Member postings for Chris Mate

My 330 Lathe has a gearbox, but tentioned belt driven from motor to input shaft. My mill is direct drive into gearbox by motor.

The lathe=Belt drive to gearbox(No plastic gears anywhere), but the 160mm chuck has weight.
I made a mod to my lathe to give it in the forward direction a "soft start" by adding a longer belt and then tentioning it with an extra jockey pully spring loaded. When the motor spins up I felt if puts an abrupt load on the gearbox with a tentioned belt  & 160mm chuck, so the mod work like this.... With motor off, the belt is slack. As soon as the motor starts, there's say 1 second (1001 count) where the belt automatically tention due to the direction it runs & jockey pully spring tention, this "delay" gives it a noticible soft start. Once running it pulls strong enough to break a tool tip like an cut off tool if feed in too fast, so there no lack of grip. This mod is not necessary on a well made lathe with larger gears inside wich can take the jolt.

The mill=Direct drive
On the mill direct drive there no large weighted chuck, so no problem.

Edited By Chris Mate on 23/01/2023 22:04:03

A sponge filter should have a wire mesh/metal perforated plate(small holes) to rest against to prevent it from being sucked in, if its restricted I think you going to have a lazy diesel engine as oppose to an enriched(choked) petrol engine with a carburettor.

I am in Group-3 and here are my reasons:Trust

1-Group-1 is the logic one depending on the codes from Maths and Science and language involved in Engeneering. Now not everybody effected by engineering is an engineer, or will live long enough to study that field fully and having a life. Time and how long something perfectly engineered and manufactured also plays a role...Over Time....Therefore TRUST plays a big role here.

2-This group develop mistrust due to engineering failures or unavailability issues and they get away with "Engineering" not requiring perfection, they just want to get going any which way. To prevent this the Engineering & Manufacturing fields must be 100% on the ball like the maths and science theories/codes indicates, which in a real world would be very difficult.

3-I would belong to Group-3, where one hope for Engineering & Manufacturing processes to be as good as they can all the time, so I can have above reasonable level of TRUST in these systems, after all it will cost me money as life goes along.

Edited By Chris Mate on 14/01/2023 16:57:32

Carbide endmills 4 Flute:
I bought these from a reputable company on sale, so far they seem to last very good, and with aliminium I see no welding to endmill cutting dry. It does seems to work well with chips if I just coat the endmill with cutting fluid from time to time. I received another set, but have not used it yet. They probably like coolant.

I dont have a name but here are some info: I used them on aliminium no problem.
End mills for General Purpose
● Suitable for steels & cast iron(≤48HRC)
● High performance alcr series coating, high temperature resistance and high wear resistance.
● Adapt to several kinds of cooling conditions, for example oil mist, water, oil, air cooling.

Drawbar MT4:
Something I learned from here is not to overtighten the drawbar on MT4 for your mill and then has to hammer it down to change out for another MT4 toolholder. So from this I went a step further and machined a handwheel innerside of an old circular saw about the size of a Singer Knitting machine handwheel, so I can press a socket in it, to hand tighten the drawbar with it, no spanner.

It works like a dream, no slip so far easy remova, just one tapl. I just remove the handwheel each time no problem.

The importance of Resources to how "Rich" you can be in a closed system like Earth. Very little is talked about the deap down important factors to humanity.
Whatever powersource the world come up with to replace coal, must be cheap(relativity game) or due to money's relation to basic resources, if its whatever it is too expensive everything upwards is influenced, and that will lead to an exponential degrading of any monetary system, Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, it does not matter the ideology that goes with money & resources, it will destroy the monetary system eventually exponential as it gains speed, like a runaway diesel engine.
At 8 billion the world has a real problem regarding resources available to give every body at least a reasonable living lifestyle.....So think a bit about the relation of Money to Resources like Water, Oil, Gas, etc & the man made ones like Electricty & the new one(1992+) Digital(Binary code living=Extremely expensive already and embedded everywhere already by 2023). If these are expensive, the population must go down from 8 Billion to 3 Billion(1950 ties) or the poor and middleclass + upper middleclass will be wiped out financially, and then the ultra rich will consume each other(It is axutually happenning already) till theres no workers and no food and drink, then a reset is possible by natural force.......Or some other miraicle must happen, like an undenyable cheap resouirce powerwise, then we can deal with Digital costs..

