Member postings for John Haine

I use a Verdict dial indicator using one of the attachments gripped in a collet. It sweeps about a 6 inch circle. To avoid the problem of the tip catching in the tee slots, I place a plate of 6 mm float glass (my first surface plate) on the top of the table for the indicator to sweep. Float glass is dead flat and parallel, as you can check by spinning the plate whilst keeping the indicator still, the needle doesn't move. It seems pointless to me to spend money, or time making, a gadget that you can equally well improvise and only use occasionally.

Don't use an end mill, they won't plunge cut. Use a slot drill. Anyway 4 flute cutters seem unhappy dealing with Ali on my Novamill, 2 flute slot mills seem much happier. I run them fast, lubricate wth mixture of cutting oil and paraffin, and quite fast feed. I think the solution to the Ali sticking to the cutter is to get it hot enough and fast enough it doesn't get a chance to stick!

It sounds very much like this is a residual current breaker problem. The EMI filter in the mains feed to the inverters have shunt capacitors to earth, so they generate an earth leakage which the breaker detects. Probably because there are two machines the amount of leakage is close to the trip value. You could try running both machines through the same filter, should be no problem as long as you only use one at a time.

Brian, you miss my point. Cartridge brass is not hard, it's soft and gummy and tools catch in it. Hard brass cuts beautifully though for drilling you ideally need to slightly take the top rake off the tool and the same for turning. A pipe very likely will need to be bent so more likely to be made of something ductile. Why do you want to thread it anyway? Might it be best to solder on a fitting?

To the chap having trouble threading the brass tube, it may be the brass which is the problem. Some brass is very easy to machine, I think it is sold as engraving quality. Some is very ductile and will grab drills and suchlike, I think that it's called cartridge brass. That is the sort that is likely to be used for tube which will be bent, but it would be much harder to thread.

To the chap having trouble threading the brass tube, it may be the brass which is the problem. Some brass is very easy to machine, I think it is sold as engraving quality. Some is very ductile and will grab drills and suchlike, I think that it's called cartridge brass. That is the sort that is likely to be used for tube which will be bent, but it would be much harder to thread.

Neil, you don't need a recess, if you think about it they self align as long as they are under a little bit of axial pressure.

Thanks all, it sounds like I'm worrying unnecessarily! I'll go for the degrease/loctite route.

Gary, the original pulley has 3 steps but the spindle has 4, and the motor is metric with 16 mm shaft whereas the 3 phase motor has a 5/8 in shaft.

Another question for the wisdom of the forum please. I am fitting a 3 phase motor and vfd to my VMB mill, so need a pulley for the motor. The existing motor pulley is unsuitable as it is "upside down" because of the peculiar drive system on the mill, and also has only 3 steps, so I am going to use the intermediate pulley instead. However this has a large hole through it to accommodate the ball races on which this idler pulley normally runs. The pulley is cast iron, the hole being accurately bored to fit 6204 bearings. The bearings of course were lubricated.

So I need to make a bush to fit the hole bored to fit the motor shaft. I plan to make this from mild steel and I'm hoping to loctite it in place. My question is whether loctite will bond well to the CI especially as it has been in contact with light bearing grease for a good few years? Obviously I'll do my best to degrease it, but might some residue remain in the CI which I understand is slightly porous? Any advice very welcome, thanks!

Smoothstepper boards actually have USB or Ethernet interface rather than use the parallel port. The latter is dying on new PCs. With the Smoothstepper the step pulses are generated by a dedicated real time processor rather than relying on the PC processor, which gives better performance and more I/O.

A couple of orders of magnitude off on that calculation! 70/365 = about 0.2 pence per day.

I'd cnc them myself.

Did you buy that Rabone rule recently? I have always wanted a rule with that style of calibration since I read about it being developed at NPL for better legibility in New Scientist when I was at school, and that was 50 years ago!

The motor is almost certainly a standard frame size. Measure the spacing of the flange screw holes in decimal inches and multiply by 10. Probably get 14, 17, or 23. Small new steppers are quite cheap, eg from Zapp Automation. Replace motor with standard 2 phase type with 2 windings and use a standard controller.

Richard, if you only want to make fastenings there is no conversion needed! Even a "metric" Myford actually has an imperial leadscrew, 8 tpi. The gear tables include instructions for approximating metric thread pitches to easily close enough to fit matching standard metric nuts using the standard leadscrew. There are several threads on this forum that cover this. It is only if you want to make long threads for leadscrews and so on that the error is significant. If you really want to make the conversion you would need a 127 tooth gear which can be fitted in the train to cut exact metric threads, but it's a faff and not worth the trouble by and large.

as well as Myford you could consider Boxfords which are easily of similar quality but as they were never such a popular amateur machine may be cheaper.

Have a look at http://lautard.com/oiling.htm

I'm thinking of creating a spreadsheet to generate log, antilog, trig etc tables....any takers?

No! Specially not on a Harrison. No idea what's wrong though.

Possibly you could use the car demisting technique: set to recirculate and turn on the a/c, which condenses out the moisture. My car does this when it's set to auto demisting, the aircon switches on even if the heater is going. The windows clear like magic even though the air is warmed.

Now seem to have discovered madmodder site.w

I'd go with Bob, get a clamping kit, a selection of toolmakers clamps, a couple of angle plates, maybe a vee block. Though I have a couple of vices most of the time I don't use them for milling.