Member postings for Sonic Escape

Yes, I guess that should work. I found also another method. I make a light cut along the whole length. Just 0.5-1mm deep. This is easy to make it straight. Then the cutting disc will not slip outside of this line. Even if you can't see the line because of the sparks you can still feel it if you don't press to hard the grinder.

This Sunday I went to a bazar and I found an interesting tap holder. It was exactly what I needed. I made an MM22x1.5 thread on a 10mm thick steel disc. This disc will hold one side of the blade.

The using the die holder that I just built I made a matching thread on the saw spindle.

Everything went fine. But I didn't realized that the tap or die are not self aligning. Especially if the thread is not to long. So the result is this:

Last days I made some progress on the chop saw arbor. First I made a poor man's dog. I need it to turn a 40mm bar.

Then I cut the bar from 40mm to 35mm. This is the diameter of the pillow block bearings. I also cut one end to 1" diameter for the pulley. At the end of the video there is the everything assembled.

I want to make a 10mm length thread on the arbor. M22x1.5. The thread will be used by a 10mm thick disc that will hold one side of the blade. I have a die and I made a simple die holder for it. By chance I found a short pipe with thick walls that was just the right size.

I made a small cut on the wall and I inserted a piece of flat steel to lock the die.

While welding I put between the die and the flat steel a piece of Aluminium from a Pepsi can. So I could remove the die later.

I added also two handles and tomorrow I'll give it a try:

That is half the price I pay here in Romania for scrap steel! This is not fair ...

The hobbing machines were made at Cugir. That is a Romanian factory.

Now they are making only small arms and are making a fortune with the war in Ukraine.

Before being sent to scrap yard the key components were cut with a torch. I think this is a stupid regulation or something to make sure you don't resell them.

I saw this method also for old military communication equipment. I collect old vacuum tube military radios and in the late 90's and early 2000's they got rid of a lot of old equipment. The radios were old but unused and were stored in their original wooden boxes for decades waiting for the next war. Just covered with a thin layer of grease. They would open the box and smash everything with hammers...

Today I went again for a few hours to the scrap yard. The machines were already broken and stored in a large pile. It was not easy to climb since everything is greasy. And some heavy parts could easily detach and trap you. I took only e few things. Mainly a rack and the matching gears. Rest of the time I remove various panels just to see what is inside. I saw some interesting trapezoidal screws but it was too difficult to remove them. And the one that was easy to remove was 3m long

Here even if the place is very unsafe nobody bothers you. The manager told me that I can stay as much as I want and I can disassemble anything. Just look at these pipes. To the right there was a milling machine and I was a little stressed while staying there.

It is a pity to don't be allowed to search in a scrap yard. Fortunately here we are a little behind with EU regulations. After all we are still allowed to kill pigs before Christmas

Edited By Sonic Escape on 18/07/2023 17:39:16

I never went to a scrap yard before but last week I decided to check if there is something interesting there. There is a small one close to me. After visiting it I quickly concluded that I will never have the old problem of buying only 6m long tubes/bars.

Next day feeling more enthusiastic I went to a larger scrap yard that is 6km away. This time it was far more exciting. The day before the mechanical engineering college decided to dump many of their old Romanian made machines. The yard was full of huge lathes, different mils and all sort of more specialized machines. They even bring a few trucks while I was there. It was a little painful to see how they were unloading them. The ground trembles when a 2 ton machine is dropped from 3 meters. And then they were smashing the machines into pieces. Some of them looked quite good in my opinion. They were not used to much since they were not from a factory. This is a small milling machine:

But the biggest surprise was when I found an FUS 250 milling machine. This is exactly the type of mill I bought a few weeks ago! And it is a rare type. Mine was missing a hook. The hook is like a big screw. On the milling machine table I found a similar hook already unscrewed!!! This is extreme luck!

Next day I went again with almost all my tools ready to disassemble all kind of interesting parts. There was one machine so large that you could walk inside it. This one is a FU 32. It is very heavy. I think you can see a clutch inside:

This one is a smaller mill. A friend of mine wanted to buy it but they overturned it by mistake and broke it. The milling head fell apart.

This one is a machine for making grooves. They were 3 of them:

So many interesting things! I was jumping from one machine to another and I couldn't decide what parts to remove.

I was never been so full of oil and dirt. The were many cranes in the yard and you had to be careful with heavy items moving above you. They didn't seems to care about safety. They were melting coper from motors and transformers with torches. The smell and fumes were horrible, I don't know how they can work in that place. I saw a large electric panel with many mechanical timing relays. The ones that have a synchronous motor and are usually in transparent enclosures. They burned everything hoping to recover some coper. I think this is stupid.

First I wanted to take a few slides like this one:

Then I realized that it is very unlikely to use them. And they are very heavy. So I started to remove all kind of small parts. I even found something that ca be used as a dog. This is part of the "prey":

The most important thing that I bought was the head of the FUS250 milling machine. Now I have a spare one. I measured it and it had a runout of 20µm.

But it has a different collet type. It looks like Schaublin B32. Unfortunately they cost as much as cocaine. When available.

Watching the insides of these machined increased a few times my limited knowledge of mechanics. Half a day flew without notice. This is Disneland for adults!

The new life of King Dick! Or its clone.

