Member postings for John MC

I've recently been asked by my electricity supplier to consider having a smart meter fitted, initially i was put off by the guy at the other end of the phone being quite insistent that it would save me money! As we all know, it won't, its the consumer that can do that, with or without a smart meter.

For me it was an easy decision not to, the array of PV panels on the roof decided that. I could, possibly, affect the amount of money I get from "feed in", difficult to tie down exactly but it could cost me so no smart meter.

John

DM foundries at Stroud, not that far from Reading.

John

RG2's group of three photo's, middle photo, is that a £10 note twixt clamp and work?

Used the slotter for the first time this year. Put a keyway in to a part for a milling machine.

I have a Pollard Corona drill that has an X-Y table with an old Ortec DRO fitted, bolted permanently to the work table. Extremely useful, with a trued up vice and an edge finder I rarely mark out before drilling now. If the X -Y+rotary table had more travel I think I would buy one to extend the versitality of the set up I have described.

John

Magnetic tools are a nuisance, I would avoid these things like I would the plague!

Kudos to Ady 1. Just got back from a 20 mile road ride, 'flippin cold! I'm still happy to mix it with other road traffic but would consider a static trainer in the future. I've recently had a go on a friends set up, a "real" bike connected to a loading device that replaces the back wheel and some computer wizardry called "Zwift". I found this really quite engaging. My real cycling passion is mountain biking, well away from the risk of other traffic.

John

I bought one of these in 1980 something. Work took to me to Australia so I arranged to buy 8 plus grinding fixtures, not all for me! I think that there were only two sizes then, I had one of each.

Initially I was impressed, they worked well enough on my relatively light weight lathe. I upgraded to more rigid machinery, and found that the the tool would move downwards under a heavy cut/feed. Could also be the source of vibration. Easily sorted with the large butt-welded HSS tooling I had. Not as easy to sharpen though! For a while longer I used the diamond tool holder as a finishing tool until I got to grips with disposable tips. The tool holders went when I upgraded the smaller of my two lathes, something I have occasionally regretted.

A couple of criticism I have of them is how often is an internal square corner needed? Best avoided if at all possible. A good friend who worked in a toolroom ground radii along the edge of several pieces of HSS for me. Was this something offered by the supplier at on time?

Also, tougher steels would soon bring on the need for frequent sharpening that (near) square corner could be a bit delicate.

John

Absolutely, a real minefield when it comes to house sales and maintenance of the building. Also a number of hidden cost with these rented roof installations, homeowners paying for the cost of scaffolding for the initial installation, costs for an "annual inspection", cleaning costs. There were others I found when researching this. Each installer, it seemed to me, had there own crafty ways of maximising there earnings!

I bought my own installation, for me by far the best option. I worked out that I would get my money back in about 8.5 years, just checked this and am on course for that, if no component failures happen.

I also had an immersion heater controller fitted with the panels at a very good price, in the summer that gives me all the hot water we need at a very, very low cost.

Anyone had any success with one of these? I've had one for 20+ years. My first attempts produced drills with a negative clearance behind the cutting edge. No matter what I did (or friends who tried) it would not grind the correct clearance. I contacted the suppliers who replaced it with another. Unfortunately just the same results.

I really should have asked for a refund at that time, instead it was placed on a shelf in the workshop and forgotten about. That is until a recent thread on this forum reminded about it. So had another go, same results.

So, what am I doing wrong, any ideas?

I've now looked at several forums on this subject, some say they work well, others have had the same experience as me. The fact they can work makes me think its me rather than the machine, surely not a manufacturing fault?

In the intervening years I used a Draper attachment on a bench grinder, cheap and nasty but worked well! The I bought a drill grinder similar to Warco's, a super piece of kit!

Many thanks for the replies. I think it safe to assume its an Atlas or UK clone. I asked on behalf of a friend who will soon advertise it for sale. Now the advertisement can be somewhat more informative than just a "lathe for sale", thanks again guys.

John

Can anyone identify this lathe? Thanks, John

Edited to say the metal turning one,not the one in the foreground!

Edited By John MC on 03/01/2019 09:09:30

I would like to think Hydrogen is the way forward but realistically not in the forseeable future. I don't think wave power has been mentioned. I worked on a wave power project some 35 years ago and was left feeling that the power of the sea was not tameable, developments since have done nothing to change my mind.

I had solar PV fitted 5 years ago on a roof facing in a good but not perfect direction. I calculated that pay back would be in (roughly) 8.5 years, so far that seems to be about right. At the same time I had an immersion heater controller fitted, free hot water in the summer!

John

Thanks for the replies. Think I understand now. I do my design work with Solidworks, that seems like it will do the job.

John

I've decided to buy one of those low cost CNC routers, mainly to make pattern making easier.

I have the CAD software to create the 3D model. I assume I will need something like the Mach3 software to create a code that the machine will understand. Next, do I need a "motion controller" between Mach3 and the machine?

I'm struggling to understand this bit, help!!!

Thanks,

John

I suppose this will lead to a "why do slip gauges stick together?" thread.

Thank you for the replies. As Rik S says puzzling out a new process beats watching the idiot box etc every time. I'm OK with the modelling software, learnt to use that years ago but can still get frustrated by it!

The patterns I want to make are for a motorcycle related project ( to begin with) and there will be the need to use the patterns several times so polystyrene is not the way forward.

I've viewed the suggested videos on YouTube, useful information.

DS14, thats some good work there, many years ago I had the patterns for a motorcycle engine cast in steel from a 3D printed patterns. Worked well but the pattern needed a lot of "cleaning up", I believe surface finish has moved on since then.

At the moment I am leaning towards CNC routing.

For the work I want it to do, think of a motorcycle cylinder. Probably milled/routed from polyurethane foam as a kit of parts then glued together.

John

Is anyone here using 3D printing to make casting patterns? If so was it successful or not worth the effort, best stay with conventional methods.

Would 3D printing patterns be better than using a "desktop CNC router/engraver"? I am guessing that either could produce a pattern but both techniques would require some degree of hand finishing.

I can see advantages to both, having said that I have no recent experience of either. When I was last involved in either of these processes 3D printing was called Stereolithography and CNC used punched tape.

I think the best solution would be a machine that could do both, does such a thing exist?

As for price I am surprised how little these machines cost, it begs the question are they any good? I would rather pay more rather than less for a reliable machine.

As for size, a 250mm cube of capacity would be good. Although most of the machines from the bottom end of the market seem somewhat restricted in the Z axis. I'm sure its possible to work around that.

Sorry for all the questions, i'm looking forward to your comments guys.

John

I've been using cheap inserts for a few years now and have noticed that the quality is constantly improving. So much so now I would not bother with buying the higher cost tips.

A local engineering company (sheet metal tooling) use the cheap far eastern tips for roughing out components. They tell me that there is a small cost saving in that area. For finishing these tools after heat treatment its back to Sandvik for finishing, no grinding. They have found two problems with the far eastern tips, don't last long machining steel at 900Hv and the manufacturing tolerances on the tips and the holders, makes machine setting a more time consuming and therefore more costly business.

When I first used tipped tooling, early 80's, I used "Stelram" tips. These tips were very fragile but once feeds and speeds were sorted they worked well. Thinking back to those time I can fully appreciate how much this type of tooling has improved.

One last memory, we consulted with Stelram frequently, their salesmen reckoned that within 15 years HSS would be obsolete, what do you think?

John

The water pump is the "Humphrey" pump. I visited an installation in Chingford (UK) many years ago, not working but still in place. I wonder if they are still there?

John