Member postings for mgnbuk

**LINK**

**LINK**

I think there are other suppliers, but can't recall the names at the moment.

They can work well, but are not without "issues". The closed size mentioned above is one - you need space to fit them & the centereing cup / spigot they require. In operation, they tend to stick when they get oily & they can be "interesting" to fit. Better than bellows in a horizontal application, though, as bellows tend to get caught in the thread of screws & eventually tear.

Nigel B

The Warco 918 metric version will probably be M39 x 4 - backplate part number 5424 @ £36 each

**LINK**

Warco also did a version of the 918 with the Myford nose IIRC, which is probably the Imperial version they show.

Chester list their equivalent as 40 x 4, but while the "M39" is the thread, the parallel register is 40 diameter (according to a Roehm spindle nose drawing), so Chester may be refering to that in their description.

A call to either should confirm suitability. IIRC pretty well all the 918/920 machines were originally supplied with both 3 jaw SC & 4 jaw independant chucks and a faceplate, so probably not much call for plain backplates.

HTH

Nigel B

I had noticed this also, trying to follow the gearcutting article. I have not found this to be the easiest article to follow with the illustrations numbered - without numbering I gave up trying last night.

Proof reading oversight perhaps ?

Nigel B

I must beg to differ.

For the Tigers, Maybachs were used :

**LINK**

The Elephants were a differnt kettle of cod - courtesy Wikipedia :

Porsche GmbH had manufactured about one hundred chassis for their unsuccessful proposal for the Tiger tank, the "Porsche Tiger", in the Nibelungenwerk factory in Sankt Valentin, Austria. Both the successful Henschel proposal and the Porsche design used the same Krupp-designed turret—the Henschel design had its turret more-or-less centrally located on its hull, while the Porsche design placed the turret much closer to the front of the superstructure. Since the competing Henschel Tiger design was chosen for production, the Porsche chassis were no longer required for the Tiger tank project. It was therefore decided that the Porsche chassis were to be used as the basis of a new heavy tank destroyer, Ferdinand, mounting Krupp's newly developed 88 mm (3.5 in) Panzerjägerkanone 43/2^[1][2][3] anti-tank gun.

and

The two Porsche air cooled engines in each vehicle were replaced by two 300 PS (296 hp; 221 kW) Maybach HL 120 TRM engines

So non of them used Porsche engines in production - all used Maybachs, as the prototype air-cooled Porsche engines used in the Porsche Tiger contender electric drive system were grossly unreliable. IIRC (from recent reading of a history of the Tigers) at the demonstration of both the Porsche & Henschel prototypes to AH the Porsche entrant broke down.

Porsche built the engines for Tiger tanks, Ferdinand and Elefant

I think you will find that Maybach built the engines for those vehicles.

PS. of course it was also made in Belfast where Shorts were also established

And also on Lake Windemere

**LINK**

Nigel B

I have a Vertex K4 vice, which is similar capacity to your second link & like this :

**LINK**

Slightly less capacity (62mm vs 80 mm jaw opening), but a more robust construction I think - that extra capacity comes at the price of less rigidity.

I use it on a Taiwanese Emco FB2 clone like this one :

**LINK**

The table is 150 wide by 600 long (IIRC. It has 400mm long travel) & the K4 is usable for much of what I do. It's limited opening is a problem on occasions & I am looking at the Arc 90mm toolroom vice to be able to hold wider material. I did buy a vice similar to your first link from Axminster Power Tools - it was returned because the particular vice supplied was very poorly finished, but I was suprised at it's overall size & think it would have overwhelmed the machine. I don't think that the toolroom vice would be short of holding power (I have a similar style Sherline vice that works well) & being hardened steel should be resiliant. Most "high end" industrial vices like Geradi are hardened steel. I do like the look of this one from Arc :

**LINK**

but still think it would be too big for my mill

Given the small stature of your machine, I don't think it will be necessary to beat the vice to death to clamp the workpiece firmly enough - most likely something else would give first !

