Member postings for Neil Lickfold

You can use what ever you like, as long as you know the direction that the axis readout means. In my case I have them the same as the commercial stuff at work. That way you don't accidently move the axis in the wrong direction.

Towards the chuck or spindle should be Z minus on a lathe. The direction to the centreline of the spindle should be a decreasing number. From the spindle centreline , set at Zero, all values away from the centreline should be positive.

I have seen and used lathes where the normal conventions are not adhered to. Like on one lathe I used, X was the axis inline with the spindle, (Normally Z), and the values to the spindle were positive. The in the Y axis(Normally X) any value to the centreline was positive. Moving away from the centre line was negative. The complete opposite to the normal conventions. But the readout was only and XY two line readout. Yes it work, but confusing as hell for me to learn. To the chuck was positive ,because the depth micrometer increased with the amount being cut. also when he used a long (4 inch stroke DTI) as the carriage travel was towards the indicator , it got greater. So as a result, when the digits were installed etc, he made them read the same way that he had been using the machine since it was new.

Usually the serrations are offset to each other, so that when the reamer is held at a set position and the reamer has done more than 1 turn at that depth, there will be no serrations or grooves in the finished work piece. Any material taken out before the reamer goes in, is a bonus. It really needs to be all concentric as possible. You can always bore it close and then use the reamer for the last bit to get the taper into the correct MT2 range.

Yes those flutes will fill very fast. If you already have a through hole, use a wetvac on the end to draw away the swarf being generated, and it also will draw any coolant through as well.

I fitted the embeded magnetic tape , similar to mdro , but mine is from Ditron in China. It comes with a 1um resolution per side reader head and matching tape. so reads 2um. It has been very reliable so far. What I do like with the Ditron is that it has the ability to show RPM and feedrate on any chosen axis. With these types of systems, you can also add the top slide. I find that the arc features are great when you want to make a 1 off radius etc instaed of having to make a form tool that is unlikely to be used again. The downside of the embeded system is that you need a mill to cut the recess for the magnetic tape.

There are many systems out there, and it's not always easy to decide that is for sure.

Mine has 4 castors, but when retracted, it sits on the floor in 3 places. Works a treat.

My new workshop floor is not that flat, not as flat as I wanted it to be. My S7 cabinet is on the casters that raise and fall a little . I made it into a 3 point contact , with 2 at the headstock end and one at the tailstock end. It keeps fairly constant no matter where it is. I make some fairly accurate bits on my lathe and are very happy with it's castor setup.

I had an early Drummond lathe, circa 1900 . It had the swivel head on it too. Great for cutting pipe threads. It came with some ball centres , for offset turning. One that went into the chuck of the headstock, and the other for the tailstock itself, a #1 morse taper from memory.

It was a great little machine. I now regret that I sold it when I bought my S7 in 1987. Hindsight I should have kept it.

A picture of the situation would be very helpful. Then a better bit of guidance can be given.

The biggest cause of failure with carbid cutters is when the cutter is entering and exiting a cut. When hand feeding, its really important to be winding as evenly as possible to the finished length. If the end is open, then slow down for the end run out and be slow at the start of the cut. When hand feeding, and if you are erratic or have an actual stop, then in reality it should be a slow restart. I rarely run my mill faster than 1200 rpms and find the cutters lasting a long time of cutting. Keeping the swarf away is another big life enhancer, so where possible, I have the vacuum cleaner running to dray away the swarf. Sometimes I need a gentle air blow when down in slots, as the vacuum wont draw out the swarf. As I am a home hobby milling , I have not yet filled the mill or lathe coolant tank. I prefer to use a light coating of cutting oil and be conservative on the feedrate. When cutting some bearing lately, the 3mm cutter came from a NZ supplier and labelled as hard cutting. I bought 2 as I was certain it was going to wear or create burrs after just a few bearing shells, but it lasted for the whole project. Cutting the bearings was 200rpm and just a slow stead infeed for the small distance of around 0.35mm or so.

Where ever possible I avoid black scale bar. If I have to mill it, I get onto the linisher and take most of it off on two sides. Then with usually a tip end mill, cut under the skin from the clean end face. The outer skin on black bar just destroys tooling.

With my new DRO it has rpm readout of the spindle. Its really handy to know , as you can work out roughly how fast to wind the handle per second or per minute to get the feed rate for the cutter being used. Some dro's now have the mm/min feedrate on the axis you are winding which will help with cutter life dramatically.

7075 Aluminium works well too. It is harder than mild steel, and gives a great finish and chips well, so becomes quite easy to cut on home sized machines.

Back in November , I bought a Flexi Chuck from Eccentric Engineering , Australia. I was in Sydney and got it while I was there, and decided to get the whole system with a couple of extra 50mm mandrels. The job I had in mind for it was an electric motor housing for an electric model plane.

Anyway, I have a project to make and repair a model engine that has full compliment bearings that are no longer made. So I set about getting different brands of bearings to find an outer race that matched very close to the originals, then set about to hold the races and to carefully mill the filling groove for the bearing.

