Member postings for Jeff Dayman

Hi David, I take it the shown bracket / drive / cutter setup will be used with a dividing head holding the gear to be cut, all mounted to the mill? Looks good! Did you buy the urethane belt made to length or did you get the belt stock as cord and cut / thermal weld it together? Cheers! PS look forward to the next epic epicyclic episode....8^)

Hi Gary, Fellow Ontarian here. Some good ideas for a simple battery electric at the link below. It's Jan Eric Nystrom's Quickie. J-E is in Finland. He needed a quick cheap compact locomotive for his kids to run.

http://sparetimelabs.com/animato/animato/3003/3003bg.html

Engineering In Miniature magazine is currently running a series "Sub500" on the build of two "under 500 UK pound cost" battery electric locomotives at the moment. Authors are Rich Wightman and Julian Harrison. I'm sure someone at GHLS will be an EIM subscriber, maybe could lend you the mags to see the articles.

You might also search this site for Ron Laden's recent build.

Very nice job re-purposing the old frypans Graham! well done, and satisfied clients in the picture too. What's the optimal rotation speed of the top pan to eject thieving squirrels? 8^) Nice to see this post.

Suggest providing a fully dimensioned sketch with critical parameters and finishes if you want sensible suggestions. Ground finish on a part that is formed metal seems contradictory. " 2" wide x 1/2" thick " describes 2 dimensions - at least three dimensions are needed to describe even the simplest 3D objects.

I have been doing oxy-acetylene and oxy-propane bronze weld / brazed repairs on mild steel outdoor equipment for over 30 years and have never had the area around the welds corrode, apart from light rust on unpainted areas. A coat of paint or some kind of oil is always a good idea on any exposed steel. Some of the cheaper brand US made mowers had no paint on the deck underside from the factory, so they rusted fast. After bronze welding in mild steel patches, and a dab of spray paint over the welded areas, many have lasted 25 to 30 years without any trouble, usually the cheapy low grade engine wears out before the patched deck rusts out.

My Dad (professional auto mechanic for 50 years) did hundreds of mower decks same way, and many thousands of all sorts of car repairs from rusted oil pans to leaky mild steel exhaust tubes to broken manifolds - with no issues. In his working life today's flux cored MIG sets were either unavailable or very high cost. No doubt the new MIG sets are good, just pointing out they are not the only game in town for successful repairs, and thousands of mechanics got along just fine without them!

I would suggest not overthinking it. If you can paint or oil spray welded repairs, go ahead, if not, don't sweat it, worrying about corrosion. In my opinion corrosion caused by bronze welding in practical repair cases will not be a worry at all desite all the theories.

Thanks Mike for the drawing. I'm not sure of the tensile strength of the silver you are using, but based on previous jobs I have worked on with silver alloys used in electrical contacts, I estimate the bend force per 48 mm long bend to be a few hundred pounds max. I think mild steel would be fine for the dies unless you plan to run millions and millions of the parts. If you use higher strength material rather than silver, or plan to run huge qty's, use gauge plate. Just my opinion.

PS- to your question 2 about re "cutouts" - if you are referring to the two holes at the inner ends of the thin slots, they're probably done as a crack prevention strategy and possibly as a sawing blade relief at end of cuts.

Since we have no idea what the finished bent part needs to look like, it's pretty hard to address your questions. More info please.

Generally speaking, gauge plate will have much longer life than mild steel in many tooling situations. Whether its' extra cost and the lower machinability of gauge plate are justified depends on the loads it will see and how many operations it needs to perform.

I have not come across plummer blocks that have an integral thrust bearing. However you could use the type at the link below with a heavy washer (see down the link page) either side of the needle thrust bearing. This would deal with the thrust load and they are not too expensive. I am not sure where you are but any industrial supply or bearing supply firm will be able you get you one. I have such a thrust bearing set up in my 1949 South Bend lathe and it has performed well for over 16 years even under heavy drilling loads. The original ball thrust bearing in the lathe had heavy wear and some flat spots on the balls. So far no sign of wear on the needle thrust bearing. I lube my lathe with iso 32 hydraulic jack oil which works well and is easily available.

https://www.mcmaster.com/products/thrust-bearings/roller-bearing-type~needle/

Welcome Eric! look forward to seeing your projects as they go along.

