Member postings for Jeff Dayman

The workmate is a great way to do jobs outdoors like cutting grinding etc. especially with a clamp on vise installed.

I have two, but one has a makeshift firebrick/steel forge built on top of it, so it is only semi portable now! But when my son and his friends were young kids and into model rockets, the forge was a great launch pad.

Two workmates are ideal for electric or gas welding if you find a piece of scrap steel plate say 1/8 to 1/4" thick and span it between the two workmates, clamped to each. If you take care to weld over the centre of the steel, away from the wood parts of the workmates, it makes a versatile stable setup than can be knocked down and stored quickly.

A handheld angle grinder will handle most grinding jobs in the absence of a bench grinder. With care, and angle grinder can be clamped to a wood cradle set in a workmate to act just like a bench grinder. Done this for years outdoors getting the garden tools sharpened in the spring.

Thanks for the great photos Joseph. Completely different physical world than where I am (Ontario Canada). Great work with the wildlife too.

Pin punches

hole punches

rivet sets

filing buttons

toolmaker's buttons

washer dies

screwdrivers (filed ends for slot and Philips)

machinist jacks w hex bodies

vise stop for mill vise

tailstock die holder

wobblers

spring loaded tap guide

depth gauge

boring bars

many model parts - just pick a model and make the round bits

Get the L H Sparey lathe operating book - he has plenty more ideas.

For years I had a portable air compressor rig made from an Eaton car AC compressor driven by a 3.5 HP gasoline / petrol engine. The compressor had a 12 VDC electric clutch which I operated from the battery of the truck or tractor used to haul the compressor around. Worked for about 25 years and the engine wore out, but the compressor and clutch survive in a friend's shop. Clutch on that compressor never had any problem with 3.5 HP just FYI - real life experience

I get EIM by mail, here in Canada, and have received every issue all through the pandemic, right to Nov 2020. I believe they are very much still in business. The parent company changed hands last year, EIM is part of Warner Group publishing now I believe.

Through the pandemic my family and I have been quite isolated as millions of others have. Getting EIM through the mail has been a major mental health boost for me. The ME forums are not the same thing as printed mags as there are so few people posting any pics of model builds or tooling mod builds, and so much bickering and blather it often is a short unpleasant read. Digital mags for me are not an option technically (been stung before paying a LOT for content I can not view, years ago - no urge to repeat that experience) and I really have trouble nowadays reading a small phone screen or tablet.

As said before my local bookstore has not had ME or MEW since Feb 2020.

I know many on here think that making this sort of handle is a rite of passage for master toolmakers, and they are entitled to that opinion. For me, ball ended handles are unpleasant to use and a time consuming pain in the neck to make. Far better use of time to make a simple cylindrical hub, with a hole for a lever drilled at the desired angle. Weld or silver solder in an angled rod for a lever with a threaded end, and fit a thread-on tapered or cylindrical or flat handle. (Flat faced and cylindrical tapered handles for things operated and tightened with the fingers often during the day are far more comfortable than balls.) Job done, let the model making continue......

Again just my $0.02 worth.

I have spent much of my working life designing tool components for plastics related machinery, and custom toolroom accessories. If I had ever designed any with the time wasting uncomfortable to use double ball handles I assure you I would get two reprimands - one from the toolroom foreman for wasting machining time, and the second from toolmakers with sore fingers and thumbs from using the bloody things. Pretty, but a really bad handle design. You can Google Misumi, McMaster Carr, Jergens, Essentra etc to see some excellent commercial tooling handle designs. Many have been offered for years and years. Link to some very pleasant to use and cheap ones is below.

https://www.mcmaster.com/handles/handles/comfort-grip-adjustable-handles/

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 21/11/2020 21:22:51

Looking great Ron!

I think I would go to a farm supply, get the best but affordable model of finished shovel or fork you can find, take off the working end, whittle and sand to suit the candidate fork, fit, fasten on, done. Just my $0.02 worth.

Metal tube or solid metal handles on implements like shovels and forks are miserable to use in cold weather and unpleasant in hot weather. I've used lots doing odd jobs on farms when I was a kid, with metal handles bodged up by farmers as "improvements" over hickory or ash handles. Awful. I recommend wood for these.

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 20/11/2020 22:15:26

From a North American perspective,there are major problems with widespread implementation of electric cars here. Current designs of electric cars do great for a 40-60 km commute in temperate areas like California. Long trips of up to about 500 km at 80 km/h are possible on one charge with some vehicles in temperate areas. But here are some regionally dependent issues that make all electric vehicles less viable:

1. range in below zero celsius temperatures are half or less of normal range. These temps happen in winter in many regions of N.A., including densely populated areas.