I set the Flexichuck in the Myford lathe and trepan a groove to hold the race. I expanded the mandrel to about 0.2mm over the relaxed diameter. The groove was cut at just under the race diameter. It held the races very tightly. The side could be turned and the bearing reduced to 5mm thickness . Then it was turned over , and the filling slot was from the standard of the bearing. It was cut to about .02mm from the bottom of the slot to get the balls into the bearing.

The system has worked so well, I have ordered some more for the project that I had initially bought it for. Yes the mandrels could be made in the home workshop, but I would rather just use it , instead of spending time making the mandrels.

Anyway , here are the few pics I took. I run the milling cutter slow at around 200 rpm to cut the bearing slot, and dry. No burs were found, so was very happy with the final results of the parts.

Neil

A local company used to sell electric motors and set up the VFD for that particular motor and application. Just so happened that they had a little box and Motor that suited the Myfords as a change out set up. Install motor to the lathe. Place the VFD inside a suitable box, mount the remote connections where you want them, and plug it in, it all worked. I got my Brother to help with the box in my case, and set up the limit switch for me at the same time. It's been the best upgrade ever for my machine. Now the motor company no longer does the set up for people, and technically they have to get an electrician in to wire it all and check it all out etc.

I am not surprised by this though. Some people, can not be trusted to do things correctly at all. They just have it in them that this is good enough and maybe they have been lucky and gotten away with so many dodgy things.

It would be very nice if there was a very well sort out and a more simple way of sorting out VFD drives for sure so that were a plug and play device, like a transformer is.

I used to use a 25w light bulb under the bed of the lathe with the cover on. Seemed to work quite well. Its all about having enough heat to keep it above the dew point.

Some use the heating elements like what is used for wrapping around the water pipes to stop them freezing.

Neil

Kuroda boring facing heads are a really nice piece of kit. Like any thing though, they need looking after.. Our one only had 2 facing feed rates and they could not be used together to get a higher rate. Mostly used the lowest feedrate on facing anyway. I did like the feed stop, but you needed a light cut to be able to feel the stop when it got there.

When you get to that size cutter, they take alot more power to run. Not sure on the insert geometry, but the positive inserts do use less energy , but are also alot more fragile. We used to have a big heavy Cincinnati Mill for roughing die plates for bolsters, back in the days when standard bolsters were not available. The 20 hp or so for the head was enough to run the cutter to a depth of 5mm, 0.2 inches at full cutter width. 180mm mm diameter Sandvik cutter head. 180 to 210 rpm but forgotten the exact feedrate but thought we were running around 18 to 20 inches per min. If I blew air onto the cutter, got a lot more life out of the inserts, compared to the water making a big splashing mess. Be were mostly cutting Pre Hardened P20 at 28-32 Rc steel. I remember cutting a very large cast iron piece, and were taking max depth of cut the body could take, which was 10mm or 0.4 inches. Clamping the job securely enough was the biggest problem with most pieces . We had new then clamps that held by the sides and pulled the piece down to the table. Great as there was top clamps to clear or reset again etc.

While google on polygon turning, a company in India makes a unit that does polygon turning on manual lathes. The cutter head is run from the lathes headstock held in the chuck or other adapter. There is a drive shaft out the end of the cutter holder, and that connects to the spindle assembly mounted on the cross slide. The drive from the lathe spindle to the remote spindle runs at half the cutter speed. They have 1,2,3, teeth cutter bodies. They did not have any prices for their units. What I like about it, is that both are normal lathe rotation directions. It may just be something on my list to make one day.

Neil

I saw a picture of a system, where they have a spindle mounted on the cross slide, and has a cutter head on the headstock. Out the centre of the cutter is a universal drive or CV joint of sorts, a sliding coupling, and head stock has a 2 to one reduction on the spindle unit. If your lathe spindle is running at 700 rpm turning the cutter head, then the spindle on the cross slide holding the part to be polygon turned is running at 350 rpm. They had a range of cutters with 1,2,3 inserts. The accessory headstock came in different sizes etc. Looks like a great project to make as a kit or something. I do have a spare spindle from a cue making lathe. So it could potentially be used with a reduction box or belt drive. It will be down a bit of the list of things to make though.

Has anyone made a setup for a Myford lathe to do polygonal turning?

Thats fairly interesting. I like the way that its geared to the head stock, and changing the ratio changes the number of flats. I saw an Okuma lathe that had a geared head that used what looked like a carbide 3 insert saw. It cut the hex on a stainless steel fitting, except the hex was at the back of the part and smaller than the front detail.

I am sure that the spindle could have sensor like the electronic leadscrew project an a suitable stepper, it could be done without the universal drive etc.

Thanks for the post and link.

Thanks for the great video from click spring. He does great work and is a very talented craftsman. Milling slots I always find it easier to just have a start hole, and then clean up the other end with the final sized cutter or the final passes. I also like the lapping plate fixture. Something that I could use for sure for different things. I like the way he explains about having a common radial alignment for fixtures and for replacing pieces etc onto or into the lathe.

Do make sure that you have an airtrap in the supply line along with filter. Dry air is the best, otherwise they can rust.