Member postings for old mart

If the width of the saw is close to that of the splitter, (riving knife), then blade wear will reduce the amount of set in the teeth, assuming it is an all steel blade, and it could rub. The particular plastic may have a tendency to bow inwards reducing the gap originally cut by the time it reaches the splitter. Carbide tips on blades are always wider than the disc and are unlikely to wear at all.

You could probably make a cantilever support for the guard and do away with the splitter altogether, or make the splitter thinner if it didn't have to provide support for the guard.

The death rate so far from coronavirus worldwide is keeping pace with the deaths from gunshot wounds in the USA. One person in one million of the worlds population has died so far.

You could try to cover up the bed with tissue paper, of vacuum up the stuff as it sprays off the tool. Only cast iron dust is worse, I recon.

I have experienced this before myself. Facing on the Smart & Brown model A, I was getting exactly that finish. Now I don't. The cross slide leadscrew was unevenly worn, especially in the middle and the nut was bad too. Backlash was possibly 0.025", maybe more. I bought a new leadscrew with two new bronze nuts on ebay which was sold as 8tpi, originally for some other make of lathe, but the threaded length meant it could be modified. Unfortunately it turned out to be 3mm pitch and the vendor kindly refunded me my money and said keep it. Eventually, I decided to use it on the imperial lathe, as there was little prospect of ever getting an imperial threaded leadscrew, especially a new one. The metric leadscrew now resides in the lathe with an additional modification using both nuts for superior antibacklash. It is set for 0.001" backlash over the 7" of movement. The new dial we made has 118 divisions instead of 125. The error per turn with 118 divisions is 0.0001102", which is not significant if you measure the size when getting close to the finishing cut.                                                                                                                                                                 Checking the gibs would be worthwhile as well as leadscrew nut backlash, plus leadscrew axial play.

Edited By old mart on 18/03/2020 19:19:43

I would try a brass brush and oil, but make sure the brush is real, not plated steel.

I attended physiotherapy at Weston General (W-S-M, North Somerset) with about 8 other knee replacement people and was told that things would be normal for us as long as possible before classes were cancelled. There were about 50 empty spaces in the car park which was overflowing the same time last week.

I notice the Rotagrip price is £130.56 for the hard outside, could you get a set of the soft jaws and modify them to do the job, the EK16 are £31.63 a set.

They must be a little sensitive in the USA, I tried to mention the panic buying of guns on the Home Shop Machinist forum and three attempts at posting were mysteriously deleted.

Regarding stiffness between R8 and Morse tapers, I would expect MT4 to be equivalent to R8. ISO30 and above are stiffer, the general industry standard is BT/ISO 40. The advantage of any dedicated milling spindle is the steeper angle, making removal much easier than Morse tapers.

If that 50mm six insert shell mill does take APMT11 size inserts, then get some of the cheap Chinese inserts intended for aluminium. They are sharp and will lower the cutting forces substantially when used on aluminium, don't forget to use a little WD40 or similar. I would not use a shell mill more than 40mm diameter on steel on a Light Vertical. 

Edited By old mart on 17/03/2020 10:33:48

Edited By old mart on 17/03/2020 12:52:00

Those larger shell mills with their inserts would be best sold on ebay, as MT2 is far too small to hold them without flexing like a wet noodle. That is the reason for the dampening sleeve on your Clarkson Autolock which only holds cutters up to about 18mm, (16mm or 5/8" shanks).

Apart from them, you have a good lot of useful cutters.

Edited By old mart on 16/03/2020 16:52:41

Painted yellow and black, no doubt.

Drink enough of that mouthwash and you won't care if it kills viruses, Neil.

I just noticed an advert for a 2.7V 500F capacitor, what would that size be used for?

I wonder if I will be turned away from the local hospital next Tuesday, when I turn up for physiotherapy following my knee replacement.

If I didn't already have a large number of carbide endmills, I would be tempted to buy these, great value and not at all bad:

**LINK**

You can hold threaded shank cutters in an er collet as long as the threaded section does not interfere with the clamping length.

As I mentioned, having already got machinery big enough to do the mod on the spindle is essential. I spent much more time than usual setting things up to run perfectly before cutting any metal and have been rewarded by having a sweet running r8 spindle in the TS.

One mod still to be done is to have a quick change knee handle like a Bridgeport to supplement the wheel. With heavy tooling on the bed, the weight makes lifting the knee very difficult with my arthritis.

This drawing from the Denford Forums shows the TS head and it is obvious why an extension screwed into the bottom of the quill to hold a larger taper roller bearing is necessary if converting to R8.

**LINK**

We were lucky with the Y axis backlash, it was acceptable without any work, just as well as they are LH threads.

I notice that you have a Clarkson Autolock for the mill. To compensate for the flexible MT2, there is a threaded collar, LH, I believe, which is snugged up AFTER the drawbar is tightened. It stiffens the assembly considerably. Be careful not to get imperial and metric threaded cutters mixed up, if the size of the cutter is fractions of an inch, never use a metric collet with it and vise versa. If you are not conversant with using the Autolock, just google Clarkson Autolock instructions.

The cutters will do for a start, keep an eye out on ebay for resharpened solid carbide, up to about 12mm, don't touch them down on steel unless they are rotating or they will chip, and don't drop them ever, and always store them in a tube. 

Edited By old mart on 14/03/2020 20:53:16

I looked at the link for the guy manufacturing leadscrew nuts, and I don't think he has any suitable for the L V. I made two X axis nuts out of leaded gunmetal, but it was not straightforward. The leadscrew is 3/4 X 5 acme RH, too small to pass laydown inserted tooling. I bought a tap from Tracey tools and did not think I could produce the thread just using it as the torque required was likely to break the tap. I used a cut down tool with an 8 TPI acme form running at the 5 TPI to produce a partially finished thread. The tap finished it. As cut, the nut had some backlash, but my modification was to use two nuts and extend the leadscrew thread and also even out the wear in the leadscrew threads. My backlash is much improved. As long as your nut still has some threads, you can rely on the DRO for travel. Just remember that climb milling with lots of backlash is not recommended. I could make you a nut if you supplied the bronze, but the backlash would depend on the leadscrew condition. Or I could lend you the tap, which might work if the core diameter of the thread was increased by about 0.010".

We were left the Tom Senior Light Vertical, a floor standing drilling machine and an Atlas 12 X 24 lathe in a will last year. We already have a Taiwanese drill mill which has larger capacity than the TS and runs R8 tooling. We already have a Smart & Brown model A lathe and at the moment, the Atlas is being done up to sell.

Having already got milling and turning facilities, it was not difficult to convert the TS to R8. The existing quill now has an outrigger extension housing the larger lower taper roller bearing required to use the larger spindle. The lower half of the spindle was bought from ARC as a spare part for one of the Seig mills they sell. The only drawback of the conversion is the loss of 1 1/2" in total Z height.

The details and pictures are on this forum under Tom Senior, along with lots of other useful threads on the subject of TS.