I have a set of "normal" parallels from RDG at work - accurately made & a good price compared to industrial suppliers. My set of "thin" parallels at home came from a Harrogate exhibition - Rotagrip IIRC - which are also accurate.

HTH

Nigel B

It could be a build up of carbon dust around the brush holders.

+1.

Used to happen quite frequently on industrial DC spindle & servo motors when these were common. Sometimes the semiconductor fuse would blow but, more often with earlier drives, the thyristors would often blow to protect the fuse.

Before stripping the motor down, try removing all the brushes, take the motor outside & blow through the brush holders with dry compressed air. This frequently ejects the build up of dust (hence the "take it outside" bit !) - replace the brushes & you are good to go. Couldn't do this with spindle motors with external blowers though - usually a build-up of coolant residues would cause the brush dust the adhere to the brush holders & required the use of solvents to wash out the conductive gunk. Most of this type of motor had removable access plates at the brush gear end, so access was not usually too bad. It was usual to find bright "splash" marks on the brass brusholders where the tracking had taken place.

Nigel B

**LINK**

I haven't worked on a VTL this big, but did put a control system on a Craven used to turn the bearing ring surface on the underside of Callenger tank turret castings at the old ROF Barnbow factory near Leeds. The company that rebuilt the machine did a promotional video with their works Escort van on the table with it rotating under the cross rail.

Also worked on a Crawford Swift roll turning lathe, a bit like this one:

**LINK**

As part of a rebuild & CNC conversion, 12" rising blocks were fitted under the headstock & tailstock to increase the swing to around 60" & IIRC it was 40' between centres with a 125 hp main drive. If the operator started a cut at the start of his shift, the cut had not finished when he went off shift. The operator's boiler suit was polished down one side, where he leaned on the roll as it rotated so he could watch the tool - prompt action being required if the insert failed to prevent damage to the holder. The swarf came off like car coil springs, slowly coiling up above the tool until it got too heavy & then dropped with a "clang" through ramps cast in the bed to a conveyor below. I can't recall exact speeds & feeds, but the inserts were about 2" square, run at full depth at around 1/8"/rev and probably 10 rpm or less IIRC

Large machine tools are interesting things to work on.

By way of example, BMW only make engines with 0.5L per cylinder.

Really ? I had a 6 cylinder 2.8 litre 5 Series company car in the late '80s. At the time there were also 2.5 litre and 3.5 litre sixes, non of which would have been 0.5l cylinders ?

Yes, received a delivery from them yesterday at work. Don't use them a lot, as they are a lot more expensive than other suppliers like Cutwel for many of our tooling needs (and than when they used to be J & L Industrial Supply), but they do some things the others don't - 2mm ground carbide rods yesterday.

They have a huge distribution centre in the West Midlands that I used to call in to when I was on the road - used to be free coffee & donuts in the showroom & they had a "clearance corner" that was usually worth a rummage.

Nigel B

"Does anyone know who owns FIAT ?"

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, also known as FCA, is an Italian-controlled multinational corporation^[6][7] and currently the world’s seventh-largest auto maker.^[8] The group was established in late 2014 by merging Fiat S.p.A. into a new holding company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V., which is incorporated in the Netherlands (with headquarters in Amsterdam) for tax purposes. The holding company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Borsa Italiana in Milan.^[9] Exor S.p.A, an Italian investment group owned by the Agnelli family, owns 29.19% of FCA and controls 44.31% through a loyalty voting mechanism

As a Fiat owner (Ducato motorhome), I would rather have a Fiat than a Transit or Sprinter. Probably just as well, as Fiat have something like 90% of the motorhome base vehicle market.

Nigel B

LASER-6058-TAP-SOCKET-SET

It would have made my life a lot easier had this been posted a couple of weeks ago, as I had to tap 6 off awkwardly placed M12 threads in a steel plate last week using an adjustable spanner - my hands have almost recovered now. A set is on order for next time - thanks for the link.

If your pockets are deep enough (and the part warrants the cost), hard chrome plating works well for recovering worn shafts. Not a DIY operation, but I have read of people using the home electroplating kits to put on a couple of thou of nickel plate to build up slightly undersize parts.

