Member postings for Clive Foster

Small continuous run compressors fitted with unloader valves frequently use relatively small motors that don't have sufficient power to start against a pressurised tank. Motor is fine running up to pressure but doesn't have the oomph to start it under load.

To convert it to  motor start - stop operation you will need a modern pressure controlled starter switch with an outlet vent in the off position.

Easy way to set up is to add an auxiliary tank / manifold to the outlet side connected to the tank via a non return valve and vented via the pressure switch. When the tank reaches the set pressure the motor turns off and the manifold vents down to atmospheric pressure so there is no back pressure when the motor restarts. Auxiliary tank / manifold doesn't have to be very large. From memory the outlet collection manifold on my Atlas Copco KE1 16 cfm rated Vee twin was around 3" diameter and a bit over 1 ft long. Plenty big enough. Your compressor looks smaller so maybe your manifold is large enough as is.

Swanky way is to add an electrically controlled valve between the tank and the unloader valves in place of the existing pressure controlled valve. Use a time delay relay to open the valve for a few seconds when the pressure controlled motor switch kicks in.

I have a PDF of the KE1 manual with the basic details on how continuous operation and starter pressure switch unloading is set up on commercial machines. PM me if you'd like a copy.

I simply vented the manifold and the KE1 worked fine. Far as I know it's still going strong 3 owners and 20 years down the line. I'd have heard if it broke!

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 04/09/2023 10:09:45

jon

That Soba vice is a decent design but the jaws are essentially free floating in swivel. So it can only securely hold things that are pretty much centralised across the jaws. Put something on one side an it will tend to be pushed out unless you have a matching spacer the other side.

It's arguable that vices of that layout have too much swivel capability on the moving jaw, something approaching 30° each way I think, so significantly tapered items can be held. But with only limited frictional grip so things can relatively easily be spat out. Aluminium or soft fibre jaw covers are desirable when holding something with significant taper. But it will hold such tapered things quite easily, unlike other styles. I've seen a blank end morse taper held in a vice of that style so a cross hole could be drilled. That would have been a major pain with other types of vice.

As ever there are always compromises involved so its important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of what you have and work in an appropriate manner.

Bottom line is that designs for securely aligned jaws are the province of milling vices which are much heavier, more expensive and need higher jaw forces to hold things. Despite all the extra cost they don't hold uneven or tapered companies as well as a relatively inexpensive drill press vice having some jaw float enabling it to self align on whats being held will.

Clive

In my view the Nippy is the gold standard for small drill press vices made to hold adequately true stock and parts accurately. Not so good as a vice with more floaty jaws with mis-shaped things tho'.

Capacity is 3 1/2" width by 2" opening with an extra 1" of opening for things that can be held via a shallow surface by removing the top jaw plates. If they can still be bought new they will be too expensive but they do turn up second hand at not too silly prices.

Making auxiliary jaws with a suitable selection of similarity proportioned slots for your vice would solve the issues you have.

Pictures

Jaws close up

Underside.

Note the relatively substantial guide plate needed to improve jaw stability so it can cope with the side V slots. Jon probably did something similar to his vice to minimise lift and making it stable enough for very light milling. Something I'd not do on any drill press vice however well modified although the Nippy might well be up to work on the end of round stock held in the substantial centre V.

Hope this provides some inspiration.

Clive

MichealG

Unless there are serious constructional or manufacturing deficiencies there is, from the specification at least, nothing wrong with that little Eclipse vice.

For the job it is designed to do.

Namely hold parts or stock by gripping along the line of the jaws so they may safely be drilled. Some degree of float in the moving jaw is a desirable trait as drill vices must be made to accommodate completed parts, unfinished stock and similar items that may not have both sides true.

Complaining that it won't do other things is silly. At the inexpensive end of things you have to accept that things tend to be one trick ponies. Although well chosen accessories can often add other tricks to the repertoire.

As I said previously best answer for holding round stock is set of auxiliary jaw pads with a vertical and a horizontal V slots running through the middle. I'd make two one with narrow slots for very small work and one with larger ones. Unfortunately copying the excellent Nippy set up is a non starter as the moving jaw isn't sufficiently stable to cope with the V slots each side of the middle. Actually not a bad idea to make three sets copying the sizes used on the Nippy.

]The Nippy is an excellent vice. I bought one after using one at work.

But the limited float on the moving jaw restricts grip on non parallel parts. I've seen part self ejection when used by careless folk at work

Back on topic I'm a little surprised that no V slot auxiliary jaws are sold for these inexpensive vices.

Better to spend time making accessories for what you have rather than waste money on another cheapie of slightly different specification that will perform no better in practice.

