Member postings for _Paul_

Scale

Have you considered alternatives? £200 is around half of what you might pay for a used Bridgeport Slotting Head which is a lot more versatile, and a used shaper might set you back around £200 both will cut slots/keyways.

Paul

I made these from old HDPE cutting board, one of my friends now brings me offcuts of "Stoneplas" which I now make them from.

It's not my idea I came across it on one of the Garage forums.

Another Idea I came across but not tried yet is placing your chosen tools/tooling in a tray to suit your drawer size cover with suitable cloth (i'm told an old tee shirt works well) and fill with expanding building foam thus creating an exact tool shape in your insert.

Paul

I have an older 8L? single speed Biax Half Moon metal scraper which has a 240V 220w AC brush motor.

The scraper as standard only had one speed making it awkward to use, I fitted this dimmer switch as an in line speed controller and now have a reasonably variable speed unit.

Seems to work great and at a fraction of the cost of a variAC.

How long is it likely to last I wonder and are there better alternatives?

Paul

John's fixture is quite robust and would easily stand having the base drilled and tapped, attach to your homebrew grinders compound table with a sturdy ribbed angle plate perhaps.

You could take this a stage further if all you wanted to do was sharpen end mill lips attach John's fixture (or similar) to your lathe cross slide with a similar arrangement and mount your stone/diamond wheel in a collet.

Mount the fixture on your lathe topslide and if your slide permits enough rotation you then have the facility to crudely sharpen ball end mills.

Paul

Very nice, if you didn't want to manufacture the ER32 end mill holder I imagine you could integrate one of John Stevenson's end mill sharpening fixtures which already has suitable angles required for end mill sharpening.

Paul

Both Myford and Boxford had/have their own dividing heads designed for indexing on the lathe with the cutter then mounted between centres .

Cutter mounted between centres setup:

Toolpost cutter with gear blank mounted in chuck.

Seems quite a bit of work to complete one of those Hemingway Grinders is/was that a complete kit? looks like it could be missing a few bits.

You occasionally see Boxford “Little Giant” toolpost grinders on Ebay for less than that.

I bought a Duplex D27 3 phase grinder for less than £30 from John Stevensons great site, admitted it did need a bit of work but nothing extravagant,

I have a “Drytex” extractor but still also cover the machine/ways usually in oiled paper towel.

Paul

Graphite plates never seen anything like them in the UK, I use some old lead flashing to line a bucket and have the item/s hanging from a bit of timber

You have got both runs of the belt going through the same side one run has to go down through the middle of the bed pic shows two cut outs in the bed where the belt should run one inner one to the rear.

Paul

Made this a while ago works well

• Lens/viewfinder 12mm acetal rod
• Body scrapbinium
• Punch scrapbinium with a masonry nail set in the end
• O ring in base to stop slippage

Couple of hours work.

Paul

Have you considered building an Arduino controller? I have recently built one to control a stepper motor.

Some of the Arduino "Shields" like this one will control a DC motor or two directly.

Regards

Paul

Just bought some new (old stock) R8 collets from fleabay these are in Crawford's boxes and are brand new but none are embossed with the distinctive Crawford logo like the others I have.

Should all Crawford collets carry their logo or did they "outsource" components from the far east too? just putting them in Crawford boxes in the UK.

Or is the ebay seller trying to pull a fast one?

Thanks

Paul

Shaper tooling can be a lot like lathe tooling in shape much depending on material and the job in hand IMHO it needs to have less “front” clearance typically only around 3* to 5* to cope with the high intermittent cutting forces of the Shaper and to maintain a robust cutting edge for as long as possible.

If the tooling is too small shimming/packing is quite acceptable, I would avoid having the tool too far away from the face of the clapper as this can cause chatter and poor finish. Irrespective of machine type I find better finishes are obtained when the tool is slightly rearward of the face of the clapper say when mounted in a rear facing “Armstrong” type of toolholder.

I can recommend some reading for you: Ian Bradleys book on the Shaper and “Lathe & Shaping Machine Tools” by “Duplex” in the “Duplex” book he goes on to describe the construction of an Armstrong type of toolholder manufactured from a Bicycle Crank I can say that they work quite well.

Paul

The weight and size of the machines will dictate how you construct the base, you don't want to plant a 5 ton DSG lathe on 4" unreinforced concrete.

IMHO for an average "Shed" I would lay 6" of concrete on top of your (well compacted) hardcore and for the extra small cost drop in some reinforcing mesh that way if you buy bigger machines later on you already have something reasonably substantial to stand them on.

Paul

Air Products envelopes are no better, Hobbyweld's gases look a reasonable alternative, just noticed their Acetylene cylinder is £192 deposit which does seem a little on the high side for such a small cylinder.

Regards

Paul

The Grey changewheels look like they could be Southbend/Boxford (3656) lathe the tumbler reverse lever in the same pic is a Boxford item.

The toolpost is from an Adept Shaper.

Paul

Manners maketh Man

Well said.

Does anyone offer them commercially?