Member postings for samuel heywood

I must be even lazier ~

I've never felt the need to make one.

I just use a dead center in the tailstock or more usually a small drill in the tailstock drill chuck. Close enough, Or you could do same using the headstock if you suspect your tailstock's way above center height.

Pretty good for your First job i'd say!

Was many moons before i got beyond turning Ali & brass.

My first atempt at turning (mild) steel at 1st glance bore more than passing resemblence to a screw thread, rather than a smooth surface i was aiming for.

Hi Sonic.

Something like the 1st picture would be your best bet IMO. I've two different ones which both seem ok for the job.

You don't say for which lathe.

The one Arc Euro Trade sells i find works best in the mini lathe as the blade is a little thinner than others i've seen~ which is kinder on the mini lathes limited power & rigidity.

Regarding parting off on mini lathe, a few tips.

1 ~ never have blade sticking out more than is necessary for the job in hand.~I broke my first blade recently on 10mm silver steel,because i was too lazy to wind it back in after a bigger job .

That made me jump! Blade shattered, good job i had my safety specs on.

2~ make sure the blade is dead square to the work.

3~ plenty of lube if parting off steel.

4~ slow steady cross slide feed & i find around 250-300 rpm works best for me.

5~ lock off everything you can (except the cross slide obviously)

Edited By samuel heywood on 05/08/2023 20:24:41

That's a great idea Martin....when i'm good enough to cut a turn a morse taper for myself.

In the meantime I had another go with a 'blank' arbor....

thought it worth sharing~ just in case anyone else has some screw thread chucks they want to make good use of.

Inspired by all your comments i lost the flange put a chamfer on the end instead to locate on the countersink in the chuck body.(sort of like a taper fit)

Seems to work, least a lot better than my 1st effort. Getting typically 1 to 2 thou run out near chuck jaws & 4.5 thou at the end of a 'simulated' 1/2" jobber drill.

Screwing the chuck on & off seemed to give very repeatable results.

Truth of the matter will be when i move the arbor to the mill or tailstock.

Quite pleased as if nothing else it's ended up a very short arbor.

PS. that's not mold on the wall in the 3rd photo, thats a trick of the camera (look more closely), it's what passes for a chip guard as i had to take the original off.

Thank you all for your comments.

Maybe i'm flogging a dead horse? Not been idle this afternoon.

Seems not all Rohm screw on chucks are made equal. 3/8 & 5/8 seem better than the 1/2" sized ones for some reason.

After much faffing about i got a 3/8" mounted on my home brew arbor with TIR of 2 thou on body & typically 3 thou on a 10mm long series drill near the jaws & you had to look hard to notice the runout @ the tip.

Guess that's about as good as it will get, so i'm now loath to remove the chuck from the arbor.

The 1/2" chucks are rather less good.

@ SillyoldDuffer~ i tried what you sugested with one of the 'naff' 1/2" chucks~a barely perceptible flicker of the dial, run on the back face.

I had to laugh when i read your comment about my arbor being more accurate than the Rohm chuck. Great as that sounds, i kinda doubt that!

@ old mart~ yes 5 thou runout would be reasonable really, when your getting 10 thou as i initially was , something's amiss.

Don't worry too much folks, was trying to understand where i'd gone wrong....I'm still not sure tbh,

I am slightly OCD about drilling, mainly because i had an awful time when i started out drilling holes on the mini lathe, despite it seemingly being the simplest basic lathe operation to perform.

In the end it turned out to be mainly down to poor headstock~tailstock alignment.

From your comments, you've given me a fresh idea~ maybe i could try my hand at boring a taper to replace the 1/2" screw thread?

Thanks for reply.

Yes probably aimed @ the hand-drill market for the most part, 1/2", 3/8" capacity chucks, I also have a 5/8" capacity one with this fitment, presumably not intended for the hand drill.& those little 6mm ones (that i don't have) are used on proxxon machines i think so must be reasonably accurate?

Made by Rohm, whilst they might not be comparable to a "Supra" i'd expect at least the body of the chuck to be made true??

Snugging up to the flange on the commercial arbor doesn't seem to present a problem, so i'm still wondering where did i fluff up?