Clive

That Harlingen vice isn't really any better. The V slots are tiny and only in the static jaw so poor self alignment and compromised grip.

The V slots need to be on both jaws and large enough to stabilise around the work if things are to be held safely.

Have look at the old Nippy vice to see what an effective set of V slots looks like. The Nippy has less float on its moving jaw than is common with drill press vices so it can get away with the two off centre vertical V slots. But the jaw still floats a bit to accommodate uneven workpieces.

Or take a look at something like the Irwin Record REC414 which takes the floating thing really seriously having a non lifting swivelling moving jaw with V slots in both moving and fixed jaws to safely hold a variety of shapes. But you won't like the price.

It cannot be over-emphasised that drill press vices are made so the jaws float onto what's being held so that the grip is secure when a part is casually put in the vice. The part defines the jaw alignment not the vice body. Within reason.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 02/09/2023 00:18:03

Typical inexpensive drill vice with a small amount of designed in float for the moving jaw so it has a decent grip on things lying along the jaws even if they have some taper or unevenness along the gripped sides.

If you want to hold a rod vertical, or accurately restrain a round part, you need either replacement jaws or accessory jaws with a vertical V in the middle dead in line with the clamping screw. The V will constrain the jaw float so the work is gripped properly and held vertical. Assuming the part is round and without taper.

Milling vices are designed and made to accurately hold jaw alignment when tightened. Parts are assumed to be decently parallel on the gripped faces or be held in shaped jaws so the rigidly moving jaws have good contact. Much more expensive and much more demanding on work-piece tolerances.

Drill vices ideally have to hold any old crappy bit of stuff well enough not to self eject. Hence jaw float.

Clive

I've had a folding one from Cover Systems for over 20 years which is pretty sturdy.

Fabric only lasts around 4 years before the sun makers it too weak. The ground attachments needed a bit of extra engineering to be really solid. Frame is heavily galvanised.

Most of the tent type look a little flimsy to my eyes.

Clive

Great thing about physical handbooks, whatever the size, is that you get to know where the stuff you need to look up or always forget is.

Internet tends to be more variable. Sometimes favourite "go to" sites change or even disappear. RoyMech(?) was great.

I have 3 hard copies of Machinery's. All got second hand to be affordable. Last one is the large desktop version. Not a lot of use but when I need them I need them. Same with Caxtons, Newness, Kempes et all. All have something the others don't.

Older ones are more important to me than most as I see a lot of old stuff that needs fixing.

That said Zeus books are the ones I use most. 3 in the workshop and one in the house for instant information.

I have several other compact sources too.

I wonder if a comparison article covering the modern, smaller, references would be useful to MEW readers showing what you have in which one. Agree that Zeus is probably the one to get first as its small inexpensive and contains much of the need it in your pocket data.

But which to get next could be a puzzle.

I think I've picked up the lot but I'm an info junkie and there are significant differences making the best one dependant on what you do. Even Zeus editions vary.

Clive

Looks good but to my eyes its way to big and the whole line assembly holds far too much fluid.

Banjo unions too. Yuck.

My experience is that to guarantee proper bleeding, especially with stainless braided (Goodridge et al) lines the total fluid capacity of one pipe run must be less than the brake calliper contents so one side can be fully flushed with the other side pistons strapped down into full retraction. Usually such extreme measures aren't necessary but sometimes you get bubbles that just won't shift.

Shudders at the memory of a wasted weekend almost taming a friends 1000 cc Kamasaki four pot.

I use straight angle connectors with baby T unions, the bronze ones they used to fit the Girling systems on Minis et al if I can get them. Straight through all the way so the fluid flows properly and drives the air up and out when the pistons go back.

All done in one run through.

I've always had a thing about front brakes working.

If they can't lock the wheel at ton plus they get sorted.

Right from the superb 8" single sided one on my DB32 Goldie (190 mm, crap, way too hard to set up right) through the unfairly maligned BSA/Triumph TLS conical hub to the 4 pot Yamaha ex FJ 1200 pair that replaced the standard twin piston Yamaha crop on my Norton Commander.

Finally giving it brakes to match the big rotarys performance. Quote from the official unofficial kid sister, the girl who put the agg, res and sive into aggressive riding, "Grandad bikes shouldn't be so fast." Coercing BMW brakes to behave was a total pain. Especially the lunatic swinging caliber ASTE versions.

Clive

Pattex branded cyanoacrylate (superglue) worked fine for me when I put magnets into the aluminium soft jaw covers I use on my big Record vice. Magnets came from a LiDL "40 pack" and were recessed into the alloy. Cleaned before sticking but not abraded.

