Member postings for old mart

If your vise is no bigger than 4", 100mm, then it is not so heavy to move and it can be removed in seconds. A 6" rotary table with a chuck on it is getting close to my limits, but does get in the way if left on the mill, and I am one of the lucky people to be able to choose which of the two mills sitting side by side at the museum to use for a particular job. Today I wanted to square off a 3 inch wide workpiece using the Y axis, and the Tom Senior was not up to it even trying different table slot positions for the 100mm Bison vise. I just moved to the drill mill and the job was easy. With hindsight, I could have removed the key from the vise and mounted it lengthways on the TS bed.

Edited By old mart on 26/08/2021 20:52:22

I am looking at making some replica helicopter blade bolts which will be tapered and threaded each end. I require 1 metre of 22mm diameter steel. My first choice is ENIA for its general machinability. While looking, I noticed that black mild steel is cheaper, but the sellers do not mention the grade. I suspect that the black stuff might not be so nice to machine, any thoughts on the subject would be welcome.

You can try running a colour screen test program to see if there is any problem with your pixels.

One thing that relieves osteo arthritis temporarily is hot water. My fingers are better after doing the washing up.

I was diagnosed with arthritis 35 years ago and my fingers were first to be affected. Now I cannot touch any of my finger tips with the thumb on the same hand, or make a fist. The doctor gave me a good bit of advice, "keep your hands straight or they will end up like claws". I have taken glucosomine sulphate and omega 3 for many years, they might have slowed the onset, I will never know for sure.

In the workshop I keep telescopic magnets which do help with bending down and aid picking up ferrous objects dropped. I have one of those long grabbers at home, and even find the spring loaded trigger difficult and painful.

I wonder if the op's cutters have been sharpened and any size on the shank might then be suspect. Certainly, the solid carbide cutters that I use the most come much closer to their stated size. If the cutter is running out of true, it would tend to cut oversize.

The drill mill has a four speed pulley with a taper fitting and also a lefthand thread nut, but the nut is a substantial cast iron one of about 58mm spanner fitting with almost 25mm of thread length. The taper should never break in use to enable the pulley to unscrew the nut. When I dismantled the mill, I removed the pulley with great difficulty by putting a puller on it and then applying heat from a hot air gun.

You should address the poor fitting taper on the drill. The easy option would be a little Loctite on the taper, but keep it off the nut threads.

Those ARC ductile iron vises are very nice, but be careful to check the sizes before thinking of the larger one, it is quite big.

I'm not surprised, the spindles of drill mills and Tom Senior light verticals also have lefthand threads for their bearing adjusters.

Remember the General and what happened to it?

Replacing the hairspring would be quite difficult for a beginner. The exact hairspring would not be vital as it only eliminates backlash.

They are very small compared to the casting size, Brian has the best answer.

You might be able to fine tune the rack to loose some of that error. The other thing you could do is to take measurements at several points along the head travel and make a simple error chart which would account for the error. Exaggerating the 0.07mm on the chart would make it easy to read, and also work at intermediate positions. This would also work even if the rack was not exactly straight, 12 readings would be very accurate.

It would be interesting to hear from you how the modification was carried out.

Edited By old mart on 20/08/2021 20:27:30

It does look strange but being a drill, there should be none of the sideways forces associated with a milling machine spindle.

A lot of people with smaller lathes do angle the topslide to lower the forces when cutting threads. I would advise that you do not until you have more experiance. If you cut fine pitch threads, say 1.75mm or less, then the added force will not be too big. Each thread should be cut in multiple passes, with the increase in cutting depth getting less at each subsequent pass until you are creeping up on the finished size. I personally never offset the topslide, even for 5tpi threads, but I have the luxury of a Smart & Brown model A which is heavier built than most.

It helps to have an idea which you tube contributers are genuine craftsmen and who are just being clever for the camera. I can recommend Joe Pieczynski, This old Tony and Abom79, they are amongst the genuine craftsmen that actually educate those of us willing to learn new and improved machining.

It is handy to have 2 machines if you can manage it, and a lathe as well to complete the set. Be prepared to partly dismantle it if it is too big or heavy to get into position easily.

Edited By old mart on 15/08/2021 21:04:14

I have found that even with a large size laser dot, that it is easy to estimate the centre. Of course, a tiny dot would be nice if possible.

I agree, make the joint with 0.001 clearance degrease both halves and use Loctite 601, 638, 620 or the equivalent. Leave the joint 24 hours and you are good to go. If you ever need to disassemble the joint, heat the assembly to 300C to destroy the Loctite. A turned finish, not polished will give the best strength of joint.

Edited By old mart on 15/08/2021 20:28:26

Great, get some pictures posted when you have worked out how to do so.