Member postings for Ian Johnson 1

Yep I agree, I'll leave them blingy! Good job my workshop is relatively rust free!

Have you ever made something for your workshop which took half an hour to make, and looks as rough as a bears backside, and then used it for years and years? I made a clamp for a small surface gauge/pointer

This is the old clamp. I made this for a small magnetic base out of a scrap piece of brass, a 1/4" unc bolt and a mystery knurled nut from somewhere. Using a file, a junior hacksaw and a hand drill. Works okay but It is sloppy and rough. I use it regularly on the manual mill, because I don't have digital read out, it comes in handy to remember where my datum points are.

The day finally came when I just had to make a new one. One that looked pretty and worked like it should do. So I found a piece of 3/8" x 3/4" mild steel bar for the main body, and used silver steel for the nut, sleeve and bolt.

This is the new one. I prefer straight flutes for the grippy bit, I think they look better than a knurl, this was done with a handwritten program for 18 flutes on my KX1 CNC.

I think this new one will last just as long as the old one, and is much nicer to use. Just mulling over whether to chemically blacken the pieces or leave them blingy?

IanJ

Hi Dave I've got a Sieg KX1 CNC and tend to cut steel like it's made of kryptonite! So I usually take it easy and slow until I am confident with the progress. For a 2mm cutter I would start out like you, but at 20% or less of 100mm / min at about 3000 rpm, tweaking the feed rate and rpm as the job progresses. Depth of cut sounds about right. The KX1 max speed is 7000 rpm which I very rarely use, 10-15,000 revs seems a bit too high, could be causing vibration.

Having said all the above I find recommended feeds and speeds to be totally irrelevant and meaningless, and i ignore them, because in the home workshop it all depends on the machine, rigidity, quality of tooling and material. Just go with what feels and sounds right for you. If it's wrong the machine will quickly tell you!

IanJ

I don't think it matters too much what shape the oilways are as long as the oil is distributed on the surfaces.

An Icthys! I never thought a boat would need divine support, I thought that was what the water did

Thanks for the F360 explanation Jason it looks more advanced than Vcarve

IanJ

Maybe we should have a competition for the most artistic hand cut oil ways?

I've seen a couple of youtube videos where people have spent ages meticulously setting up top slides on the mill to machine precise oilways, when it would have been a lot quicker to get the bullnose chisel out and cut some curvy grooves, it will achieve the same result.

People are having a whale of a time here with some great fishy puns but cod do better

Nice work Jason, a difficult shape made for CNC. I'm not familiar with F360 you say it defaults to centre, is it the same as Vectric Vcarve? I tell the program where to start from in the job set up and dimensions (usually the centre of the job or one corner). I can use an offset start position too.

IanJ

I thought there was something fishy about it!

I'm helping to refurbish two very old steam engines on a 1903 coal fired steam tug boat, and when we stripped the starboard pump down I couldn't help but to be impressed with the hand cut oilways.

So let your creative juices flow when cutting your oilways, they don't have to be straight!

IanJ

Thanks Neil for bumping this thread back up.

IanJ

Slightly off topic

Neil are entries into the john Stevenson trophy still open? I had a quick search on the forum but couldn't find any reference to it.

IanJ

Looks like you are also missing the dog clutch which is a keyed sliding fit on the end of the leadscrew. The collar pin could be broken too which would account for the excess play.

Here's a bad photo of my MD65 if it helps?

IanJ

Try sand blasting them!

Company I used to work for did this to old files and gave them a second life. I think it was more to do with keeping a tight hold on finances! When they found some money they bought new files.

IanJ

Thanks Jason and yes the little Sieg CNC mills are great, I am still finding out the limits of the KX1, and this was just approaching the outer profile max at about 93mm diameter on the Y axis. I was getting a lot of chatter on the cuts especially on the deep last pass, I think the spindle bearings need nipping up? I shall investigate further. But otherwise the machine is performing great.

I was going to powder coat it but chickened out when I thought the glue holding the magnets and steel bar would melt, so I used car spray paint.

IanJ

I needed to make a new cup holder for my partner's new electric wheelchair, the previous cupholder would not fit, and anyway, I fancied using my KX1. CNC'ing the main shape.

Vectric V carve made a good job of working out the tool paths. I used a 6mm end mill for both the pocket and outer profile. Taking it steady with 2mm deep cuts in the 10mm deep pocket, and the same with the profile which was 12mm deep.

I included 5mm wide tabs, but put two of them where all the material was cut away!! No harm done it all held together okay.

The other parts were done on the manual mill and lathe, producing the hinge bracket, backing flange and M4 pivot screw.

I glued strong magnets into the bracket and a mild steel bar into the main body. Worked out nicely.

Painting is not my favourite job but the black matches the wheelchair.

Just got to wait until we can get out and road test it now!

Ian J

Hope you don't mind but I just had to dig out my old masterpiece from school GCSE metalwork class. Not quite up to the same standard as the eclipse but not bad for a spotty kid! I always wondered where the school got the design from, must have copied it from the eclipse model.

An alternative are these 6mm diameter stainless steel drinking straws, plenty long enough for your shaft, thin walled but very strong. I don't know what your shaft is for so it could be an alternative to drilling out a length of bar, and still give you the strength you need. I've been wracking my brains to find a use for these and now you have given me one use at least! Only problem now is going somewhere to buy them!

Ian

I had similar issue with my 'cheap edge finder' it has what I thought was a 4mm diameter stem but after drilling a few misplaced holes I measured it and it was actually 3.9mm diameter, so I could never get a accurately placed hole unless I compensated for the error. I soon bought a better quality edge finder with 4mm stem which is 4mm diameter on. Problem solved.

Ian

I thought the link was going to a guy in a hobby shop! This is Edge Precision he owns that machine and others, plus all the tools etc. He used to own the shop he works in, he sold it a while ago but is still working there. So yeah he's got a lot of tools, and needs every one of them.

Been following him for a while now and the components he machines are mind blowing!