Member postings for Neil Lickfold

CBN are Cubic Boron Nitride wheels. It is either a matrix of the material on a metal wheel, so looks like a desic diamond coated wheel. The other type is a wheel with a compound like a diamond wheel, but the compound is CBN so looks like tire of bonded material,

Neil

HSS will load and dull a good diamond wheel. So when you use it on carbide it will be dull cutting compared to not using hss on the wheel .CBN wheels are much better suited to sharpening hss, but carbide will ruin and dull off a CBN wheel. CBN wheels last a very long time in a commercial environment, so will probably last a lifetime in the home workshop.

Neil

Castor oil and AFT(Automatic transmission fluid) will help. AFT is good if parts have just started to seize,but have not gauled. You have to be careful with castor oil, as it can allow parts that would not ordinary fit together, go together. Aluminium diesel heads, with an Aluminium contra piston, are assembled with castor oil , to prevent the 2 alloys from gauling.

Having extra clearance in the threads helps as well. On fittings that are subject to heat and vibration , I make the threads loose enough, that allow a layer of PTFE thread tape. It has worked very well for the stingers on tuned pipes so that if required, we can change them.

Neil

I have had the LED strip lighting in my shed for 3 years now. I would not have anything else. I am slowly converting the rest of the work areas with LED strips as well. The better ones are with the Ali extrusion and have a scatter / frosted plastic diffuser, the 1st ones were just mounted underneath the tool shelf without any covers. I have had no issues with either yet. I like the instant Turn on, and the now lower power bill as well. Not driving KW's of lighting in the shed anymore. The incandescent were changed with LED, but I really do like the better light spread from the underneath side of a shelf. I see now there are a larger choice in the light spread of the LED's now , angle of spread, and a huge variety of colour temps as well as varing lumin output per meter length.

Neil

If you have access to a microscope, you will see that the green wheels microchip the carbide edge being ground. There is a myth that carbide can't be damaged from heat when grinding. My experience is that carbide that has been hot when ground does not hold it's edge as well as the same tool ground that did not get hot. Dull green wheels and dull diamond wheels will both burn carbide. Lapping the tool back beyond the microchipped area with a lap is another option. I prefer to use diamond wheels as they generally do not microchip the cutting edge. There are very many different grades of carbide these days, it is hard to keep up. They do not all grind the same either. When brazing carbide, make sure that the tool is allowed to cool naturally, instead of quenching in oil/water etc.

Neil

It is the coloured ink, they treat the paper to make it print better. Use a paper that is printed with black only ink if you can find one these days. I found an old newspaper today from 1993 before they were doing the colour print. Looks like I will be keeping it for special occasions then. Any of the really cheap dish wash liquids work well for cleaning the plastic glasses. The secret is not to rub or smear the dust/dirt/grit into the plastic and then end up scratching them. I have prescription safety glasses, and they are not too bad after 3 years. My eyes will have changed before they get too damaged and need replacing. The secret is to keep them clean, so keep your head away from coolant mist oil splashes etc, all the things that make them go grubby. I always place mine down, upside down on the bench in a clean place, so the lenses can not be scratched or the glasses can't roll over across the lens face.

Neil

You are right. Soluble oil coolants should not be sprayed through an air misters. The only oils that I have been involved with in the misters have all been edible cooking oils. I would think that sulphurised cutting oils would be bad news as well. Most machining centers these days have those oil recovery systems on them, to help to clean up the air from the coolant just being hosed onto the work piece. When they use the oil mister, the air quality is better than when they use flood coolant. Now days there is more research into cutter coating for cutting virtually dry, without the use of flood cooling. Some types of work, have to be flood cooled, but the technology will be developed to the point of just air mist or eventually just air will be the coolant and chip remover of the future. Soluble cutting oils I do not think are good to any environment, and I am not sure if it can even be easily distilled out of the water supply if it gets there. Very digressed from climb milling, but probably important anyway.

