Member postings for Ron Laden

You should do that Neil, that would be interesting. I have done quite a bit of weathering over the years.... R/C aircraft, model railway layouts and rolling stock etc, etc.

To my mind weathering makes a world of difference to most models, they look 10 times better than straight out of the paint shop. I can understand though that if you have spent a lot of time getting a near perfect paint finish it can be a bit daunting to dirty it up, but even a couple of hours with just some dry brushes and powdered artist pastels can transform a model.

Ron

Thanks Paul/Jason thats very helpful.

I have just checked and I can buy a short length of 6 inch O/D - 10swg steel tube from my usual supplier so that will cover the front rims. Thanks for the link to your wheel making Jason, I thought that quite ingenious the way you produced them, very clever actually.

I will start having a search around for the size of gas bottles to see if any are near 9.5 inches.

Thanks again guys.

Thanks Jason, I just assumed that you would need enough thickness to get the rims something like true.

I know of a small engineering company who say they can roll and weld me the wheel rims, I need a pair of 9.5 inch and a pair of 6 inch. The only problem is they wont go any heavier in steel than 3mm, they say that the rims would be quite true but I,m thinking they obviously wont be perfect and 3mm doesnt give much for machining. I havnt asked them about alu yet though but I was hoping for steel to enable me to have a go at silver soldering in the rings.

Any thoughts on this..?

Thanks Jason, what a good idea, I have a couple of worn endmills I will give that a go.

Ron

You learn something every day or at least I do, I didnt know corner radius cutters existed until I read this. Just looked them up, quite pricey but obviously good in the right application.

I dont know if its normal practice or not Bill but I have made mine from steel and a lot of locos I have seen both electric and steam have had steel ones.

I had one of the ARC Chinese 100mm 4 jaw independent chucks for the mini lathe and I found that a nice chuck, the current price for the 125mm independent I would think is a bargain.

I have found of late that I use the 4 jaw more and more even for work that you would normally put into the 3 jaw. I know some find setting up the 4 jaw a hassle but I quite enjoy setting it up and it doesnt take that long when you think about it.

I realised that my only insert lathe tool (RH) fits the fly cutter so I thought I would give it a try, I did mod the SX2 a while back to have reverse running so that is fortunate.

The Chinese gear set still need reducing in thickness and they have hardened teeth so I thought it a good test. I mounted the 4 jaw on the mill and tried some test cuts, ran at 1750 rpm and success, it sailed through it and a fast feed rate too. Will get the full set reduced now.

Just experimenting with a bit of added detail, turned up some bearing caps and added some pipe work. This was a bit thrown together this morning, the final finish will be better plus there is more to add but it doesnt take much to improve the look of it I think.

Terry, is this what you are going to use to power the 7 1/4 inch loco, I thought you said you had ordered 3 batteries, a 36 volt 500 watt motor and a 4QD controller..? I hope I am wrong but if the old dynamo is the way you are going with it now good luck with it.

I just checked and the cutter is at 60mm diameter.

Dont know if any of you have watched the videos but video 2 concerns grinding a HSS fly cutting tool, which he then uses on aluminium with a speed of 1500 rpm.. I was amazed as I have been fly cutting at much slower speeds than that. So I had to give it a try and it works just fine leaving a really nice finish.

Any thoughts guys, I have been fly cutting alu at around 500-600 rpm was I wrong..?

Neil, which lathe would be best..? I think you have arrived at the point where you decide on a machine/package that suits your pocket and go for it. I,m sure that the machines you have considered and the ones that have been suggested will all perform well and cope with the parts you mention.

The only thing I would add is that if I was going for a new machine from whats currently available I would go for one with a direct drive brushless motor and my leaning would be towards a Sieg machine.

However at the end of the day the decision is yours so good luck with whichever machine you decide on.