Ok, if that was too lengthy, here's a summary.

Is incorperating a register on the arbor a sound concept?

Loose or tight threads best for this sort of thing?

Why the wide undercut on the commercial offering?

What have i done wrong? ~ viz the runnout goes heywire when the chuck is tightened onto flange.

I seem to have aquired a few 1/2" 20tpi threaded rohm drill chucks

A few years ago i got a fairly nicely made mt2 arbor.

When i decided to purchase another, the design had change & the runnout was awful.

Finally got round to making myself another "better" one but it hasn't quite worked out right. What i want to know is where i've gone wrong.

I know taper fit drill chucks seem to be the norm in engineering. I can't see why a screw fit should be inherrently less accurate. If you note from the 1st photo there appears to be a register on the chuck, (which should be used?) i measured this a smidge over 1/2"

The commercial arbor is the one with blackened parts & undercut on the shaft near the flange.

I've found it decent enough but the runnout changes each time you screw the chuck on so a bit of messing about to get rewasonable runnout & not really viable for changing between chuck sizes like i was hoping.

My homebrewed one is the shiny one.

Note i tried to incorporate a register where the shaft & flange meet, you can't really see from photo but flane & shaft were slightly undercut where they meet.

Making one wasn't so difficult, worst bit was hogging out the excess material, lots of hot chips !

Took great pains to setup & work as accurate as i can.

Snook up on the shaft dia till the end of the shaft would just fit in register.

Then shaved a little off the part to be threaded. Tappped center l/h thread for securing screw for good measure.

1st time i cut imperial thread. At least i got the change wheel calcs right 55-40-40-65 on mini lathe gets you within a gnats whisker of 20 TPI.

My thread ended up quite a snug fit, much better than the loose one on the commercial offering.

All seemed reasonable(if not perfect) till the chuck screwed home onto the flange, then runnout was awful.

Must confess , after much thought & messing about i ended up shaving a couple of thou out of the threads & off the register diameter. Everything was looser, but runnout still got messed up when the chuck mated onto the flange.

Whatever the actual runnout of the drill chuck, i would have hoped i could at least make an arbor where the BODY of the chuck is no worse than a thou runnout!!

So, anyone got any ideas where i went wrong? is my concept fundamentally flawed? should i remove that register entirely & see what happens?

If you note on the commercial offering the flange is undercut, leaving an outer ring as the mating surface~ why? Is this the way to go.

I just want to understand where I went wrong, I'll make another , if i can get a better grasp of what would be the correct way to make to minimise runnout.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

& yes, i do realise drilling is not a precise opperation, but I'd rather it be closer to the ideal than miss by a royal mile.

It was a good practice piece even if it didn't turn out as intended.

Thank you for all the input. Much appreciated.

Glad i asked~ as Gaz & others have pointed out a better way to proceed, rather than slowly working from the center outwards!

No it's not for anything ultra precise.

Ok , thanks for that Bill.

I'm guessing, ignoring any set up time, using an end mill might actually get the job done quicker than using a boring head??

Dunno if this is helpful....

but in my limited experience of manual machining, smoothly turning handles makes for a happy operator & a better finish.

Any work done to your machine that makes your handles turn more smoothly is time well spent IMO.

FWIW my particular mini lathe carriage was loose @ headstock end & too tight to move @ tailstock end out the box.

Measuring with a mike induced me to run a 4" file(.minus handle) along the lower ways on the bed towards the tailstock end.( what the saddle plates run on)

It took a while,it's still not perfect, but carriage will traverse it's full movement without any looseness or overly tight spots......

I'd leave the top of the bed well alone, unless i was a lot.lot more knowledgeable.

Not got a boring head.

Still debating whether to try making one , buy a cheap(not so cheap as they used to be) Chinese one or keep searching for a suitable quality used one.

I do however have a rotary table.

In the absence of a boring head, lets say i have a thinish plate or two that needs a bigger hole in it than can be readily acheived by drilling.

If i center a drilled hole in the plate on the rotary table can i then enlarge the hole to required diameter with an end mill,slowly adjusting in either x or y axis to cut & a lot of cranking of the rotary tables' handle?

For some reason i can't figure out if this works or whether i end up with a correctly sized hole in the wrong place?

