Member postings for ChrisH

Bill, could not agree more, I am another watching this thread with great interest and admiration , thanks Allen, keep up the good work.

Chris

ps that eccentric strap/rod looks great to me, that bolt next to the bend looks fine!

Edited By ChrisH on 21/02/2014 19:36:57

Edited By ChrisH on 21/02/2014 19:37:59

Thanks to all for the comments - all very interesting/informative.

Chris

Oh Michael, now you have introduced a whole new bag of worms!

How do you determine if the column is crooked and/or the spindle/quill is crooked, and if any of them are, how do you correct other than by renewing? Other than by Tramming the column to the table that is.

Chris

Hi Rod,

Just been out to the shed to measure the radius, from the spindle axis to the indicator - it's a 4 inch radius, so presumable that is a good result but I can't help feeling it should be better.

I will leave it until tomorrow and recheck, see if it holds at that.

Chris

Clearing up some spilt oil in the shed with a load of rags, the thoughts appeared to me of disposal, how to without making more mess, and of spontaneous combustion which had been mentioned in another thread.

Disposal was no problem, my shed is heated by an old little French wood burning stove, top fed, which is fed with charcoal as it appears to me to burn hotter and a charge lasts longer than a wood charge. The fire was burning well, the rags dropped in and certainly spontaneously combusted in the stove.

Which leaves spontaneous combustion to puzzle over. Those who have had any dealings with fire prevention/fire fighting will be familiar with the fire triangle, that is, three things are required for a fire and are represented as the sides of a triangle, fuel, heat and oxygen; take any one away and the triangle collapses and the fire goes out. Fuel is usually the most difficult to remove, but cooling with water will remove the heat and smothering with a fire blanket, foam or inert gas like CO2 will remove the oxygen, to quote a couple of examples.

So, with our spontaneous combustion, we have the fuel, the oily rag, and the oxygen, it is surrounded by air as it sits in the bin or on the bench, but what provides the heat? No external heat is applied, the rag alone is not guilty, neither is the oil alone. Is it a chemical reaction between the rag and the oil, or what?

Anyone with an idea or better still knowledge on this?

Chris

Decided to check my mill this afternoon -it's a circular column Warco 'Economy' mill/drill.

It was not too far out, measured on the table in four corners roughly approximately equal to the spacing of the four holding down bolts I got readings from 0.000 at the start reference to +0.003" max. Shims steel available is 0.001, 0.003, 0.004 and 0.006 thou.

After a couple of hours adding and taking away shims I now have from my 0.000 start reference back left, to -0.0015 front left, -0.0015 front right to -0.001" back right. I could live with that, but feel it could be better.

Question: What is the acceptable error on Tramming, can I expect to get it better on this sort of mill?

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 16/02/2014 18:03:32

More shed time today - that makes twice in three days, a vast improvement. Am hoping for another day tomorrow but might be pushing my luck, I'll try and see.

Still at the beginners stage with my mill, following what Wolfie did a year, or was it two, ago. Completed making six sets of parallels, 10, 20, 25, 30, 40 & 50mm high, or thereabouts, and about 4 inches long, milled on all four edges, today, so very pleased.

Next job is to clean up the mill, it's in dire need of one, and then make a new motor bracket for it, a far more robust one to hopefully reduce vibration coming from the motor.

Chris

Jason, what you have just said confirms what I was thinking, that as an alternative to the set-over method of screw cutting the plunge and and a bit of side cut will produce the same end result, that is, the front of the tool taking the majority of the cut and the back of the tool taking just a skim or cleaning up cut. I think!

Chris

Les, you are absolutely right of course, and confirm what I had deduced from drawing, that a 5 thou cut on the cross slide would require a 3 thou ( 5 x 0.6 ) feed in on the top slide - I just didn't believe my figures! This would produce a result not a million miles away from that achieved by the set-over method.

I would like to try the set-over method, but on my lathe I'm into guess work territory as the scale on the top slide doesn't go round far enough and would be masked at the zero point on the cross slide anyway, unless I can accurately set a new zero at 90 deg to the original on the cross slide.

Chris.

On the subject of thread cutting I was not taught the set-over method but the straight in method, adding a little - a fraction - of a feed along with the top slide with every feed in with the cross slide.

What I have never known though is how much top slide feed to add to every cross slide feed.

Anyone have a guide on this?

Sorry if this is deviating a bit from the OP.

Chris

If you are a clever dick and have a tapped hole that is a bit tight you're tempted to wack a tap down it all gung-ho to clear it.

