It was very repeatable, so you could easily achieve 0.01mm sizing less tool wear and temp of the part of course. Yes it was more winding, but that was allowing me to hold a 0.01mm diameter sizing on these simple parts.

I had little pen marks on the side of the cross slide, that corresponded to different sizes. I carefully set all the tools from the boring bar being zero. ie every whole mm diameter is Zero on the dial. Then the outer tools are set by cutting a reference, then adjusting the tools' psoition in the holder, so that each tool was nominally on the zero for any whole mm size, like 25mm for example. I used different coloured pens for the different tools.

It worked very well, and was often asked how I got the sizing correct, and the real secret was keeping the tool holders clean of any swarf when changing, and keeping a constant torque on the locking of the tool post cam on the Myford quick change tool holder.

I did initially have a muti index tool holder on the tail sock, but taht was only any good for drilling holes really. When it came to form tools or D bit's , it was not accurate enough , being so far from the tailstock. It may be my tailstock is too worn for that to have been effective, or the total extension from the tailstock was just too far.

My wife has a Stihl mower that takes the smaller size of the two battery types. We only have a small lawn, less than 100m2 area. But she does mow the neighbourers outside lawn at times too. What effects the battery life the most is the sharpness of the blade. Initially I was just resharpening the blade along the profile of the initial blade as supplied. A college suggested that I start sharpening it from the under side. So I bought a spare, and I change out the blade as it needs sharpening and clean out in that area of trapped very smeely decaying grass. Since starting on the underside, I have noticed that the blade stays sharper longer. A dull blade can mean that you get as low as 50% of the lawn mowed. She does not pick up the fallen leaves or twiggs on the ground, they just all get mulched with everything else. This year the wet summer and the warmer than usual spring, has meant we have mowed the lawns the most I have ever known.

You want Delrin or Acetyl , but if you can get Turcite / Tercite/ not sure of spelling, is the best material. I have a gib but can't measure it tonight, but will get dimensions tomorrow for you if no one replies before hand.

As you have a Myford lathe, it will have a hand wheel . This can be used if you don't have a thread dial to engage the halfnut at like zero . Older machines have a lot of backlash in the system. So reversing so that you have plenty of time to take up the backlash . I hold my hand on the carriage wheel to drag it and to take up the backlash in the system. Also make sure that you have the halfnut engaged at the same level. I fully engage the halfnut handle each time. There has been alot of good tips in this thread.

On my lathe as I added a VFD, I have added a microswitch that allows it to stop quite quickly . I have mentioned this as a 3phase motor and VFD allows for easy reversing and variable speed for other situations etc. ut something to be thinking about for later down road.