Member postings for Neil Lickfold

Now that you have the spindle cartridge sorted out, how much clearance is between the spindle and the bore that it runs in.? In my case it was around 0.07mm of clearance. I got the outside of the spindle flash chromed and lapped the OD down , hindsight I should have ground it. The upper section was not true to the lower section so it needed a small amount of honing to get it corrected. Now the spindle runs true better than 0.01mm over its 100mm stroke. So ai am very happy with it. It's no Bridgeport but is very repeatable. I am still getting it sorted for the shims and levelling to get it as best I can to the table run out. The mill I am using has a rise and fall table, with some irregularities in the table assembly. But is very repeatable when wound up, and locked or unlocked, is not changing the height of the table. Mine has a tapered bearing on the bottom of the spindle and a angular contact for the top bearing. Some replace the top angular contact with taper bearings, while others recommend replacing the bottom taper roller with a higher precision angular contact bearing. To get better precision from the spindle, the bearing housings need to be as round as the tolerance that you are trying to get the spindle to run to. So if you are looing for roundness from the spindle of 5um 0.005mm, the spindle bore in general will need to be round to 0.0025mm and the same with the spindle shaft as well. It does not take long and trying to get things really correct become a serious amount of work to achieve , along with the price of the bearings etc. I have added the extra spindle cartridge bearing support on the bottom of the casting as well. It did not change the linear runout of the quill, but when it locks in place using the flexure clamp, the quill movement at the end of its travel is less than 0.01mm , again, I am very happy with that.

G5 Ti is no big deal to turn really. I use the Sharp inserts for Ti, are specially coated do hold their sharp edge longer than uncoated inserts for Ali. Not sure on your rpm limits etc, but with the 0.2 radius it will work fine. The ccgt range and the DCGT range will work well. Be careful, as Ti can catch fire, a bit like Mg can. So always pay to have a fire extinguisher handy. Me personally have never had a fire with either of the mag or Ti. I use a soluble coolant that is rated for Ti, or I use cutting oils. I very rarely cut Ti dry but you can for light cuts. I treat it like 316 stainless steel , in that I use the slower surface speeds and higher feedrates for roughing. Typically for Ti with an R0.2 insert , I aim for around the 0.15 to 0.2mm per rev feedrate. Finishing I aim for the 0.05mm per rev feedrate with a R0.2 insert. Kyocera do a great insert for Ti, CCGT060202MP-CK I think the coating grade is PR1425, another that is great is in the DCGX070202 AG CX10 is a generic ground and polished insert for AL, but work well for finishing in Ti as well as other materials like plastic, aluminium etc. HSS does cut the Ti, but does dull quite quickly and is show through the swarf no longer chipping and the part getting hot again. For drilling I tend to use split point style drills and start with a coated spotting drill. You can tell the drill is going off when the energy to feed it starts to rise. Then just resharpen at that point and carry on. Some say not to peck drill, but generally I peck drill by micro stopping the feed to break up the chip if it is coming out in long streams. Adding a tiny break or curl just behind the inside edge of the drill will force it to break into little curls, but on drills under 4mm diameter, that is very hard to do.

I regret the few carbon steel dies of the past and have re purchased hss dies. The carbon steel does struggle when cutting pre hardened materials like piano wire.

Mine had a lot of issues. The bearing end faces were not true to the run of the spindle barrel or bore. I have some pics of correcting the barrel.

Have you got the die, the correct way around for cutting the thread?

Making a block that holds the part and supports the back of the face being cut is important if the flatness really does matter. You have done a very good illustration of the distortions that can happen when facing a part.

If you can think of the wire gauge size, then you can make one by wrapping the spring wire/Piano wire , around a drill bit shank and make your own spring. If you have the next size up gauge, take it apart to see what the gauge and diameter of that spring is. You will find that they are not really that difficult to make once you get the hang of making springs.

Edited By Neil Lickfold on 05/09/2022 10:15:00

I tell people to get a ball bearing. Measure the ID with your gauges, and keep trying until you get the same diameter as the bearing. Use the Outside of the bearing to practice the feel for the correct diameter of the bearing outer. Eventually you will figure it out and then be able to measure with confidence with both the outside mic and with the tele gauge.

My friend has the Myford QCTP on his ML7. The best part, is that we can share holders or tools of need be.

There are 150mm long levels and 250mm long levels, graduated in 0.02mm/m

I have the 150mm long one and wish that I had got the 250 mm long version. The shorter on is more sensitive because it is short. Either one needs to be meticulously clean on the under side of the level and the surface it is placed on. Having said that, I have had a few occasion that the 250 would not have fitted inside the areas that I was checking. The Starrett one I have has no information on the graduations of the bubble , but one whole division is more than the full range of the 150mm precision level. I have a peices of fag paper in the box, and use that under each end, to see if the underlying surface is the issue or not. I don't use blue under my levels to check for high spots either. Having a 150mm flat reference definitely helps when scraping and bluing out a surface.

