Member postings for Matt T

Good catch, I did check and it's 1.5mm wall thickness. Would it okay to simply reduce the working pressure of the boiler? As it's my first boiler build the object is primarily to get some experience with silver soldering, hammer forming etc. I note that mamod boilders have a safety valve that goes off at around 20psi so perhaps building and testing to this (20/40) would allow me to use a thinner and hence cheaper pipe?

Hi Stephen, did you have any luck? I'm in a similar boat trying to buy copper pipe. I was warned to "bring my chequebook" as copper isn't cheap but the bewildering lengths people sell it in makes it hard to compare. I'm looking at some 108mm (~4.25" ) copper pipe on ebay, it's £120 for 900mm (~35" ) making it around 3.50 an inch. This is about the cheapest I can find for a reasonably wide pipe but I'm hesistant to buy 35 inches when I only really need 9. Maybe I will have to just stomach it and try and find a use for the rest. Perhaps attempts 2 and 3...!

Edited By Matt T on 26/09/2023 10:22:51

I haven't found many YouTubers I subscribe to to be pushing stuff. My go to list is

Blondihacks - she has #notsponsered as a catchphrase

This old Tony

Clickspring

Artisan makes

Inheritance machining

Keith Appleton

I watch a few related 3d printing ones too, but I haven't seen that much shameless advertising

Hey Andy!

By chance I'm in an almost identical situation to you, except for the fact that I just don't have the space (or money) to buy a mill at the moment. I also have the warco super mini lathe and have been looking at the milling slide. RDG tools have a milling slide that claims to fit the Warco or similar lathes but when I emailed them for some more pictures on how it's attached I got a rather vague response about a bracket that they no longer have, therefore I was looking at the warco one specifically just to ensure it was an easy fit.

I'm also working on the wobbler, I got my plans from blondihacks patreon drive. It's been a very good project that has forced me to learn some things that are probably obvious to the experienced.

I was considering putting the vert milling slide on my christmas list so I'd be really interested to hear about your experiences if you decide to go ahead with one.

Quick update as I tried it out yesterday, the setup did work, and it was solid enough to turn down the extra OD that I needed. I had to do the setup twice as the glue bond on the mandrel broke the first time but I don't think I gave it enough time to really cure. This definitely wasn't the easiest way to go about doing the job and next time I'll plan out my order of operations better so I can turn down the OD from the larger piece of stock first. On the upside, I now own a live centre and I've learned a bit along the way so all in all its been worth it! Thanks again for the ideas and advice!

In hindsight I shouldn't have cut the stock so short as that method would be a better option. I'm planning on getting some copper sheet to make some soft jaws with my next project. Light cuts will be the order of the day and HSS tools are all I've used so far.

My dad swears by carbide insert tooling but from what I've read they require higher speeds and heavier cuts. Since my little hobby lathe tops out at 2500 and is less powerful than say a myford I'm not sold on the idea of carbide inserts.

The method in your picture looks like a good one, if this doesn't work Ill see if I can recreate that one. I won't get chance now until Sunday afternoon as I'm going down to visit my dad for this birthday but I'll have a go when I'm back and let you know how I get on

Sorry, I didn't include these details. I just need to turn down the OD, I don't think the reverse jaws will fit in a small hole?

Thanks all, I decided to shake my piggy bank upside down and buy a live centre. I think that's the most sensible option since I'll see myself using it a lot. I decided on method similar to what I had in mind originally. First I turned some mild steel down to the ID of the hole in the stock, it's a locating fit I would say..

The portion of the round stock turned down is slightly shorter than the depth of the hole it's going through

Then I took a scrap piece of aluminium, used my centre drill to put a (notch? Divot?) in it to locate the centre. I figure if I locktite all this up, the mandrel and the aluminium disk, and use the live centre to apply pressure to the part against the shoulder of the mandrel I should be okay?

In this setup I can't see the mandrel actually resisting any forces, so it's acting more to locate the work on the chuck and not in my face should the clamping action of the tailstock fail for any reason.