2. For trips over 500 km , several hours are needed for charging between 500 km sections of the distance in warm weather, in cold weather charging is needed much more often for several hours at a time. Distances in North America are vast - 4500 km New York to Los Angeles in USA, 5800 km Halifax to Vancouver in Canada. Long trips like these with electric vehicles will take a very long time, allowing for daily charging stops of some hours, which people used to gasoline or diesel powered vehicles will not be patient about.

3. Electricity supply and cost varies widely by region. Areas with huge hydroelectric capacity like Quebec Canada or some areas in the Western states of the USA have surplus capacity and low cost electricity. Areas that use primarily nuclear power or wind or gas turbine electricity generation have enormous power costs and the supply is very close to maxed out in peak demand circumstances. In recent years widespread brownouts / blackouts have happened at peak times in densely populated areas (like in New York state in USA or in Ontario Canada in summer when millions of people have AC on in +30 degree celsius heat for a few weeks)

Situation worldwide for electric cars may be FAR different than Europe and the UK. Electric cars make some sense in some areas of N.A. but certainly not all areas, and not for long trips of several thousand km.

A Nissan Leaf or Chev Volt where I live, for the few days we get -30 deg C temp, 90 km/h winds with 200 mm of snow on the ground and 1 metre snow drifts, is a non starter - literally - and would probably cost about $2000 a year in electricity to keep it charged.

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 19/11/2020 02:10:51

You can drive yourself crazy trying to make an old hobby grade machine tool accurate to the nth degree, or you can just get on with it and make stuff.

Many steam engines work better with a little extra clearance rather than ultra fine fits, as an example. Through lapping and honing and other hand processes very fine fits can be achieved in IC engines for example.

My own lathe and mill are very old and quite worn out but I still have a lot of fun with them and produce models and machines and tooling accessories that work fine.

If it is perfection you want in machine tools, you can have it, with brand new industrial machines. The cost of perfection is very high though. Have a look at Mazak or DMG Mori machine tools, or a gigantic old Loewe jig borer - they are as close to perfect as I have ever come across, in industry.

The thing shown on the flying lead over the keyboard in the first pic looks to me like a microphone rather than a battery cell. Are you sure is is a battery?

The connections on the PCB being labeled M- and M+ might indicate mic as well.

There may be a battery underneath the PCB in the upper part of the last photo.

Hi Bob, the best instruction I have seen for building a pressure gauge for a small locomotive is in Kozo Hiraoka's "Building the Shay" book. I am sure you can find all the info you need there for making the new Bourdon tube and linkages you need. Kozo's instructions are step by step and very clear. The rest of the book is excellet reading as well, even if you never plan to build a Shay.

Kozo also details how to test the finished gauge, so if you follow his instructions and the gauge works an d tests OK  per text there is no reason you could not re-use the repaired gauge on a locomotive. 

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 14/11/2020 13:25:14

Hi Mark, I enjoyed reading about your planer operating reminisces from the workshop. Thanks!

That's what a cutting torch and welder are for George, just snip the legs off and weld em back on after getting the hoist free!

I have used flycutters for over 30 years now when an excellent finish is needed. This follows from my working with and observing professional diemakers and mouldmakers' practices. If properly set up with correct feeds and speeds superb results are possible on many materials, and an HSS single point tool is cheap as chips. Not arguing with anyone, just stating my experience with flycutters.

Regarding facing heads with multiple inserts, what I have observed over the same period is that they work great in very heavily built toolroom milling machines, but not in lighter home shop machines like my Rong Fu mill. They just shake the hell out of my mill and produce a rubbish finish. The machine is just not rigid enough for them (a flycutter in same mill works beautifully.) I recall the huge Cincinatti roughing mill in the first toolroom I worked in. One job was a long block for a progressive die that needed a 4" wide 1" deep rabbet cut on one side. Toolmaker did the cut with a 6 insert 6" diameter face mill in two Z direction passes, 1/2" deep cuts and about .015" cut per rev per insert. Blue hot chips hitting the tray sounded like machine gun fire. The cuts had an excellent finish. I felt the frame of the machine for vibration, thinking there would be a lot. It was barely detectable. That machine weighed tons and was extremely rigid, which is the name of the game for heavy material removal and cuts.

Your mileage may vary, of course. Just my $0.02 worth.

Hi Chris, one big name in the thinwall packaging container business was Stackteck, they are still in business, along with a lot of other package / container and closure moulders. Husky and Mould Masters were the big guns in hot runner systems for many years. Still operating but I think smaller scale these days.

I have also done some work with multishot moulding, especially for TPE or TPV overmoulding. Had several large structural / cosmetic mouldings projects with gas assist and also coinjection two polymer moulds (nightmares). One interesting project was a family of moulds for two shot rigid plastic keycaps for industrial keyboards. The letters were moulded first in cav 1, usually in white or yellow, the shot lifted up and set back into cav 2 with a helical cam, then the cap shot around the light coloured letters. The second shots were all colours. Sealoffs at the colour boundaries was required to be zero flash. OK once we had it dialed in. The idea was that the letters and numbers could never wear away, in critical reliability systems ie powerplants and military stuff. That was OK, keycaps lasted forever, but people still pushed the wrong buttons once in a while!