Have you checked out the latest Honda Hybrid with a very small battery and a direct drive to the wheels over 80km/h. They have a very good fuel economy as well, much better than the same engine in the same car size that has a gear box. The eHEV uses about 1/2 the amount of fuel of the gear box models. Note that the eHEV engine looks to be down rated in power output slightly, and the manin motor to drive the wheels is 80 kw. But the test drive does not seem that the 80kw is insuffecient. Certainly I would have expected a lot more go from the non ev model. but not so. I still driving my 08 Toyota wagon and its around 6l/100km and around 5.3l/100km on a trip. Some of the new electric only cars for sale out here,can be connected to your house and you can draw off the car battery up to 3kw. Some are using their cars as part of the home energy back up, and take the car to work and charge on the free car stations around.

techno-weld is a product sold at shows out here, sounds very similar to whats been mentioned. https://technoweld.eu/Int/TW_En/Prod_info/page1.html

Neil

The latest scam call I put them on speaker phone and just let them talk. They realise I am not paying attention, and say are you there and such, then I said, yeah. I interrupt and say yes, I need a laptop, how much are your ones. Then gone. They are still in the model of trying to get credit card details for fixing laptops with internet connection issues. The irony of it all, is our land line goes through the fibre and we have no copper wired connection, so no internet no phone. The other one is pretending to be from a bank, and that they have stopped the card due to fraudulent activity being discovered. They then say that they need to confirm your identity before proceeding, even though they have called you. They have done some basic research and knew our old address, from an old phonebook listing no doubt. She corrected them with the new address. They asked her to check the account online. Then when my wife said that she can not see any such transactions, they ask her to confirm the account number that she is looking at. Then they convincingly say, that it will most likely not show up until the next day as the accounts are updated over night. They then asked her to confirm the card number, and I wrote down scam, and said tell them the wrong 3 digit numbers, and password. She had already gone too far when I realised what was happening. The phone number was from Auckland it seemed. We provided this to the bank bank, after I disconnected the call to my wifes discuss. She thought they really were the bank. So we called our branch and got the card cancelled, and have a new card with a whole new number on the account and on the card too. While on the phone to the real bank, a transaction for $990 was going through. The scammers keeping under the 1k level of alert. The number we saw, was actually offshore , we did not get to find out where. The new card was retained by the branch, and she needed the whole 9 yards of proof to collect it and sign for it at the counter. I noticed that with our online banking now is a warning that if anyone is calling and requiring you to go and log into your online account, it is a scam. They did not need the last 3 digits to try and get money from  the card, nor did they need pin number.

Edited By Neil Lickfold on 19/08/2022 23:48:12

The very light grey scotchbrite pads, are very good for removing fine burs on all sorts of things, brass, steel, Al, copper etc.

I have used emery tape and the leather side of a copper rawhide hammer. It did match quite well to the casting surface around the fettled area.

any attachment that requires a login of some kind, I trash as junk. A pdf file should not require a microsoft log in to read it. Seems suspicious to me.

Several years ago, we got a power consumption meter. It plugs into the power point and the device connected to it. It has no smart features , apart from the costings of the kw/h. It displays the total watts measured, and does monitor peak current or peak watts consumed. My circular saw draws 3kw on start up which was a shock to see, even though is sort of soft starts. But once running is not using much at all, around 250 watts, so far lower than I would have thought. It has been a handy little tool to use periodically. It can help you to charge a reasonable amount for the electricity used when making something, and I think we way under estimate how much power is used in the home workshop.

Check that the tool os running true to the run of the slide. It needs to be like no more than 1 thou or 0.03mm per 20mm of travel. Also assuming that the top slide and the compound slide don't have sloppy gibs. That looks to be the multi direction turning insert, rather than the Parting specific insert. The difference is the the top rake is positive and a sharper front end with a geometry that curls the chips better. As Jason said, a feedrate of about a thou per rev and upto 45mm in diameter under 500 rpm works, but at around 250 rpm, coolant does not go everywhere. It needs plenty of coolant for best results. Parting tools should be on centre to slightly above. The reason for the success of rear parting holders on older machines, is that as the tool tries to lift, the slop in the gib tightens the gap, making it more rigid.

Softjaws are great for one off jobs, but I find that when it comes for the repeat of that job, having to recut is a pain compared to just loading the previous setup. At home, I would rather make a sleeve with a step in it etc to hold the part. Mitybite do a range of inserts for softjaw solutions. One that I did at work was a piece of angle and screwed to the jaw with the hole very slightly offset for the countersunk screw. The inserts can be replaced and then the previous parts are run again. For worn chucks, having a support piece in the back to help the jaws pivot and then clamp down on the front is very useful. The back support will vary with each worn chuck. Some might only need a piece about 0.05mm or 2 thou smaller than the short part being held, while others might work better with a piece the size of the work piece as a support.

On the outer edge of the 1.5mm drill, radius the corners with a stone. Then relive on the grinder the back outer edge to create clearance for the radius to work. I do this after using a 1.4mm drill. It is like using the drill as a reamer. Depending on the materials, but using a water based coolant can make the hole very close to the size, but I find that castor oil will make the tool cut to the closest size of the tool . It is messy and you need to clean everything after, otherwise it will go gummy. Then support the part between two centres to make the hole concentric to the outside for the rest of the part being made. The thread etc can be then turned off the trued outer.