Neil

People out here are using an air mist , either through the spindle of the machine,or add on the side misters.

They sell special oils, but rice bran oil or sunflower oils works very well indeed. It is quite thin, alot thinner than canola oil.The amount of oil used is very small, basically you hold a piece of paper in the air stream, and after about 1 min there should be a small circular pattern showing that oil is coming out. If it is wet with oil then that is usually too much. Seems too good to be true but works very well. It is best to have 2 or 3 nozzels blowing down onto the cutter to cover for when it goes around a corner or is in a cavity. The air blast wants to be strong enough to blow the chips clear out of a cavity etc. I think the oil consumption is about 1 liter per month maybe less on the machine center.

Neil

The backlash in modern machine tools comes from the compression and tension of the materials it is made from. The higher the speed, the greater the forces and so effectively more backlash occurs. Modern ballscrew nuts are preloaded together, there is no longitudinal movement in the nut assembly. The only way it can get any backlash is for the screw to stretch apart and effectively change pitch. That is why the good gear has some form of dimensional feed back, either off glass scales or laser positioning. The latest in climb milling for cnc uses only about 10% of the cutters diameter as a cut per side, so a lot less forces compared to a heavier cut, but they do it at a very high feed rate and a very high cutter surface speed. Really neat to see.

On manual mills, a finish climb cut should not be that bad on most machines, the only real issue with backlash is if you are climb milling in a pocket, and then that could be a problem. Having one of those air mist blowing over the cutter will greatly improve cutter life and surface finish, either manual or cnc.

Neil

Edited By Neil Lickfold on 09/10/2015 19:49:46

With the new rodless pneumatic cylinders that are available today,they should be good enough to have on the axis to eliminate backlash , by preloading an axis with X amount of constant force. It is something that I intend to add to a machine when I get myself motivated to look into it further. Then there will not be any backlash apart from forces above the preloaded pressure. A friend has already done this to the X axis on his lathe. Works real well.

Neil

Canola oil is a modified rape seed oil. It works very well for cutting Ali. A bit messy and gummy if you don't clean it up fairly quickly.Neil

0.01 to 0.02mm at the collet face is normal for regular tolerance collets, and about 0.03 to 0.04 at 50mm in front of the collet. I buy the RegoFix Precision series of collets. They are made so much better. The only people making a more accurate ER40 collet is the Big company from Japan.

What is often over looked in setting up an ER40 collet chuck is the run out of the outer thread for the nut. The thread must be concentric to the spindle, and then if the inside is not true, just recut the 8 deg per side inner taper untill it just cleans up. Regofix make up to 30mm collet for ER40 . I also like their high torque nut that has a special coating that allows the nut to be tightened without too much excessive force. I made my own ER40 spindle for a cue making lathe. With a ground test piece, my spindle is within 0.01mm tir. I also have made my own collets out of delrin to not mark the wood parts.

Neil

Hardinge made special machines from 1 about 1978 and onwards that had offsets of 0.00001 inches, yes 10 millionths of an inch. Hard to believe how long that technology has been around.They are sub micron machines.

Neil

If there is a company that does Aluminium annodising or Ali powdercoating they may want to take it from you, HF acid is used in the pre treatment before the alodine or similar treatment is used. If they only buy in ready to use acids, then your best bet will be a chemical supply company that make such solutions.

Companies that do Aluminium Hard Chrome plating also use HF acid in a pretreatment process as well.

Neil

Andy, The Er32 collets are really only any good when the pieces are the full length of the collet or more than 3/4 collet length engagement . The Myford will hold very short pieces and be very stable. I know loads of people love the ER32 systems, but for short small work pieces, in my view are not a good choice. My Grip true chuck is more accurate than the ER32 was for my lathe.