One has to distiguise between steering vision over the horison and being caught up in complicated knowledgable holes vertically down as deep as you can go(Abstract).

Edited By Chris Mate on 08/01/2023 18:49:39

Busy finishing my Trainrail V-Block, mounted on a flat round piece of cast iron I previously turned for a 160mm Chuck backplate but then decided not to use it for that. Machined a square in this to set the trainrail foot. In the centre I made a round insert that screw to the lathe bed to locate the cast iron plate around a centre point.. The trainrail foot is tightened to the cast iron by 4 bolts.
Today I made the T-Nuts for clamping the cast iron to the lathe bed on the left end. If it be in the way of work on the vice mounted in the centre of bed, I just remove the 4x bolts and remove the trainrail only, when repositioned its trammed in still.
-I took a test cut mill and no clamping issues observed yet.

Edited By Chris Mate on 01/01/2023 19:29:43

Greetings to all...
Just a question while on this subject: Facing test
Headstock Alignment to bed test...If a larger diameter flat piece clamped in jaws are faced, taken out and put on a ver flat surface, does it wobble, rock from the centre or does it set solid, ie is it convex or concaved faced-?

I have heard it must be set to slightly not flat but concaved result faced, is this true and how is this then set by factory, the method(by distance-testbar lengh etc)-?

If I feel like answering unknown number, I ask for ID number, usually phone goes dead then..If I answer and nobody there or they terminate, I mark the number with a ZZZ, so next time I see ZZZ coming up.

Good idea, will rember if I get to that situation.

I have a question about a thought that came up after thinking about all this a few times and that is:...

If your carbide or cutting HSS tool tip is set on centre correctly by any of these methods, you take a light cut, everthing ok, but if you take a heavy cut,1- it may bend under centre for the tip, 2-AND in some cases at deeper cuts with the rest of the cutting edge higher than the tip, how is that effecting the theory of cutting on centre with that part of th insert also cutting but not at the same height as the tip..-?

I think it all good and well for those that can afford it, and those in remote places that cannot do anything else, however for the masses this may be a problem, and the concept of decentralised power, which shifts the upkeeping and maintanance to the enduser, is a dream at the moment and not prooved at a scale of 7 Billion plus on the planet. The problems will start coming when end of lifetimes, parts availability versus replacements are vcoming up to the end user AC power must be cheap, because ts the basis of our modern living standards, even digital totally depends on stable good power and everybody connected must have it working to connect, have money(Digital versus cash) available to move, live or go around. This is where we will experience the difference between the choice of an affordable life and if you can afford it a luxury life, or where there is only one choice= a luxury life.........It rather seems some complete new safe centralised power form must come along other than Nuclear and be dirt cheap to support the upward levels depending from it. This is my opinion currently.

Variable:12mm indexble set and HSS tools
I made a height guage with a tip, but as other stated the forces are not always the same effect, so I find I use the ruler method most and if not a hole in centre I fine tune it with QCTP adjust..

Fixed:10mm set
However I bought a set of 10mm indexable cutters, and in this case they are all perfectly indexed in the sense their tips allways at the same height, unlike the 12mm set I bought. So in this case I made a fixed toolpost and when any of these 10mm tools are fitted they always on centre. I use these for cutting smaller things, like needle felting holders I made holding various number of needles. These are not heavy cuts so I never had a not on centre situation here, even if carbide tips are replaced.

Something to think about:Turning towards you.
If tip is slightly high and you plunge the tool ito the turning stock, it may just cut and take the bite.
If its way high, the tip may dig in and something has to give as workpiece turns over towards you...?

If it on centre in can only go down and rubb.,,

If its too low, it may rub more than cut.

Boring bar you may want to go up a bit sometimes, rather than downbelow centre a bit.

For the lathe I bought some extra 2nd hand old drill bits up to 20mm, cut the rear ends on lathe so they run truer, use them to cut holes, I don't care just resharpen, before using a boring bar.

If I just want to cut a hole I used new ones in lathe.


If I want to drill a small hole op to say 6mm between two edges in the centre, without having DRO, I mark it accurately, then punch a smallest hole as I can using magnifying glasses, then work it from 1mm drill to the size, a bit time consuming(Chuck must run true).

