Member postings for Tony Pratt 1

It's a massive generalisation to say we are lazy in the western world, I love to get my hands dirty and I know what hard work is all about! The reason we are using China, India etc for nearly all our "consumer items" is because they are cheap,cheap, cheap. I worked in Germany and they are no better than us and in the 70's used Turkish labour for all the crap jobs. I have said this before that the Germans support Germany and the British support eveyone else.

Tony

Centre lathe turner or miller may not exist any more but I am bombarded every day with online vacancies for CNC Millers & Turners mainly north of Birmingham or south coast. The next generation of Engineers are out there just waiting to be called on, instead of employing foreigners how about training our younger generation and giving them self respect and a skill to take them onwards in their life. Successive goverments really are not getting it that keeping millions of people at home doing sweet FA and getting paid for it leads this country no where but down.

Tony

Heating BMS to a dull red colour and cooling slowly will remove a lot of the internal stress and minimise distotion. Anyone with an open fire will find it an ideal medium for this "stress relieving process"

Tony

Hi Olaf, no slot drill, endmill or similar will have a flat bottom. They are all "dished" on the end to allow for corner wear as the cutter is used.

Tony

To Chris and all beginners. Regards buying metal etc. for a project it is a good idea to buy lengths[12"] of the standard sizes required and you will soon build up your own supply of the more common materials on hand raedy to use.

Best wishes,

Tony

David & Chris, I totally agree that this is the beginners section and also that no question is too stupid if you don't know the answer.

Regards,

Tony

Hi Chris, would you also like Harold to cut the material and deliver it to your house? Sorry if I am being a bit rude!

Best wishes,

Tony

Hi Bob, it has to be R8, it is a self releasing taper ie. a slight tap on the draw bar will release it.

Best wishes,

Tony

Hi Alan, just convert each metric dimension to imperial, it's much the simplest method.

Tony

Hi Yak, to elaborate, you will be in a world of trouble if you try to harden Silver Steel for this application, ie the shaft will bend and you will get scaling on the outside. In industry a shaft like this would be turned oversize, hardened and then ground to size if you really wanted to heat treat it, but as Iv'e said soft state Silver Steel will be fine.

Tony

Sliver steel as is will be fine.

Tony

Try cutting a piece of 1" Mild Steel x 6" long bar unsupported using a sharp HSS tool to see if the lathe itself will cut parallel.

Tony

I stand to be corrected but I believe all gauge plate is the same ie O1 grade steel? if you quench in water versus oil you will get a more sever quench and a harder part but it is vital to temper afterwards to relieve the stressse in the part. I really don't think you will need special quenching oil for M E work even if you can get it in small amounts.

Tony

Get them to program and cut a square boss on a piece of ally and check it is square and also dimensionally accurate.

Tony

You will not be able to get a 2.3mm dia. masonry drill which is needed for this size screw! Give a good quality HSS drill a go, slow speed and plenty of lube should work. If not a solid carbide drill is guaranteed to work if you are careful.

Tony

I'm afraid Ebay is the way to go if you want extensive coverage, nothing else compares! What don't you like about it?

Tony

I started back in the seventies as a Toolroom apprentice and worked my way through to Toolroom chargehand, embracing the metric revolution and CNC machining on the way! I can say making 'stuff' is the best job possible bar none. Through various redundancies I now find myself in an office punching the keyboard all day but as my wife says "at least you have a job". I like to read most of the posts and hopefully pass some of my knowledge on to people who ask for help.

Tony

Edited By Tony Pratt 1 on 09/07/2012 13:24:46

Nathan, used Copper Sulphate many times in the past and for ferrous metals it can't be beaten in my opinion.

Tony

Wolfie, back to basics, clock the vice bottom face that the parallels are going to sit on and then clock the parallel top face. If both read zero-zero end to end then it follows your work will be parallel if indeed it is sitting correctly in the vice. As has been said .008" is a lot of error and something should soon be obvious, finally the head being in or out of "tram" won't effect the mills ability to cut parallel but will cause other problems, but one thing at a time!

Tony

Hi Ian, just attach the 5" chuck to the 6" backplate., that's what I did!

Tony