I haven't locktite anything yet, I'd be interested to hear if you think this setup will be rigid (and safe) enough

Edited By Matt T on 20/07/2023 17:20:19

A live centre is definitely on my shopping list, perhaps it needs to move a little further up. I think glueing and clamping with a live centre is the best option, I'll sort myself out with one of those! Thanks for your advice!

I never thought to use my centre! I don't have a live centre but I have a dead centre I could use with some grease. Would that be okay? Or would the part get too hot? I have some inch dia aluminium I could use to make a "clickspring style" arbour (?) They put grooves in the end I assume to increase the surface area for the glue to contact.

Hi everyone, sorry if this is a simple question but I'm looking at turning a mandrel to fit a workpiece on but I'm worried the mandrel will be too small and won't be rigid enough.

The workpiece is mild steel round stock dia 2.2" and 0.8" long. The drawing calls for a 0.250" hole in the middle, my plan was to drill a hole undersize, fit it on a mandrel with locktite to turn the outside then drill and ream the centre hole to final dia. I've drilled an 11/64 hole in the middle but I feel a mandrel this narrow wouldn't be rigid enough. Any advice?

Hey Ross, I'll keep them separate for now. I'm quite lucky to live about 10 doors down from a scrap collector and about a mile from a scrap yard. I've been inspired by clickspring to have a go at castings some day, my dad used to work in a foundry casting ME parts so I want to draw on his expertise while I can. I figure the small amount I have can be pressed into pretty small containers.

Andrew they look great, I'd love to work on stuff that big but I think they have a larger footprint than my whole workshop! Part of the point of kitting out my shop was to move my work out of the lounge as it was starting to get messier (my better half was unimpressed to find me soldering on the dining room table)

Jason, that's a good point. I'll need footprint + working area. I caved in and against advice and better judgement I bought a cheap bench drill. I can't realistically afford a mill right now but I do need to make holes right now. I'm pretty sure I can move this one on when I upgrade and if I can't I won't too much sleep over it.

I think a portable bandsaw will be on my list too. I've just cut through some 55mm mild steel with a hacksaw and it wasn't much fun. I've got access to my brother's tools but he's a 2 hour round trip so I need to have a few jobs to make it worth going (outside of general visiting). Time to do some shim collecting for the rest of the evening (turning full beer cans into empty ones )

I agree with Rooossone, I doubt I'll be milling 1ft lengths let alone 6ft. I wouldn't even get material that size inside my workshop!

I'll have another read around about hobby milling machines and measure up my space. I'll probably need to shuffle my tools around a bit too.

Also, what do you guys do with your swarf, so far all mine is alu, is it worth keeping different metals seperate? Or should I just bin it?

A vertical milling slide is on my shopping list. I've got loads of milling cutters in my box of hand me downs so doing some basic milling on the lathe wouldn't break the bank. I think a 4 jaw chuck will come before that though, can't really dial stuff in on a 3 jaw with any degree of precision.

Thanks for your advice, I'll have a think and see what my budget allows. We were planning to move in 2 and a bit years to a larger place but given the climate we might be staying longer than expected! It's really impossible to predict at the moment.

Once we move I should have a full garage to myself, so I'm hesitant to spend lots of money on smaller machines if I can wait a little and buy bigger when I'm less constrained. I don't mind replacing my lathe as having it now allows me to get into my hobby more and learn some stuff. Hopefully I can find enough lathe only projects to keep me preoccupied lol

Hi Rooossone, I had a look at your workshop build and using a shipping container is an ingenious idea! Much cheaper than building something I assume and probably more secure. I see you've got lighting in, and I imagine leaving the doors open will provide some natural light although I've been very grateful to have the window right behind me. Having the natural light in helps it feel a little less confined.

The issue I see with a mill is table travel, I might be able to fit one in but I don't think I'd get much in the way of reach during milling operations. It might be okay, but I still need to have a think about it. In the meantime a bench drill is a much cheaper option and gives me a few extra operations. I've been looking at second hand ones on ebay and you can pick up some rather solid looking ones relatively cheaply (less than 100 quid).

