Member postings for Steve Pavey

Mine was similar..

Ankle biters - Trick or treat

Me - I'll have a treat please

Ankle biters - Er, erm (pause while this was being processed, followed by complete bafflement)

..and they went away. I count that as a win.

I added a fwd/rev switch to my Boxford, which also had a single phase motor. The complete wiring diagram is in my album, **LINK**

operating the switch will knock out the nvr, so it is impossible to put go straight from fwd to reverse - important on a Boxford as the chuck screws on and you really don't want it to unscrew. Reverse is only really used for screwcutting odd threads at low speed so the screw on chuck is not a safety problem, just something you need to be aware of.

Wire the coolant pump seperately - if it is a small motor say < 1/2 hp, then you may get away without an nvr

Alone day mine is going to get treated to a couple of IKEA Helmer drawer units and the flimsy legs will get thrown. I'm always fighting for space and all that fresh air under the saw is just a waste.

Very nice - especially the straight knurl on the adjusters which, for some reason, always looks more professional to me.

I'd like to make some more toolholders myself, but It's not so straightforward with a Multifix..

well, first off I apologise if I got the wrong idea, but your first two posts made it sound like some sort of official government sponsored employment training scheme, with all the H and S requirements that go with it. I've had a bit to do with such courses and they are a nightmare of bureaucracy and hoop jumping. By way of an apology I offer the following suggestion for you to take up or reject as you wish -

If they are also going to do some milling maybe a little screw jack might be a bit more useful, as it includes some thread cutting - it is very useful to know how to use taps and dies with the lathe to keep everything square. I would choose aluminium for beginners as it is fairly easy to get a good finish and maybe a bit easier on the tools, but mild steel would do just as well.

steel

Maybe they got that idea from the OP's two posts. If he had said from the outset that he was going to teach one bloke at a time he might have got some different answers. He may also have got some different answers if he had said it was all informal - a mate teaching a mate - rather than mentioning things like e-learning, inductees and classroom sessions, which gives the impression of an altogether more formal setting. I asked the question earlier whether they would have one lathe each, which sort of alludes to whether the proposal was for a group or individual teaching but it wasn't addressed.

I'm pretty sure that I could show one person how to use my lathe fairly safely in two hours. I'm equally sure that they will not have produced much of any value in that time.

Strange - a post title with no content, until Bob and I came along anyway.

I guess it is all about this:

**LINK**

As John says, brass is Cu and Zn so there is no doubt that it should solder ok. In fact I have done exactly the same job as you are doing, except that my filter had a larger mesh as it is for the cooling water inlet on a boat. Have you tried a gas torch - maybe the heat from the soldering iron is being conducted away too fast.

Try using the flux that plumbers use, rather than just relying on the resin cored solder. Called La-Co if it's in a black tub, or PowerFlow if it's in a yellow one. Even if it looks clean, a buff up with wire wool or Scotchbrite is also useful.

I'm still struggling with who these people are that you are proposing to train. Are they budding model engineers who want to join a club and make a live steam model? Or are they people who want to re-train as machinists? Why do they need to learn how to use a lathe and milling machine? Are they motivated, or are they doing this because someone has said they must? Is this taking place in a school or college where there are decent facilities such as benches and white-boards?

You say you want to restrict the time to 2 hours for everyone's sanity - I would think that such a time limit would have exactly the opposite effect. You are not addressing the many practical problems that will arise from this - while one of the group is getting 1:1 attention, what are the other 6-9 people in the group doing? If the instructor is demonstrating how to operate the lathe how many of the group are going to be able to actually see what he is doing, while they are all gathered round this tiny little lathe? How many of them will be able to read the drawing of the plumb-Bob /screwdriver /machinist jack with their art /craft/ electronics background? How many will even know what 0.05 of a mm is, let alone use a micrometer? What's the plan when a student drives the tool post into the chuck and takes your lathe out of commission?

If you've already experienced problems with knowledge retention, wait until you've tried e-learning - it is extremely difficult to design an e-learning package that works successfully, particularly for practical subjects where you really need to be standing in front of a bench or a machine for the lesson to have any relevance.

Meanwhile, in the real world, I too made a screwdriver as my first machining project at school, similar to the previous poster, but with a hexagonal duralumin handle and the blade from 5/16" silver steel which we hardened and tempered. I remember it well, partly because the teacher was actually my father (much as I hated going to the school he taught at, thankfully he was respected by the kids as a good teacher). It took us half a term, or seven weeks, which equates to 14 hours. There were 15 in the class, and the workshop had five lathes and two brazing torch stations, and of course we all had an individual bench space with a vice and hand tools. I can't think of a simpler first project that encompasses the range of skills you mention and fulfills the requirement to produce something useful, and it took seven times longer than the time you are proposing.

There are several problems with what you're proposing. Firstly, and as others have said, 1-2 hours is not long enough to make anything useful.

Secondly you say "a Myford". Do you really mean just one lathe, or did you mean one lathe per person? If just the one lathe per group, that could mean 12 minutes per person actual lathe time (actually much less in practice).

Thirdly, given your numbers, that is 7 to 10 students per instructor - that is definitely too many if you're talking about complete novices who have never been in a workshop before, and especially so if they each have a lathe to themselves.