Hi Chris, now in Waterloo Ontario. Started work in a mould shop in Windsor early 1980's and later worked many years in Toronto. Most of the smaller inj moulders and toolmakers are gone now, most out of business due to low cost Chinese made tools and parts. Still a few big specialist plastics firms and a few very good general moulders in Ontario. Lots of moulders doing high volume low profit ultra QC sensitive car parts. Also a few very small very specialist moulders for "not the usual thing" plastics. I still work with several types of plastics firms except the car part makers.

Hi Russ, I don't know what mouldbases cost in UK but in Canada a basic mild steel 150 x 150 mm mouldbase from Hasco would be the equivalent of 500 UK pounds, before you cut any metal. To do a thin walled 4 way cross 55 mm over ends you will likely need 4 side actions or 4 hand loaded low draft angle cores in the tool to "hollow out" the part. This is not beginner level toolmaking.

The way many moulding shops operate is they have a setup charge to hang and prep a mould in a press, of about 500 dollars in Canada or 300 UK pounds per mould. It will take 20 shots or so just to get the mould parameters set and parts running smoothly. The moulder will likely have a 250 part minimum order qty of parts per run. For such a low quantity of parts I don;t think a moulder would be interested in handling multiple hand loaded cores, they will likely want an automatic running slide core mould.

One way or the other, I think to do several moulds and parts you are looking at a multi thousand pound expense. Most people setting out to do injection moulded parts do so with making and selling many thousands of parts in mind, to offset the expense. Of course these parts need to have consistent quality if you are selling them. Are the fittings you want to make marketable to others for a particular machine?

An alternative to injection moulding these parts may be to make a cast silicone rubber mould off a 3D printed master and cast urethane parts in the silicone mould. Excellent results with good detail and finish can be done with this method. Many types hardnesses and colours of urethane resins are available, some look and function very like inj moulded parts. Since this is a no heat no pressure method it is easy to do in a home shop. Google Smooth-On and Hapco for silicone mouldmaking and resin info.

Re your NBR part enquiry - many rubber parts are made by compression moulding. A two part steel mould is made, usually hinged to open like a waffle press. Raw rubber strips are laid across the open mould by hand. A press with heated platens clamps the mould shut and exerts tons of pressure and high heat to cause the rubber to flow and fill the mould. After curing, mould opens and parts are picked out of the mould and the excess rubber flash removed. For large volume production often many moulds are arranged on a turntable and rotate from station to station to get a shorter cycle time. For small parts the moulds may be multi cavity tools and make lots of parts per cycle.

If you want to make just a few fittings for your own use at min cost I suggest machining them from plastic or metal.

Hi Russ, one further note - getting your piston out of the barrel to reload resin, if the piston is loose and not joined to the connecting rod to the lever, is likely to be a real pain and a sticky mess depending on the resin used. Getting everything clean enough between fills will also be difficult. In any case I would suggest having the piston joined to the lever so you can use the lever to get it out while hot.

Again using an injection moulding press eliminates all the faffle above and will result in much better part properties. The moulder will also likely share a huge amount of plastics expertise with you in your first discussions about the parts you plan to make.

I suggest getting someone you know to make 3D printed models in full size of the parts you plan to make, and if you visit a moulder or moulders take them with you as well as info on what resin you would like to use.

Hi Russ, You don't mention what type of resin you want to mould. Some resins will tolerate several minutes of holdup time before starting to degrade, and others less than 30 seconds before they start to degrade. (polycarbonate is one example that degrades very quickly).

Knowing your resin's melt temperature and using a thermocouple / readout on the barrel would go a long way to knowing when to shoot the resin. If you mount the mould such that it can be lowered away from the barrel between shots, you could fill the barrel with some extra resin than needed for filling the mould, and do a test push on the lever to see if your shot melt is flowable, onto a scrap piece of card or wood or metal sheet. If you see that it is ready, you would raise the mould and shoot it asap. Commercial presses have the ability to pull the barrel and nozzle back from the mould to purge out any degraded material and ensure fresh, ready to inject melt is in the barrel prior to production run starts.

Again if you went the route to make only the moulds you need, designed for use in a commercial press, you would not need to worry about many of these things and the mould would have ejector pins to eject your finished parts and be ready for next shot in seconds, rather than having to undo bolts in your moulds. In addition you would have full control of your process temps and timing to control your parts' mechanical properties.

BTW mould shrinkage varies with resin type as well - you can google resin brand names through Matweb.com to find the general shrinkage factor for mouldmaking.