Well, I was a clever dick and now I have a broken cast steel tap stuck in an M4 tapped hole - it is one of the tool securing holes in the QC tool holder.

Fortunately, it is the last one, the one farthest from the job, so I can live without it, but would prefer to live with it being operational.

So the question is, how do I get the broken tap out?

Chris

Derek - "grumpy old gits" - careful, I resemble that remark.

Chris

PS. I would also recommend what Carl has suggested, and HH's "Lathe" course book too.

Axminster Tools do a good range of couplings, male, female, hose ends, etc, plus sell hoses complete or by the meter. I got my stuff from them and have been pleased. Plus they sell on-line if an outlet is not near to you.

No connection other than satisfied customer of course!

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 26/01/2014 18:04:00

Yes, it is a direct drive one and I am rather stuck with it at the moment, Senior Management would not approve of further Cap-Ex at the moment, plus I am stuck for floor space, the shop is small and no room available for anything bigger, plus stowage outside is not an option.

I was planning on a closed box with a right angled lined passageway for an air inlet. Martin's foam tiles inside the box might do the trick, will talk to the company first for their advice, but it seems it could be the way to go.

Chris

I have a little air compressor in my workshop which is very good but very noisy, not only for me working in the shop but for the neighbours too.

I need to box it in using some form of sound deadening, whilst still allowing it to suck air. Boxing it in is not the problem; insulating the sound without spending a fortune is.

Any ideas on what to use for noise insulation that is cheap? The box would only be about 2ft x 2ft x 1ft - it is only a little compressor!

I have found M-Machine Metals, they are on the web, very comprehensive in available stock, cheerful and helpful on the phone, and delivery prompt and not too severe in cost. No connection, just a satisfied customer.

Chris

In the 1980's I worked in the engineering department of a dairy. We had a nice young lad come and work with us for a while who was on some sort of practical work experience part of his degree course, he was quite willing but still wet behind the ears as you might expect, not terribly practical at that age but into new technology.

We had some new (milk) bottle conveyoring on order that had to come across the dairy floor. Now the conveyor had to be level for the bottles, but the floor had a definite slope and we needed to know what that slope was so the conveyor legs could be made to ensure the bottle conveyor was as desired, level.

So straight after lunch one day I took him across to the dairy and set him the task of calculating the dairy floor slope, suggesting in the absence of any tools or instruments that if he got a length of clear hose sufficient to traverse the floor and then a bit, filled it with water, and made each end of the hose vertical either side of the floor, all he had to do was measure the height of water in the hose at each side of the floor and the distance they were apart and then it was just a simple bit of maths to get the slope angle of the floor.

Off he went muttering about how HE was not going to use 16th century technology, how there was bound be be an up to date modern way of doing things......... I left him to it - "learning by experience" my old workshop technology lecturer used to say.

Nearly four hours later he returned with the result of his calculations. I enquired how he had arrived at the result. After three and a half hours of struggling to come up with a modern technology method with which to calculate the slope, he sheepishly admitted that 16th century technology had something going for it after all...!

I was pleased on two counts, one - I had the information I needed, and two - the lad had learned a valuable lesson that afternoon in appraising situations and tackling problems. A win-win result!

I used to be a 'boiler inspector', or pressure vessels surveyor, in an earlier life many moons ago. There were then no qualifications as such specific to becoming a boiler inspector, before the insuring company took you on you had to have qualifications relating to your previous career or employment; in my case I had a Combined First Class Certificate of Competency as an engineer in the Merchant Navy.

The Statutory Regulations then existing governing the inspection of pressure vessels did not specify a particular qualification either, they just required the survey to be carried out by a 'Competent Person'. No specific definition of a competent person existed either - gets very vague doesn't it - though the definition used by the insurance company boiled down to as 'a person with the knowledge and experience of the faults likely to be found and where to look to find them', or words very similar. As I said, many moons ago.

All this may well not be the case now but it was then and the system worked very well. Mind you, we then had a Merchant Navy to supply surveyors and we had a widespread, numerous and productive manufacturing industry, or industries, in which to employ them.

I set this down to illustrate that a 'qualified boiler inspector' may not be qualified in the way the term might suggest, and only out of interest, as at the end of the day who cares providing the signature is on the right bit of paper that certifies your boiler!'

Ah bliss, sitting before a roaring log fire, foul night outside, arm round the dog, feet on the wife, and a glass of single malt............ Who cares if the brass on the poker is shiny or not

I'm confused, how do you combine 'women' and 'logic' in the same sentence .....................?

Edited By ChrisH on 11/01/2014 21:47:05