Nigel B

Just because you can machine CI dry doesn't mean that you have to do so - coolant does have the advantage of keeping the dust down. You do need to clean the coolant tank out soon after finishing, though, as any swarf that makes it's way into the tank eventually sets like concrete.

Nigel B

Rare swivel table? Mine has one and so do most of the larger ones I have used in the past. Is he confusing “swivelling table” with his swivelling vice I wonder?

Rare on a Boxford shaper - most seem to have been supplied with a fixed table. My Boxford has the fixed table, machined with tee slots & a swivel vice mounting hole on the top face and tee slots, a swivel vice mounting hole and a shallow vee on the RH face. Mine came with the swivel vice - many on Ebay are missing this.

**LINK**

I would be very happy to get a similar price for mine if I chose to move it on.

Nigel B

I use Jizer Janitol Rapide to clean machinery at work - a water based caustic cleaner supplied as a concentrate diluted to apply. I reuse squirty bottles to apply it, diluted about 4 parts water :1 part Janitol & remove with paper towels. This works particularly well on machines that have been used with coolant, as it removes coolant residues much better than paraffin based degreasers. A wipe over machined surfaces with Duck Oil keeps rust at bay. Wear rubber gloves & use eye protection - but you should be doing that with any degreaser anyway.

Nigel B.

the fact that the pilot was an ex US Navy carrier

Chesley Sullenberger was an ex-Air Force pilot, not Navy. Probably still had ditching training, though.

Chris Richards asked the original question about a stand alone device. He has since bought one of the £400 two axis lathe controllers

Hopefully Chris will report back with more details of his experience when he is up and running.

The Chinese stand-alone control looks like it would do most of what I would want a turning control to do.

The area clearance & threading cycles seem to use the Fanuc 0T appproach, having the cycle parameters entered over two lines. I was a little amused to see that their diagrams for the cycles (and TNRC) appear to be "borrowed" directly from the genuine Fanuc manuals - that's one approach to "Fanuc compatibility" !

Their implementation of the G31 "Skip" function appears flawed and rather pointless without an equivalent to "Custom Macro B" (parametric programming). No dedicated high speed input(s) for probing & no ability to manipulate data in the program means no automatic tool offset setting or part probing routines & possibly dubious repeatabilty.

I am suprised to see no "Control operational" (or Watchdog) output (same goes for the Massa here). I would not be happy to fit a control that had no form of internal hardware & software monitoring to any machine in an industrial or educational environment (you are a braver man than me if that is what you are proposing, John). I appreciate that these are "open loop" controls (no position feedback from the axes) & may be less likely to run away if a fault developed, but even Mach 3 had the "charge pump" arrangement to drop the drives if there was a computer glitch.

I will report back on the Chinese USB board when it arrives. I had seen the 25 line demo limitation (and the release code cost is more than €69, as 22% Slovenian Vat has to be added to that). While it is, in effect, a GRBL on steroids, it looks like it should be possible to program straightforward 2 1/2 D milling without having to go down the CAM route that GRBL would require, as GRBL doesn't support tool radius comp.

As it stands at the moment, the Massa is too expensive (for me) for what it offers - I look at it on the basis that the functionality is what it ships with now, as promises of future functionality are just that & may or may not come to pass. Going to a subscription model to retain the functionality on a month-by-month basis to fund (and maybe improve) the functionality would kill it completely for me. The genuine Planet CNC 4 axis board with spindle control sub-board & software licence is around £280 inc. Vat delivered from Zapp Automation - my opinion is that when Massa reaches a similar level of functionality, it should be much nearer that pricing than it is at present to be sucessful. SWMBO would take a lot of convincicng to allow me to drop in excess of a week's gross salary on a circuit board !

Haven't looked very deeply at Linuc CNC - both the desktops I tried didn't do very well on the latency / jitter front, so I got no further, though I may try the DAK Engineering TurboCNC Dos solution on one of those.

Nigel B