Member postings for Ian Johnson 1

Crikey! That's a blast from the past! I was a fitter in those cell rooms, we regularly had 'piss tests' to monitor our Hg levels. Mercury seemed to be everywhere! When we 'hogged' the cell base plate we had to run the Mercury pumps to check the flow was straight down the middle of the cell for peak efficiency, it was a really beautiful sight to see a river of mercury shimmering down the base plate. The main cell rooms were 'J' 'K' and 'L' units. J and K ran at 200,000 amps and L unit ran at 400,000 amps.

The other big issue apart from Mercury was the powerful magnetism, which played havoc with steel toe capped boots!

I'm following the Northwest 200 via Isle of Man TT on Twitter, just found out that TT legend Michael Rutter will be riding a Honda RC213V-S GP replica in Saturdays Superbike race! should be fun on a road circuit! There is also the all new Ducati V4 Panigale and Norton too.

Thanks for the heads up. Racing is on Thursday and Saturday

Ian

Thanks for the heads up, it's good that the BBC NI are doing the coverage. I always watch the TT races on ITV4, they do some brilliant on-bike footage, usually the day after the race, but this year I think they have plans to do live coverage which will be even better.

Ian

I just voted before I logged in. So, can anyone vote even if they are not members of this forum?

Ian

It's coming together nicely Jason. Good idea to use Corian as a filler, I don't suppose it matters what its made of, as long as it does the job and looks good when finished.

Had to Google Corian, never used it before, looks like good stuff. Messy though!

Ian

You are right Mike I misread the post, I didn't notice the Beaulieu reference

Yes it's near to the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) Birmingham, as far as i know the fire spread through the roof ceiling voids, no fire breaks. They did a great job of restoring the burnt out classic motorcycles.

I've been following this on Twitter, terrible thing to happen, but entirely preventable. I can think of three recent fires involving 'national treasures' all caused by poor fire controls during restoration.

Windsor Castle fire, Charles Rennie Macintosh Art School in Glasgow and The Cutty Sark.

Surely they must be worth protecting with better fire precautions?

Good explanation of adaptive machining thanks Barrie. I am using Vectric Vcarve and don't think they have an adaptive strategy, unless I'm not looking hard enough?

And I too have also come to the conclusion that small cutters and more faster cuts are the best way to tackle CNC milling, less stress on the machine, especially on a little hobby mill. Apart from a fly cutter and edge finder, I very rarely use any cutter over 6mm dia now, there is no need to!

Ian

I still do machining Karl, although it's small hobby stuff now in my garage with small lathe and mill, with a CNC mill all bench top. I've had some career changes but when I was on the tools it was all big heavy chemical plant machining, pump shafts, railway loco wheels, heat ex-changers, pump casings, relief valves, etc, in every conceivable material you can think of. We machined everything really. Probably very much like you want to do.

Ian

Hi Karl I'm in Cheshire so not too far from you, and it's great to see the next generation of engineering talent appreciating the old skills. When I did my apprenticeship NC/CNC were just becoming more common in engineering workshops (in ours anyway!).

It's a great time to start an engineering company, STEM training in schools is really being promoted, ensuring a pool of workers. Grants and loans are available for start ups especially in the advanced manufacturing in the Liverpool region. There are loads of specialist CNC machining and engineering companies in the area such as Maxton in Frodsham doing very well in motorbike racing suspension. Go for it!

Ian

I like that method Andrew, usually I take the Z offset from the longest tool, but having one dedicated master tool is a good idea. The only problem I can see is a restriction on Z height on my KX1. Are you using Path Pilot they look like Tormach tool holders?

Ian

Some info for those just starting out with the KX1/3 I started out running my KX1 on Windows 7 professional in XP mode, and that worked great ..... until the tower PC died!

I am now running my KX1 on Windows 7 32 bit on another tower PC, because at the time I couldn't find a suitable XP system, and so far so good, everything is behaving as it should. After I bought the tower PC I found out that standard Windows 7 cannot be run in XP mode! But all is okay.

Ian

Looking good Jason, thinking of the machining sequence is half the battle with CNC.

I've been trying to get my head around my 4th axis on the KX1 recently, I've hand written a couple of little programs to test it out in Acetal. One was an 18 splined knob, another was a seven sided nut, chamfer on all sides, spot drilled on all sides, and a shoulder was milled into it using the rotary axis. I'm gradually sussing out how much can be done on the 4th axis. The Seven sided nut turned out really good too, using 51.43 degrees gave only 0.01 error.

Ian

This is a classic case of over thinking a non existent issue. Most regulations are for the employer to adhere to, we can do pretty much as we please in our own homes. If we were subject to the PUWER regs for example, I would think 99% of us would be in court telling the judge why we took the machine guard off! You can work on top of your roof and not bother about the work at height regs. Dig a big hole and not bother about the confined space regs etc.

We are not expected to know or adhere to he industrial and employment laws, but If you are selling stuff that is a different matter altogether.

Most hobbyists in the UK will probably fall foul of the Council environmental officer and local by-laws, noise and nuisance laws

And It's always better to beg forgiveness than beg permission!

Go large! For Mach3 I use the 16:9 display on my 22inch TV monitor (nicked from our spare bedroom!) and have the jog screen in the gap on the right of the screen. If the Mach3 screens are 'fitted' to the screen size they do look elongated and odd! But you may need to get new screen sets to support a touch screen.

My version came from Arc too, but I also got the licence for the full program, the locked down version has a limited number of lines of code if I remember rightly?

While I'm here I'll hi-jack the thread! Does anyone know how to make the jog screen stick on the screen? Because every time I change screens such as going to the offset page, the jog screen disappears! Pressing 'Tab' gets it back again but it is slightly annoying!

Ian

Hi Ian I've had my Mini Lathe for many years now and haven't broken it yet, despite regular use and doing some relatively heavy machining on it. It's a Warco version, 240V (with a British plug), with a very good USA made variable speed main circuit board, although I don't think they supply this model now. And as the name implies it is a small lathe with a saddle, top slide, cross slide, tail stock etc. It has 300mm between centres, a newer model comes with 350mm between centres and a larger 3 jaw chuck. Digital dials are available too.

You may need to improve the fit and finish of the gibs and maybe scrape the saddle onto the bed, but they are really good little lathes, and light enough for one person to pick up and carry into a garage or box room. Even though I would like a bigger lathe, for the size of my models and garage space it is an ideal lathe. Don't expect it to be a tool room quality lathe though!

Ian

That's good news Ketan I'm sure the new owners will be very pleased with them. I've had my KX1 for a while now, it's a great little machine.

Ian

Just watched the video on the ITV tea time news! Busy little mouse!

In my experience I can't see any difference in a so called 'Toolroom' lathe or a shop floor lathe. On the shop floor I have operated Dean Smith & Grace lathes with all the fancy gadgets you could wish for. DSG's are renowned for their precision and bullet proof build quality, and could be described as suitable for a 'Toolroom'. So why would a company hide away a top notch machine in a toolroom, when it would be far more productive on the shop floor?

The only difference I can see is that shop floor lathes are cleaned. Toolroom lathes are cleaned and polished!

Ian