I have my doubts about Pinkgrip. Instructions say one surface should be porous. My experience is that sticking metal or similar impermeable substance on to wood or similar surfaces results in far longer drying times, up to 2 days, than sticking to porous surfaces together.

Clive

Probably best to assume you won't get it right first time and pick up something used to play with. Decently affordable and reasonably close to what you think you need shouldn't be hard to fine given a bit of patience.

Prices for used machines in acceptable condition tend to be quite stable so you shouldn't loose significant money.

Think of it as paying for training.

Nothing like experience to sort the wheat of what you actually want from the chaff of what you think you want.

Without practical experience as a guide even the most careful pre-purchase consideration and analysis tends to become a case study in screwing up by the numbers. Even experienced folk with all the qualifications get it wrong.

Not to mention that once you have got the beast what you actually end up doing is often way different to what you planned.

Case in point I went from BCA to Bridgeport via a Chester Lux style, large square column bench mill. The big bench mill turned out to be classic screwing up by the numbers. Perfectly valid analysis. But, for me, unliveable with in real life. Nothing against the machines considerable capabilities, purely wrong style of machine for what I ended up doing. Full scale, not model.

Beginning with the assumption that first purchase is "starter mill" and being willing to change as soon as you outgrow it is great protection against the sunk cost trap. "Spent a fortune on this so I'm darn well gonna make it work." A great time sink that rarely ends well. Having decided before purchase that you expect to change it makes something to quite to specification much more acceptable too.

Clive

Nigel

Simple way uses the DRO zero and half functions with a solid rod in teh chuck as an indicator.

Set up as best you can by eye.

Choose an axis.

Move until the rod just touches one side of the bore being centred.

Zero the axis.

Move until the other side just touches the rod.

Hit the hard setting button.

Move to zero which should be in the middle of that axis.

Repeat touch off process and zeroing on other axis.

Zero - zero should now be in the middle to within the error of your touch off process.

Repeat process to verify before starting work.

As touch off errors are opposite they tend to cancel out assuming your process is reliable. Generally feeling for drag as you rotate the spindle is good enough.

An advantage of co-axial indicators is that they will show up non circular bores. The DRO method only finds the centre relative to the testing lines.

Clive

Brian

Thanks for the reminder that both Zoro and Cromwell are different faces of the same firm. Which is basically a drop-ship order fulfilment site not a supply from stock outfit. I imagine their suppliers basically treat the Zoro / Cromwell cut as advertising and outsourcing all the hassle of dealing with individual customers.

The sites aren't exactly comparison friendly! Rarely worth the mucking about unless the item is expensive. I've finally grown up enough to realise that "could have saved a quid or two" isn't worth the effort for something half way reasonably priced for what it is.

As Michael showed Google really is your friend for such things.

Clive

I think Andrew got a new spoon for his birthday!

Seriously it's pretty much an impossible distinction. Especially in the context of a small local display with limited number of entries. Where do you draw the lines between made with hand tools, made with machine tools made with CNC et al. Ultimately its going to be down to quality of finish and "wow I like that" factor.

Even in the Model Engineering world where there is some appreciation for techniques and how difficult something is to do judgement is ultimately on finite and finish. Complexity and difficulty get extra points once the looks really good hurdle is crossed but it has to look good first.

When you put something in a display competition it's a "this is what I made at home" beauty contest.

When it comes things like vehicle restoration it is tacitly accepted that the professionals did most, or even all of the work. No fundamental difference there to the racehorse owner getting the trophy for winning the race!

Rather than go overboard on distinctions better to have a text panel briefly saying what the entrant had to do, what tools were needed and how long it took. The just lookers will ignore it, the folk who are interested will read it and the person thinking "I might like to do that" will find it useful.

Clive

What make of DRO?

Do you have the instruction manual to check what type of input the DRO expects.

In general all scales and DRO boxes using quadrature signals are compatible but there may be issues with the connecting plugs and sockets. Machine DRO offer adapter cables for many combinations of different makes.

Virtually all the modern affordable import DRO boxes are quadrature.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 05/08/2023 13:23:18

Besides tooling and machine rigidity material quality is an important factor in getting a good finish.

Is your hot rolled steel to a proper specification from from an engineering materials supplier or just a lump from a steel stockholder primarily providing materials to the structural community. If its the latter you could be in for a nasty shock when trying to machine it.

If it is at all dubious odds are the only way you have a hope of getting a good finish is to turn it in a four jaw. If you have any offcuts experiment first.