I recently find that the carbide cutters I aquired rather like to plunge down and drll better if I just paint the cutter with cutting oil, wipe it off, and go ahead, the chips fly ou/evacuatet nicely, after many use nothing sticks to the cutter tips not even alinimium, unlike oyher cutter tips I have.. If I flood it with cutting oil by hand, the chips/swarf tends to stick around, and on replunging down, (CNC floodcooling probably properly solve that problem), it may wonder on previous chips before cutting. I am not sure if this is true for any carbite 4 flute endmil cutter. The cutters comes from Gesag base.
 

Edited By Chris Mate on 12/12/2022 22:10:45

John Dow, in my opinion you have valid questions. What is happenninmg Worldwide for that matter, is what you see is ONE of the Symptoms of modern corruption since around 1992+ when the digital era started to gain momentum. In short the Service/Product became a medium to channell money over and above the profit of olds, therefore the rediculous banking fees and charges, the short version, its abstract but easy to spot once you get the method of operation. In the long term societies will not be able to afford this game.

The beauty of macro photigraphy is apart from the equipment its not expensive, you don't have to travel, its all in your yard/house/workshop around you.

If you can photograph something on your lens, you added enough extenders between camera and lens.
Thres also the F-Stop thing where you isolate the object from the surroundings, if you focus and place it around you mind find interesting colours appearing you dont otherwise see like that.

A blue vice in your workshop in the background may become a colourfull stream of blue light addition without anybody recognise it as a vice behind your object, choice of F-Stop to regulate depth of field.

In the beginning its very confusing using from macro to telephoto lenses, but there is an easy rule I follow, the nearer you get to the object the larger the F-Stop setting can be and still isolate the background, or the opposite, does not matter which camera, which lense used....The F-stop thing..,. The depth of field can range from millimeters to kilometers depending on distance and lens and aperture/F-Stop.
 

Edited By Chris Mate on 03/12/2022 20:44:20

A trap....
I completed my train rail V-Block groove, but then fall into a trap trying to make it deaper than the size of the mill cutter=12mm size, I made it 14mm.

The trap(Vertical Z1 access) is going back using the movements of table vertical or quil(Tilted Z2 acess)l is not straight forward anymore...

-I managed to get it corrected by milling it down in .02mm increments(with Magnifying glasses nr 4) till and I was lucky at last milling, feel no groove at all, it looks like you get with facemilling overlappings.

-I was more surpised than how I could trust the digital caliper I fitted to the quil travel, which movement accurately was needed here, not the vertical Z1 access.. Well I learned something here.

Note: I have to say if I scribe the trainrail, its definately harder, its just a mark hardly not like on normal steel, but the carbide cutter handled it well right through.

I googled and found Reasearchgate has done research on V-Blocks and out of roundness, its complicated but well explained. As I understand it(My own understanding) out of roundness can be an infinity of possibilities all around all directions, which makes it complicated to fully encapture as 100% correct by your method whatever it is, so nect best methods are used, I maybe wrong. Maybe if a process is runned long enough data can be captured to paint a picture digitally for comparisons where zero out of roundness is aimed for. We can go as deep as we can measure...

Sometimes V-Blocks must be used like where the round object is too large for the other methods, like a ship driving shaft etc.

Some time ago I tried to make a flycutter like out of the brazed cabide facemill 80mm that came with the mill.

In the process I fit every toolholder I had from the lathe with an opposing one as ballance to see how they cut.
-Some of them with negative config and inserts cuts the best.
-I have a indexable 10mm set which give a beautiful finish in aliminium or metal, they are neautral configured, and to my surprise they all deliver a horrible finish here.

-So maybe one should find out the geometry of those flycutters that give a perfect finish before making one.

Edited By Chris Mate on 30/11/2022 19:42:17

Thanks for very interesting comments, got more to think about.

Thanks for micrometer comment, this makes me think about if the dent is the same as the opposing knop 180 degrees apart the micrometer cannot detect that(One type of reference take at 180 degrees), then makes me think further about V-Block the V giving two contact points, which brings me to a thougt that maybe thats not even accurate, say theoretically you got a rod floating in the air unefected by anything eccept its turning, and you surround it with multiple test dial indicators, what would they all indicate if recorded multiple contact points doing away with the twoo of the V concept.....Just thinking.....

Edited By Chris Mate on 29/11/2022 20:31:43