Thanks.

Looks good!

Can i ask if you made the tool rest part? or alternatively is there a supplier?

Did have a brief play with graving~ just resting the tools on a blank tool bit jutting out the toolpost.

Impressed me enough to want to return to graving more 'properly' at some point.

Been a giggle reading this thread. Illegal/not illegal, not sure i'd really care in this particular instance, but looks like i missed the boat on getting one.

It should be illegal my neighbours irradiating me with multiple wireless networks, but it isn't.

Did anyone actually buy one & use it? Any good?

Just for the record, 1.5mm2 flex is good for 16A , ~ie that's it's IEE (?) (conservative) rating.

A 13A british plug run for any length of time @ 13A is prone to get hot.

Please DO NOT fit a cheap Chinese 13A plug. They just aint up to the job. Please at least buy a decent plug MK or whatever.

For high current devices i actually fit old pre insulated pin British made plugs (i've a few squirreled away)

Now that technically is also illegal, but if you compare the build quality to any modern 13A plug ~ well lets just say i'd trust my electrical safety to the old plugs any day.

FWIW, If you have a 'period' electrical appliance fitted with an old style plug that needs a PAT test & the tester fails it on the plug, tell them to take a running jump.They are wrong.

Only fitting an old plug to more modern equipment is a PAT fail.

Playing devils advocate~ have you considered a keyed chuck?

You don't say what machine it is intended to use this with but for your typical mini lathe/ mill i'd go with a keyed chuck any day~those keyless ones take up half the bed length on a small lathe!

Never owned a really good quality keyless but comparing like for like, a budget Rohm keyed tightens much better than a budget Rohm keyless IMHO.

Plus think of the endless amusement you'll miss out on not having to search for the chuck key.

Also, if you wish to minimise the swarf on your bed you could make a swarf catcher.

I think the general idea is some sheet of rubber/plastic attatched to the headstock side of the saddle.(numerous examples out there on interweb(

Always look a bit "Blue Peter" to me but does it really matter if it's effective?

I wonder when 'Amateur' & 'Amateurish' started being a derogatory term?

Think the root meaning is " for the love of"

Surely if you love what you're doing,, potentially that makes you the best sort of person to be doing it ~

n'est-ce-pas?

Hello John,

I'm no expert, but no doubt one will be along shortly .

A shame about the deep scratches~ doubt they will affect lathe operation, much, if any?

I wouldn't worry about fine scratches~ bound to pick some up if you prefer to use your machine rather than polish it.

Yes swarf can get under the saddle (on a mini lathe anyway)~ usually the stuff that produces small chips like brass or cast iron.

I don't know how old you are but in my day school metalworking classes were always rounded off by a thorough bench clean down & put all tools away. (kinda ate into time though.)

This is definitely "best practice"

I must confess to being a little lazy in this regard, i can now judge when the pile of swarf in the drip tray has gotten big enough to threaten to interfere with proceeedings.

I do try to clean down asap after working with cast iron however,

You will have to weigh how much you value your time vs how much you value the lifespan of your machine in how frequently you clean down.

I'm definitely an oily bed person. Better a little too much than too little lube in this instance i reckon.

One thing i hope we can all agree on is on the matter of fixings...... ( ducks for cover)

Imperial fixings are way over complicated~ how many thread standards?

Metric is sooo much simpler, i don't even have to consult a chart for the right tapping drill.

If you are of a certain age your grandfather / father (in those days of thrift) used to keep a tin of 'saved' nuts & bolts in the shed/garage. All mingled in together, dunno why they never sorted them.

When a project / job came up out would come the tin~ emptied onto a newspaper & sorted through until the right fixing for the job was found.

How many wasted hours sorting through all those different imperial fixings i wonder?

Well i;ve still got a 'tin' but it's childs play with metric.

As a slight aside.

It was once a very popular boyhood aspiration to be an engine driver.~ even in the post steam era.

But did you ever meet someone who aspired to being the stoker?? Probably not!

Hats off to all those stokers of yesteryear.... when men were men. (hopefully not sounding sexist~ i reckon women were women in them days too!)

If you weren't fit when you started, you certainly would be after a few express runs.