Member postings for Neil Lickfold

To turn the Ti Blue, get Diet Coke or Pepsi, place the item in the jar and put about 36 to 48 volts across. It will colour change. The voltage give a particular colour. So have a play and you can make different colours.

Cant remember if the wire in the fluid is +or -

Neil

So I recently drilled a 3.2mm hole through some 3d printer Ti heat breaks. I drilled them at aprox 350 rpm with a Ti milk coolant. Feed rate is about .05mm to 0.1mm per rev, so similar to drilling stainless steel. All went very well using just a normal New HSS drill. 10 were made and they are only 19mm long though. Fires occur when you get things out of control , ie it gets too hot from dull tools or wrong feed/speeds. Ti coolant is Chlorine free and I mix with rain water.

Neil

Some boring bars are made out of special materials that have a higher than normal steel modulus at the end of a carbide bodied bar. But they cost real money. A lot of research is continually being done about torsional tuning of boring bars as well.

Then there are the supported bars, so are like an internal roller box for precision boring of long tubes etc.

Neil

I have modified smaller bars, 12mm shank with a piece of 5mm tungsten carbide inside a 5.2 mm hole and used a brass plug in the end. This has worked very well as a vibration dampener. This is the technique used by Summitomo in their vibration dampening bars. So you can make it work 3 ways , have the moving weight in a bar, use tension or compression, or do another method which is to lighten the cutting head. Mitsubishi have the Dimple bar technology that vibration dampens by changing the mass at the insert end of the bar, and it works also. For home I have the dimple bars and have added little weights to the inside as well to the none dimple bars. I have also made external holders with these weights in them for my work place. Had an issue with turning between centres and getting a harmonic. So I lenghthend the tool from the holder, and it worked. The tool is a 25mm shank and has a piece of 12mm carbide inside a 12.4mm hole. When the tuning tool is struck, it makes a dull thud instead of a ring. Again it works.

Neil

Sandvik many years ago had tuned boring bars available for milling and turning. It just put the assembly into tension. For the turning one, there was an adjuster that could be accesses and adjusted while it was taking a cut. Much easier on a manual lathe than a cnc one. It works. So does the other way of vibration dampening and that is to place a loose heavy metal object in the boring bar a bit back from the cutting edge. Like on a 20mm bar, the weight is about 40mm back from the very front. They allow boring bars to turn up to about a 7 to 10 d limit.,Meaning a 20mm shank tool can be used down as far as 200mm . Just tungsten is often used for this weight and has about 1mm of for aft movement and about 0.3 total side way's movement.

Neil

Link does not work for me. Can you check it again please.

Neil

A friend has one for doing keyways. Works really well for odd sized keys and in places where you cant get a through broach.

Neil

The only reason to level any machine tool is to put the machine tool back into the zero stress situation that it was in when made new. Whether it is actually level is not as important as having the references in their zero position if your machine does have them. So like a lathe for example, you want the bed to have zero twist and as flat as possible. With a shaper, front of the ram slide and the back of the ram slide with zero twist. Same with the vertical slide.

Neil

They look way better in person I tell ya all. Those pics don't do the work justice. Dean does fantastic work because he has the "want to" The want to make this, want to anodise that, etc etc etc. Keep the pics coming Dean.

Yeah, the carbide cutters for Aluminium and plastics , really are something quite new and fantastic. They work very well even at low speeds, and the surface finish is very good as well. They don't have to be run really fast , so can be run similar speeds to HSS with no ill effects. There are even some with fancy coatings that reduce the Al from welding or building up on the carbide edge. On soft steels like free machining MS, these cutters also work very well giving a great surface finish. Some companies that are specialising in this technology are DHF, A local company here in NZ https://www.carbidenz.co.nz/6mm-3-flute-carbide-aluminium-endmill.html have a great range. I like these 3 flute cutters, great as a compromise cutter, so can plunge, face and do sides. These work really well on plastics and copper as well.

Neil

Was your carbide cutter made for cutting Aluminium specifically, or is it a general carbide endmill? They are very different cutters and different geometries.

Neil

Brian, I sent you a PM message on the forum here.

To cut tapered threads, you either need a thread cutting lathe that has the adjustable pivoting headstock, or else like on a Myford S7, You need a taper turning attachment, and the compound slide to be rotated around so that the cut can be applied.

Neil

Brian Wood, How do I get you book of screw cutting gear arrangement , I have a Myford S7 here in New Zealand. The quickchnage box is green and is an add on with my lathe I think, as the Lathe is painted Grey.

Neil Lickfold

Remove jaws, noting their position. Also remove scrolls and also noting their positions. Those are the only parts to dissemble. Clean all well and reassemble. You can't have chuck parts too clean. Clean especially if you have had material that leaves abrasive swarf behind. Like cast iron or high silicon aluminium alloys etc. It won't wear out because you cleaned it. Neil

I have found on small stuff the tapping compound makes a difference. I like the old Tap magic and the other that is good is Relton Rapid tap fluid.

Neil

My son does test pieces to establish the shrinkage is xyz, then makes the correction to the model and away they go. Sometimes they in ways that don't seem the way initially. They do this to get the unseen side is often the side that is down and has support material etc, the seen side is the top face or the seen side. The finished products look fairy good. They use an UPbox printer and have made their own material feeder, it keeps track of how much filament is used and can see before they print if there is enough filament or not.

Neil

Using a 1.7mm drill does help a lot to make the taps last longer. Especially when tapping steel.

Neil

My Grip Tru has what look like Bellville washers under the screws.

It works so did nit remove them the last time I was servicing the chucks.

Neil

You may want to change to an HP grease and grease it often. Grease is cheap and look at a 200 grade grease. Try and keep the swarf off the front edge as well.

It will be M16X2 unless you have something special made.

Neil