Fourthly, what are you actually trying to achieve, and what will these students do with this knowledge? You have to decide whether it's a safety training course or a practical lesson. If these students will be going on to do some proper machinery training then they should have more time in the future for a practical project. If it's safety training they don't need to make anything.

I would strongly recommend a re-think on the time allowed, and probably on the numbers (of both students and lathes). 1 to 2 days is a bit more realistic for just the basic safety training, double that if you actually want them to produce something.

Sorry to sound so negative, but it really annoys me when I see these sorts of courses proposed (and I saw lots in my past life) - there is no way you can teach a complete novice anything useful on machining in an hour or two and then expect him/her to have any real fundamental understanding of anything.

Edited By Steve Pavey on 13/10/2016 11:31:31

Sounds as though you might be referring to a vertical milling machine. Throat distance is the horizontal distance between the vertical spindle axis (where the cutter is held) and the column behind it. End milling capacity will be the largest recommended diameter of end mill cutter that can be fitted in the spindle (an end mill is just a type of milling cutter). Quill stroke is the vertical distance of travel of the cutter, ie how far up and down you can move the cutter.

To be honest, much of the terminology you can probably pick up by browsing suppliers catalogues and web sites. If you have a particular machine in mind see if you can download an instruction book as that may well have a labelled drawing showing the main parts.

I bought an old Warco branded version last month, and spent a week stripping it down, re-painting and re-assembling. During the re-assembly I turned a number of washers up to take up all the axial slop in various components, or provide a decent bearing surface. I don't have a milling machine, so when I came to the blade guides I filed the castings flat on all the mating surfaces, with a bit more filing to ensure that the guides were able to rotate through a greater angle so the blade could be adjusted to cut vertically. I reckon I can cut a 50mm bar to within around 0.5mm of being square whereas before it was several mm out.

One thing that was worth doing was to join up to the Yahoo 6x4 bandsaw group - a rich source of links to various mods and how-to's on setting it up so it cuts square and the blade doesn't fall off. I suspect that is the source for the document that Neil has linked to.

If you do a Google search on 6x4 bandsaw you'll find more links that will help - modifications to the vice so you don't have to faff about with spanners, another vice mod so you can clamp short lengths, yet another so you can clamp odd shaped flat sections straight to the bed, several different types of hydraulic damper to replace the woeful down feed spring mechanism, designs for bases (the standard sheet metal legs are truly dreadful) and even coolant systems.

Much of the information is from the US where they are sold under the Harbour Freight brand (and usually referred to by the purchasers as Horrible Fright - they have much the same opinion of them over there, ie they're a kit of parts that needs sorting out and rarely work well straight out of the box).

As well as Raymond's excellent description, there is a YouTube video by Stefan Gotteswinter that shows how he used epoxy for aligning the head, which you may find useful

https://youtu.be/U7Qs-J2swIc

Edit I would embed the video but my iPad and the instructions given by the forum software come from different universes

Edited By Steve Pavey on 11/10/2016 18:33:11

My question re the actual pitch the OP was using was based on him stating that his data book recommended a tapping drill of 7.1mm. If it is in fact a normal metric coarse thread, this contradicts my Zeus tables, and the general rule of thumb of subtracting the pitch from the nominal dia, which points to a tapping drill 6.8mm dia (or as near as dammit). To me 7.1mm points to a metric fine thread, m8x1.

So many answers, and yet the OP still hasn't told us whether his M8 is coarse, fine or some other pitch, and without that information any speculation on the correct tapping drill will remain just that.

Many of the YouTube machinists live in a different world, particularly the two mentioned by NDIY - very large workshops, a lot of machines and neither of them in any way bashful about the money they spend on tools. Another thing that many are not reticent about is the funding they receive through Patreon, along with the tooling they receive as donations. I'm not suggesting anything untoward, but if the thread was inspired by Dale Derry I don't think he lives in the same world as most of us on this side of the pond.

I'm not convinced that machines are all that cheap, but then much of my other workshop tooling have been bought at car boot sales, and very occasionally I come across a bargain on eBay (though most eBay prices are inflated).

To give a few examples, most of my HSS lathe tools are from a car boot sale (a box of about a dozen for £3) and the vfd that runs my shaper was £27 on eBay. It's really only by looking out for bargains like this that I can afford to pay the normal retail prices on other things that I need. My tooling-to-machine ratio is therefore well below the 2:1 figure - probably nearer to 1:2.

Neil - Out of interest, what software is used once you receive an article along with the photos? Do you use something like InDesign to prepare for print, and then export from InDesign to PDF to send to the printer?

Edited By Steve Pavey on 05/10/2016 09:14:58

Running shoes I can understand, it's the drivers who creep up in carpet slippers and knock on the door with a sponge who really annoy me. Joking aside, I have used Hermes for collections, deliveries and drop-offs at the local corner shop without any problems. What is really annoying is the number of eBay sellers and couriers who stick a surcharge on for delivery to the Isle of Wight when Royal Mail and Hermes don't charge any extra.

When you don't have a milling machine, but you do have a pillar drill, a lathe and a handful of milling cutters, sometimes you have to work around it. I have even used milling cutters in my floor standing morticer to mill a long slot in a piece of 4mm aluminium - everything survived intact, including me and the milling cutter. You just have to take things easy and, dare I say it, have a bit of a feel for it.