Ron

Bob, just playing devils advocate here but you say the Warco WM180 is a vastly better lathe but compared to what..? the old Conquest or the latest machines. It also sounds as if you dont consider the WM180 a mini lathe but thats what it is isnt it, its the same dimensions and similar spec to a number of machines which fall under the heading "Mini-Lathe". Looking at the pictures it looks pretty much like the other machines and unless I,m missing something I cant see any special features. You say that it is much better made but putting that to one side what does it do that makes it vastly better than the others, I,m genuinely interested to know.

Edited By Ron Laden on 03/09/2019 20:04:17

Michael, a poly-vee belt and pulleys is what I fitted to my mini-lathe after changing the broken plastic head spindle gears to a metal set. It was Jason who came up with the idea suggesting that in the event of a stall or crash a poly vee belt adjusted with a degree of slack would slip and safeguard other more expensive parts. Despite the belt having been adjusted this way there was never a hint of slippage even on the heavier work when in normal use. So poly-vee gets a thumbs up from me though the only downside is you have to make your own pulleys as the correct size is not available off the shelf but they are not difficult to produce.

Ron

Edited By Ron Laden on 03/09/2019 18:15:26

Jim, as Jason suggests your Sieg SC2 should have aluminium motor and spindle pulleys, I think Martin is referring to his CJ18 which is what I have. As you obviously know your SC2 is a 500 watt brushless machine with direct drive to the spindle whereas the CJ18 is not brushless and is not direct drive (unless its the latest model) but has high and low gears housed in the head for the spindle.

Going back to your original post:

Is this an immediate fix..? Yes, providing the crash didnt do any other damage. Contact ARC for a replacement belt and probably best to ask Ketan or Ian about setting up the belt alignment/adjustment, they are both very helpful.

How do you prevent it from happening again..? Quite simply, dont crash the lathe because that is obviously when the belt got stripped and it was quite a crash to pull the work out of the chuck. Thats easy to say and I know from experience as I stalled my mini on 3 occasions when parting off and the third time broke the plastic gears in the head.

As for mods to the lathe I always found parting off a problem with the mini, I would never use a tool larger than 1.5mm in the tool holder and only parted small parts with it. I did modify my lathe and made and fitted a heavy duty cross slide with T slots to take a rear tool post, this transformed parting off but it is not a 5 minute job and I am not suggesting you do the same.

Once you have the belt sorted and hopefully things back to normal you shouldnt need any mods providing you use the lathe within its limitations and all mini lathes have their limitations. It depends on the type of work you are doing and how heavy handed your are, not that I am suggesting that you are heavy handed but the thing to always remember is they are not heavy duty machines. You will probably see or read bravado comments from some who say how they part 50mm stl stl with a 3mm tool with no issues at all or that they take 2mm or more cuts with steel, no problem.....well if they do good luck to them but having used one for over a year that is not my experience of the mini lathe. Smaller cuts means more time to complete a job but I just accepted that as the norm with a mini lathe.

I think that is generally accepted that max DOC for the mini is around 1.0mm in steel and 2.0mm in aluminium though with mine I brought that down to 0.75mm with steel and 1.5mm aluminium and most of the time I would go with 0.5mm and 1.0mm. 

Anyway that is my two penneth and good luck in replacing the belt and getting things back up and running.

Edited By Ron Laden on 03/09/2019 09:56:40

Jim, was yesterday the first time you experienced the the problem i.e. had the lathe been fine until then. Also what sort of work has the lathe been doing to date, any heavy work..?

Thanks Dave, thats a good idea so I did a quick rough and ready check with the buffer offset in the 4 jaw and a marker pen in the tool holder. I will obviously need to calculate the offset and the tool position more accurately to bring me close to the finished shape but as you suggest it should reduce the hand work and will be repeatable on all four buffers.

Thanks again, Ron.

Turned the first of the buffers to a shape and type I,m happy with. To the mill next as the base mounting plate is square plus I currently dont have a deep enough parting tool so I will cut it off with a slitting saw. The buffer face is the oval type and I think I will shape that by hand.