I used mainly the angle grinder with a Velcro sponge to attach sanding discs with grit from 42 to 3000. I didn't get the right values because there are some visible scratches left. But still it looks good. And it feels very nice.

Maybe, but mine has rust. And now I suspect that Nigrin is expired from February 2023!

After 1.5h almost no effect! I cleaned the gel with a sponge and Cif (a mildly abrasive kitchen soap). Cif did most of the rust removal. I covered the spanner with more Nigrin and I'll let it for 3 hours.

Edited By Sonic Escape on 05/07/2023 17:15:14

Today I got a new rust removal gel from Nigrin and I covered with it one part of the King Dick. It claims that it will dissolve the rust and the metal will remain shiny. If it works it would be great. Because there is no need to submerge the parts in it. Let's wait 1-2 hours.

I suppose it is or was a common model in UK. But here in Romania I never saw one before.

A new candidate for restoration just arrived today

I think is this one. M3AA 100LB 12. Now I'm a little disappointed. Only 430W for a 23kg motor? And it is strange that in the picture is doesn't look the same. It has a fan.

I measured the speed with an android app. It flashes the phone LED with a preset frequency. Maximum was 500Hz, so it is a 12 pole motor. This is matching the description.

There were some gypsies who were selling the motors. I don't want to know from where did they get them. But with these guys you can always negotiate a better price. In this case the starting price was 3 melons.

There is no rating plate. But actually there is a clue in the junction box. I didn't paid attention first. There are two small papers. And M3AA 100 is a family of motors. Unfortunately it is quite numerous. But I think I'll find something. There is a large catalog with many M3AA types here.

I found this motor in a bazar. There was no way to test it. But because it costs as much as two melons, I thought it was worth the risk. Since it still have the plastic cover over the shaft I even hoped that it might be unused. The problem is that it has no markings. All I can tell is that it is made by ABB and has a thermal protection switch.

By the size it should be in the range of 2.5 to 3kW. The windings inside are 0.6mm in diameter. I find this a little strange since I have a smaller motor, 1.4kW, that has 0.8mm windings. Without load it draws 1.45A. And it is very slow speed, maybe 750rpm. Inside it looks fine, there is no sign of overheating.

I wonder if is not designed to work for short periods of time, S2 class maybe? This would explain also the lack of a fan. And the thermal switch. I search a lot but I didn't find any information about it.

In the last picture that bearing looks fine or I should replace the grease? It doesn't cover all bearing. Maybe it is dried.

Victory! I bought a puller. The cheapest one. Toya turned out to be some kind of Yato brand. I tried to pull the pulley but of course it's claws were too thick. So I thought why not grind them a little. It turned out that just 1mm was enough. In the end was very simple.

The pulley is made from steel. No markings. WD40 didn't reached all the contact surface.

Thank you for all suggestion!

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Edited By Sonic Escape on 01/07/2023 18:28:12

I don't think there is a sleeve. Yes, there was a large washer there. Covering those 60 degree intervals.

There were also 2 set screws that I removed yesterday. I keep pouring WD40 there since last evening.

After brainstorming with a friend on WhatsApp he suggested to build this thing:

I tried again with a 0.2Kg hammer but nothing. But I think I'm getting closer. There are two choices now. I can continue to build a frame in order to be able to use a jack. I have a 12 ton one. Or to weld together the two L-shaped parts with two flat pieces of steel and use them as holding points for a puller. This model is available in a store here. The store is open until 21:00. However I'm not sure if the puller is strong enough. Unior breand is ok, but this model can pull only 400kg

Or maybe from Leroy Merlin. They have more puller and they are much cheaper. But I never heard about Toya. And the fact that it is available also on Aliexpress is not a good sign. 

Edited By Sonic Escape on 01/07/2023 13:32:36

Thank you. I think that I'll do more serious progress with the mill this winter. Now I'm busy building a chop saw.

I didn't search too much yet, but I think I could find an MT5 to ISO30 adapter. Or to ER40 maybe. But assuming I don't find a short MT5. How about if I cut one? The problem would be to make again the thread for the draw bar. Is it possible use a HSS tap into an harden piece of steel?

Or how about if I made the tool holder myself? For example and ER40 holder with a short MT5 taper. Ignoring for now the accuracy required, what would be the problem if I'll make it from mild steel? How easy it would deform ?

It just crossed my mind another idea. The guy from where I bought this motor has one more. It is not too expensive, I could buy it and extract the pulley from there. This motors are good quality and I'll need a second motor anyway at some point in the future. But I have again the problem of removing the pulley.

A puller like this one could fit between the pulley and the motor case. But would it be strong enough? Could it be possible that some locking liquid was added, so I'll need to heat the part?

If this is a fine Poly-V pulley than maybe I don't have to remove it. I thought first that maybe is missing something. If I keep it remains the other problem. What pulley to put on the arbor. I need a pulley with equal diameter (60mm). A larger one will decrease the speed bellow 1400rpm. And a smaller one ... will be too small I guess. So far I didn't found one.

I considered the option of making a pulley from HDPE. But if those sharp edges are important then maybe this is not a good choice of material. Aluminum would be next choice.

This is how the motor is looking from the front:

There were also 2 set screws. And another screw in front, with a large washer