Cautionary tale

Due to placing an order with brain disengaged I ended up with 9 metres of nominal 25 mm by 300 mm steel bar that is exceedingly difficult to cut and seriously hard work to get a decent finish on it. Cutting is an abrasive disk job and machining needs coolant, a respectably stiff machine and sharp high quality cutters able to run at a decent speed.

My shaper leaves a finish like a ploughed field and its not terribly impressed by a flycutter.

Fortunately I have ex-industrial machinery and can afford higher end HSS milling cutters for the Bridgeport but the finish quality barely makes it to "hafta do".

After a lot of work and creative language.

It does turn reasonably well given good inserts or super-sharp HSS and appropriate feed.

Seriously impressed by the Chronos Little Hogger milling cutter which comes close to a properly decent finish if pushed hard. Kills the inserts tho'. A bigger shell mill with Maydown inserts works OK ish.

Lord knows what the stuff is but it certainly isn't to the specification discussed when I ordered. Frankly I should have left it on the lorry when I saw the invoice had no specification numbers. Supporting my local(ish) small guy kept delivery costs down and I got 9 m for the price of 3 m delivered from more engineering focused folk but false economy in retrospect. Thats the second time I've ended up with crazy stuff from him so won't be buying there again.

Application is totally undemanding so I just wanted "steel". Bad mindset when spending over a months pension in one hit!

Clive

The patent is almost certainly an American "Design Patent" which is basically a more formalised version of copyright protecting certain aesthetic features of a product that the makers consider vital to its appeal.

Pure fluff in engineering terms.

It's tempting to wonder if the elaborate design actually makes any useful improvement in stiffness. A proper engineering analysis would be interesting.

From an engineering perspective titanium is dubious choice of material for something whose purported benefits lie in shape, partial triangulation and wide section, rather than exploitation of material properties. Titanium is a sexy material but it is heavy and difficult to exploit.

Out in the real world good enough is good enough. I suspect any improvements over a well made version of the common design are so far down the marginal end of the spectrum that no one would ever honestly notice. It's awfully easy to convince yourself that the new improved uber expensive version is actually better when seeking justification for the expenditure. Frankly, once good enough performance has been achieved, balance and handling feel count far more when seeking precision operation of such hand held tools than marginal improvements in whatever parameter the sales folk choose to puff up.

Clive

Margaret

The usual form of damage head screw remover devices aren't terribly effective on this sort of screw. The head is too soft for the grooved wotsit to get a grip. It generally just cuts out a cone.

The only sort of extractor for machine screws and bolts that I've found to be anything approaching universally reliable are the grooved pin and hex turning device type sold by Rigid, Snap-On et al at seriously high prices. Drill the bolt, drive the pin in and around 90% of the time it comes out. Hafta accept that sometimes things will be immobile. Way, way too speedy for one job but I've had my moneys worth over a quarter of a century!

The tapered thread easi-out variety can work but are very hard and notorious for snapping off if you apply too much torque or are bit off-line with the spanner. Once snapped you have a really hard bit left stuck in the screw making the problem much worse as it can't be drilled out with normal tooling.

These days I just use a drill to take the head off in that sort of situation. I reckon your screws are M6 so 7 mm drill would do the job. With the heads off things can be separated and the sticking out stubs of the screws turned using a decent set of pliers. On relatively new stuff the threads are rarely jammed so the remains come out quite easily. Problem is usually due to the softish head being deformed when the screw is driven home by powered driver jamming it into the countersink. Slack fitting screws can cock over a bit inn then threads considerably increasing the amount of head jamming.

I recommend Maun parallel grip one for this sort of thing as the jaws are very well made and the parallel motion seems to give abetter hold than the usual pivot style. Spendy (£30 ish for the 160 mm flat nose ones I have) but good.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 29/07/2023 15:37:39

Edited By Clive Foster on 29/07/2023 15:38:11

Need to know the right people to get a definitive answer from official records. I know such a person but generally you'd have to have a pretty good reason before they would help.

Internet search and freely findable information may not be reliable. Plenty of fantasy folk out there wanting to impress people.

With so many people on social media its often possible to find one who shaved in at the same time and would have met the person concerned.

Clive

Bill

Chester still list a hobby lathe size one but the price is insane. More than a bottom end QC I think. Quality doesn't look any better than the one I bought years ago at a relatively less insane price when QC stuff was still expensive.

I wasn't overly impressed by it.

Less than well made in general although the slots were well finished and parallel to the base. I found the centre square too small to make holding 4 tools practical. The indexing plunger didn't locate accurately enough to be really useful. It all worked, but not as well as I'd hoped given the cost.

Shop soiled Myford size ones can be found on E-Bay for £25 right now which might be worth a look. No screws.

I ended up making my own from standard sections which worked well.

Clive