Using a borrowed welder or taking it to a welding shop is probably the best way. But maybe you could cut some grooves in the race parallel to the faces of it, halfway up, deep as possible, and use a clutch pilot bearing puller or similar. Cutoff disks in a Dremel type tool could do this. You also might try using a CO2 fire extinguisher to thermally shock the race before pulling it.

When one can buy a well made and fairly accurate bourdon type pressure gauge for around 8 US dollars (or your local equivalent) why are we discussing ways for the OP make an inferior alternate? See link to e b ay example candidate below.

https://www.ebay.ca/b/Air-Pressure-Gauges/183985/bn_1519221

If you want to check the thread accurately you could google "thread measurement over Van Keuren wires" which is a method that measures the thread geometry at or near the actual pitch diameter of the thread and takes away variables of tool radius, profile, etc. Assuming thread flank angle is correct and root radius is not too large, if your thread measures correct "to the tables dimension" using correct sized wires and a micrometer, it's very likely to fit a "to spec" nut. Just food for thought.

The loose wire is likely to a kill switch that shorts the coil primary to shut off the engine.

14.5 mm divided by 25.4 = .5708 inches. Nearest inch size std endmill would be 9/16" or .5625". Bear in mind that endmills often do not cut to their exact diameter. If you are trying to produce an exact 14.5 mm hole or slot you may have to make a few cuts with a smaller endmill to reach the desired size feature. Hope this helps.

+1 on no gloves while operating machine tools. One useful item in my shop used when turning brass is a chip shield. It's just a 100 x 100 mm / 4 x 4" rectangle of 2 mm thick transparent un-coloured Lexan sheet mounted on a stand of scrap steel bar, with a magnetic base under it. (Perspex or Makrolon or other brands of transparent acrylic or polycarbonate sheet will do just fine, any thickness around 2 to 4 mm will do, really). I position the shield where the brass chips are coming off the work and place the magnet base on the compound slide or carriage to hold it there. For cleaning up the chips afterward a brush is best. Not a good idea to use compressed air to move brass chips. Good luck Margaret, hope these ideas help.

Best wishes to your Dad Alistair! I always enjoyed his posts on his projects. The fibre optic clock was a work of art! Good luck with your workshop sort-out. Cheers from Canada!

Mate Enumerator is the best auto sequencing seq number punch I found in industry. They are heavy duty professional press tools and are priced as such, but they are top quality.

https://www.mate.com/product/punch-press-tooling/popular-special-applications/enumerator/

You can find some easy to make engines planned for fabrication from solid stock if you search for "elmer's engines" or "elmer verburg" in google. Mr Verburg designed and published plans for a whole series of simple fabricated engines which are a great training exercise for beginners. Mr Julius De Waal has redrawn several of these in CAD and with metric dimensions and fasteners also. There are free to download plans floating around in several places on the internet. I suggest starting with these low cost simple engines to develop your machining skills before tackling Stuart casting kits. You could also make some useful hand tools like parallel clamps, finger plate, tap wrenches, etc from steel scraps to get started. I still use some of the simple tools I made 40 odd years ago, They look awful but work great.

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 12/06/2023 12:49:30

If the problem with wear on the OP's machine is causing the table to sag at the front, so the drill is no longer square to it, a simple prop made of a heavy threaded rod and long nut can be used to get it square for a job. The prop is fitted between the table and base, and the table front jacked up under the table while checking between table and drill for square. If the wear is not huge sometimes shims of brass or aluminum sheet can be placed between column and table collar. If these work they can be loctited in place. Crude, but these methods work, at minimal cost and effort. A drill press is not a precision hole making tool but a badly worn one can still be adjusted to do plenty of work.

If the table won't clamp securely to the column don't force the clamp screw, it may break. Adding some shims may also help clamping.

She's got the right screwdriver for the job, anyway! 8^)

(maybe she's the local body and paint wizard's daughter, not the car owner's)