The 3 in 1 machines were something I looked into when buying my lathe, I wouldn't say I regret not buying one but I do wish I'd considered this option a bit more. I think in the end it came down to a hobbymat vs warco decision based on popularity and availablity of parts. Although I could probably get parts for pretty much any lathe these two seemed like the most serviceable, and after losing out on old hobbymats (that may have had issues I wouldn't be well experienced to deal with) I went for the warco one. I have to say overall I'm quite impressed with it, apart from the drive pulley basically exploding it's been a solid piece of kit. Everything lined up so well out of the box I haven't had to shim any corners or anything like that. The tailstock lines up with the chuck centre dead on and I haven't got any measureable taper when I turn a long distance.

Making some more chips tonight, since I mentioned I was buying a lathe I've had requests from friends of mine. Tonight I'm turning some aluminium axles for an RC car that previously had plastic ones that snapped. A fairly simple project but all good experience. A shipment of mild steel has also arrived for my next project so I'm looking forward to having a go with that too!

As promised an update on the workshop. The cabinets that were in there before are now back in. The big pine cabinet tucked under at the back is sadly of no use to my workshop but has the important job of storing duck food. The 2 grey cabinets had a bit of junk in that I've cleared out and is now full of my tools and other bits, there's a little extra room in there still. I'm yet to put cupboards under the bench but so far I've managed to find homes for everything, so I'll expand as I need to. My thoughts were that a bench drill might fit next to the tail stock, it could make for some workshop gymnastics to get the tail stock on and off but I think I could live with that in return for more precise holes than I can do with my hand drill and baby vice. The vice can swivel, which I thought was a handy feature in a tight space and so far it's served me well. I have the left over work top and I think with some jiggery pokery I could mount it on some collapsible legs and that would allow me an extra bit of pop up worktop in the garden on a nice day.

Hi all,

Sorry I've not updated, life has been pretty busy (thesis writing and all). I had a slight issue with the drive pulley on my lathe, wasn't terribly impressed with the quality of the build but very impressed with warcos customer service so that's something I guess.

I've got a load more tools, my dad dropped off the rest of my grandads old gear and I've bought a few things of my own. I'm not exactly a "two steps ahead" thinker, so I keep getting to a stage where I need a tool but don't have it. Case in point, bought taps to tap a hole but failed to see I'd need a tap wrench! So progress on projects is slow.

As a mill is out of the question, there is simply no room, I'm considering investing in a bench drill. Not for milling purposes! I've read enough to know that's a bad idea but I feel ill occasionally need to drill so accurately holes that would be difficult on a lathe.

I'll upload a few more pics tomorrow, after I've had chance to tidy up a bit!

Matt

Howard, yes my first projects are planned to be tools I will need. It will help me practice hitting dimensions accurately before working on anything with expensive or low tolerance parts. I have some drawings for a machinists hammer and a retractable scribe. Both of which will be invaluable I'm sure.

Theres a few books I'm looking at, although YouTube is also a good source of education to accompany the more in-depth reading. If all else fails my dad has an engineering background, machine tooling in his younger years but now aircraft engineering.

Hopefully taking my first chips tonight. I have to say on this progression from my simple drill and Dremel experience to machine tooling something that didn't occur to me in my research is just how intimidating it is to stand in front of a lathe spinning stock. Perhaps "scary" would be a strong word but I'm certainly extremely cautious.

That's the rear side of the electric meter box. Opened from the outside so no problem there. I'm planning on boxing it off properly with some MDF just the be doubly sure that it's not damaged by flying and spinning things. The main gas pipe to the house also inconveniently runs up the wall of my workshop so that too will get boxed off and all hot work (brazing, silver soldering, tempering etc) will probably get done in the garden.

Thanks all! I'm really happy so far

Dalboy, it's my grandads old toolbox. Filled with lots of old bits, all imperial (where applicable) which will be helpful for me. He's had it since he passed about 20 years ago and has been looking for a new home for it. Everything (other than the lathe) is in a temporary spot for now. I want to start doing some work then plan my layout so the tools I need are where I expect them to be (if that makes sense)