Neil

Mine is that type. I set the stud at the back, so that the lever is floating between the upper and lower bush if that can make sense. These are a dead length type collet chuck and only have a very small working diameter range. At least my one is at any rate. If the bar is more than 0.10mm or so smaller than the nominal size, my one does not hold it very well. I tighten the front nut and then the lever opens and closes it. If you really need to wind on the nut to close down onto the stock size, I would be thinking that the stock size is too small for that size collet. I made a few collets, nothing flash, from just 4140 steel I had at the time. I just hack saw spilt mine 4 ways, it was easier than trying to do the 3 way split thing. They worked very well and was very repeatable. It is not as accurate as a Hardinge 5C collet, but is still very useful all the same when making a batch number of small parts .

The collets have not been available out here for quite some time now.

Neil

When I was blackening tooling, I used sodium Nitrite, the very same product that is used as a bacon/ham/salami preservative. I did mention that it was dangerous if you were not careful. I also mentioned that if your procedures were such that a part could free fall or splash going into the hot mixture, you are doing it wrong.

As for the disposal of the very caustic residue, you either have to get it neutralised by an acid, or take it to a place to be disposed of. Where I was blackening the tooling, they also had an acid process. That required it to be neutralised. The waste of the old blackening bath was used to neutralise this acid. So it worked out very well.

What I detailed is not new and was not a copy and paste from a web site. I cam across a site that was basically doing what I was so posted that link.

There are commercial caustic metal black available to buy. They add to the recipe I gave a few other things, but what I posted works very well and is relatively very cheap and easy for someone to set up and use.

One other thing, keep Chlorine away from the mixture and fluoride , distilled water works very well. I used an infra red thermometer to keep a watch on the temperature. But after a while you get to know the bath and when to add a little more Nitrite or Caustic soda or water. Water you will add at the beginning of each days use, and you have to keep a watch on it, even if you are not cooking with it every week.

Neil

Much cation is required, but a hot black process is easy enough. Requirements are a stainless pot/container big enough to hold the parts. Then you mix equal parts Sodium Nitrite, with dissolved, Sodium hydroxide,pearl grade with water. Mix the 1 litre volume of water with 1 litre volume of sodium hydroxide, very slowly, it is extremely caustic. After mix, then carefully and slowly add the sodium Nitrite.

Clean parts thoroughly, with some dish wash liquid and water. Then heat the mixture slowly, until about 140 degC then place the parts in the simmering liquid for about 10 to 15 mins. If the mixture boils too high a temp add more water,after it has cooled down to room temp.Never add any water when it is hot. If the temp is too low, then just let it boil longer. Too low a temp and after 10 mins it will not be black or will be a light brown colour, if too hot, the part will come out with a red brown colour.

Quite a few gun smiths use this method for steel blackening.

As I said , safety gear is required and extreme care is needed. Make sure that your method of putting the parts into and out of the pot can not accidently drop in or splash any fluid what so ever.

Only use mild steel or stainless steel wire and mesh pots to hold parts. NEVER allow any Aluminium or Magnesium or other metals that can react to caustic chemicals.

Neil

Edited By Neil Lickfold on 09/09/2015 12:17:19

Found this website with warnings and his formula, he used Sodium Nitrate instead of Nitrite.

http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/160066-DIY-Hot-Bluing-for-Dummies-(in-progress)-with-pics

Edited By Neil Lickfold on 09/09/2015 12:28:19

With the inverters I have, they are programmed for the specific motor rating. So in my case, the motors need to be the same, then I could do that. However all my lathes have different motors, so I have just gone and got separate vfd's for each machine. A lot more convenient and no more reprogramming or switching plugs etc.

Just turn on and use.

Neil L

In the 1st picture near the bottom rh side of the picture, there are shown 2 black cylinder cans. They look like capacitors, and the LH one closest to the heat sink or what ever it is,. The LH capacitor looks to having a bulging top compared to the RH one. They should be flat on their tops. Sometimes when they bulge on the top, they also leek fluid out that can effect other components on the circuit. It may not be the cause of your shocks, but if the capacitor is bulging it should be replaced.

Neil