Member postings for Kettrinboy

Ever thought of making the nut out of plastic, my DW miller stripped the table feed nut also 5/8 x 10 ACME and after getting a tap from Tracy tools I had some polyacetal plastic in stock and it tapped a 40mm long thread with ease, its been on the mill for 10 yrs now and done loads of jobs , it saved making a fiddly screwcuttling tool up

Back in 2004 I made front/back and swingarm spindles from grade 5 Titanium , also known as 318 and Ti6AL4v , at 20mm dia its more than up to the job, if I was going to go for a steel to use I would go for EN57T stainless , a tough steel and pretty easy to machine as well.

Hi Rob , heres a pic of my DW mk1 , the plinth is 18 inches wide by 17 inches deep and the back of the motor is 10 inches behind the back edge of the baseplate of the mill with a further 2 inches to the back edge of the plinth, it fits nicely in the corner of the shop and when the table is fully to the right the handwheel is a few inches from the wall but enough room for manoevre

Edited By Kettrinboy on 02/07/2021 18:55:36

Edited By Kettrinboy on 02/07/2021 18:57:23

Edited By Kettrinboy on 02/07/2021 18:59:14

HSS turning tools and drills can do Ti but must be sharp, use a brand new drill if you can and keep the suds on it , if it loses it's edge up the hole it will melt the end if the drill , for turning i use brazed carbide tools for touching and HSS for finishing, tapping is difficult , it's not the material the taps are made of but the angles need to be right or it takes ages, when you know the ins and outs it's actually pretty good stuff to machine, ive made tons of components at work and in my workshop shame ive used all my stock up as its expensive to buy.

A very nicely finished engine just like the real ones were back in the day , I admire the patience of builders who stick with these long projects , I haven't got much patience so haven't done a big project yet.

We had two Master 2500,s at our shop , one was low mileage and very quiet , the other had been used hard for a long time and was way noisier but soldiered on for all the time I was there(15 yrs).

I would say my Mk1 weighs around 80/90 Kg all up , but as they are a simple machine to strip down to main components they are easier than most small mills to move around.

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regards Geoff

Ian if you get this made and it won't go on meths , then try a gas flame , I made a similar engine and turns out it will only run on gas but at least it runs, but hopefully yours will run on meths

Several of my change gears are nylon and they work fine , have cut 6tpi threads in cast iron using a nylon 85t gear no problem at all .

regards Geoff

Hi Kevan , there are two main versions , the MK1 and MK2 , if you can get one the MK2 is preferable as it has beefed up head castings compared to the MK1 and has longer travel on the quill which is handy as the main drawback with these and nearly all the other round column as opposed to dovetailed column mills is that you lose position if you have to move the head , you soon learn to get round this drawback though, but away from that as long as you dont make them take too big a cut and use feel to gauge the feed rate they will do a good job , myself I have a MK1 owned for over 40 yrs , ive often thought of getting a new machine like a Sieg or similar but my DW always seems to get the job done so ive just stuck with it , some of the DW,s ive seen for sale seem a bit overpriced ( over £1k) for what they are but around 5-700 quid should get you a decent one and maybe 3-500 a bit less so and even better if its got some of the original MES ancillaries like the excellent machine vice or rotary table that were available at the time the DW kits were sold.

regards Geoff

Some years ago i made a traverse dial for my Harrison L5 , i used the drive gear from the unused thread indicator , then I made a housing to bolt into the same hole as the thread indicator , it can pivot to give the desired mesh with the leadscrew , I see no need for a DRO now as this is pretty accurate and easy to get within 0.05mm and if greater accuracy is needed then i,ll get the depth mic out.

regards Geoff

Edited By Kettrinboy on 03/09/2020 08:50:17

Where the 8mm stud goes through the headstock spindle ,make some some good fitting support collars so it cant move about inside it , and drill a centre hole in the stud to support that end and you should be ok with very light cuts just make sure its done up tight.

On 16t steel I would go with a HSS tool with say a 0.4 mm rad put on with a stone and use a quality cutting oil , works on all the usual alloy steels like 19/24/36b ,and the finest feed your lathe will do, if you turn a fine finish then polishing is quick and easy.

I think "drill rod" is agar the Americans call silver steel, free cutting stainless is in old money EN58AM or free cutting stainless iron, it's nice stuff to machine and much better than silver steel.

Edited By Kettrinboy on 16/08/2020 18:55:36

Edited By Kettrinboy on 16/08/2020 18:58:22

Iain I think most of us are happy just to get an engine project to run even if it's just a few revolutions, all of my 8 hot air engines and one IC run but none of them have done more than about 15 mins total running, for me its just the challenge of designing and machining rather than running them for hours on end.

I made front/rear and swing arm spindles for my 96 Kawasaki ZX6R 15 yrs ago now out of Ti6 al4v Titanium plus every other external nut and bolt and they have been excellent, no corrosion and saved several kilos in weight, I would nt use EN8 as it's a relatively low tensile strength whereas EN16T/24T are 55 tons and for stainless i would use EN57T also 55 tons/square inch, it does rust slightly but is a tougher steel and easier to machine than 316 .

Edited By Kettrinboy on 07/08/2020 21:34:32

Hi Bill

My DW had the same problem , I made a steel lug which I placed against the broken one and welded it on , but this was 35 yrs ago now so I cant remember what rods I used now , i did it with my 185 amp oil cooled welder , but the repair has lasted since so it was a good weld ,ok actually it looked a bit like pidgeon sh*t but I tidied it up with filler when I painted it last year

The BCA gearbox gives 1:1 drive ratio on middle "C" position 1:2 on "A" position and 2:3 on "B" position , you only need two gears on the middle shaft for a compound train , most of of the time a simple 3 gear train is enough formost threads and feeds depending on what changewheels you have available of course.

6082/HE30 alloy should be easy to get a finish on but it can age harden over the years and then you can get problems with mottled looking finishes and tearing , as said I would try material from a different supplier and hope it's not been lying around the warehouse for too long. also generating the width of the grooves with a narrower tool rather than plunging in with a full width tool will usually give a better finish under most circumstances.

Hi Pete

I,m a long time MK1 DW owner , best place to get drawings would be to join the dwmill yahoo group , all the plans can be downloaded as pdf files from there, the motor plate castings themselves are a fairly easy turning and drilling job , and could be fabricated if you cant get hold of any original parts.

regards Geoff