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Member postings for Clive Hartland

Here is a list of all the postings Clive Hartland has made in our forums. Click on a thread name to jump to the thread.

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Thread: I need a mill ? Manual or CNC??
01/07/2011 10:17:11
I too have had my eyes on a mill, the one I am looking at is the Wabeco with a longer table.
It is available with motorised feeds but at a cost.
I even have a PC ready for it.
As a first timer you may as well jump straight in at the deep end as cnc has a steep learning curve but as stated the mach 3 software is intuitive and will lead you through the most difficult processes.
Higher spindle speeds are a must as you may sometimes need to engrave legend on parts or even cut house name plates for a fee.
It would seem there is a long delivery time on any mill that you may order so bear that in mind as you make your choice.
Mention has been made of allowing for the cost of accessories for the mill. Clamping sets and rotary tables come to mind.
As an aside, all my working life I have had access to machinery and it is only now when I am retired that I need that access but will now have to buy my own machines.
There is nothing like 'Hands on' when making a choice of machine and you have done right by going on the Arc Euro demo day. Ask all the right questions and look carefully at the machine to make sure it covers all your requirements.
Again as an aside, If I could afford it, I would buy a Schaublin 13 or later number mill. but would need to win the Euro Lottery for that.
 
Clive
Thread: Case Hardening - can't even harden a washer !
29/06/2011 19:23:29
I would then suggest that the washer is made from some type of inferior steel sheet, it is after all only a washer!
 
Please try to harden a piece of machined steel that has been made to do something like a bush or a flange. It need not be a big thing so make it about 1" dia with a bushing and a flange.
Drill a hole through it and try again.
 
Clive, PS you might be able to use it later as a guide when drilling something.
Thread: Oil or Grease?
29/06/2011 14:03:01
I have looked at my lubricant that I use and it is, ' G Rapid Plus', made by Molykote and distributed by Dow Corning.
It is described as an 'Assemblt paste' with anti sieze properties.
This is a Graphite paste and I use it sparingly applying with a cotton bud.
It dries out and adheres to the scroll and teeth of the jaws and so far nothing has stuck to it.
 
Clive
Thread: Case Hardening - can't even harden a washer !
28/06/2011 21:48:02
I have used shoe leather chopped up in little pieces and this hardened a cylinder pawl for a pistol beautifully with a nice colour and the file bounced off it!
I have now locked up my tin of Kasenit just in case a person fancies it!
 
Clive
Thread: Oil or Grease?
28/06/2011 21:43:01
Phil, if its copper coloured then it must be!
 
Clive
Thread: Case Hardening - can't even harden a washer !
28/06/2011 14:40:31
I think Micheal has it by soak heating in a container. I would use a piece of steel tube and put it on a lager piece of steel and fill the tube with hardener and then put in the washer or component.
Heat the tube and soak heat it for five or ten minutes and then tip straight into water.
In any case I would do the gear in the same way by immersion in the hardening compound and do a soak heat as stated above.
Clive
Thread: Tank Tracks
26/06/2011 10:28:11
Stub, I was following the Link from JasonB which in the text refers to plastic track from a model German tank and therefore not to scale.
Anyway, luck with your efforts to make scale true links for the proposed track.
 
Clive
25/06/2011 21:46:17
I have checked my notes and the hardest wearing alloy is 13%tin, 17%Antimony and 70% lead.
Care should be taken that no Zinc or brass or Copper enters the mix.
 
I personally would not bother going through the hardening process as the mix will be very hard and durable anyway.
This is the mix for very hard Lino Type used in printing.
 
Fluxing agent is beeswax which is added to the mix and the dross ladled off. This can be Toxic, take care. Gloves and glasses needed. Stir well while working to stop seperation of the constituents. Work in the open avoid moisture and water at all costs.
Antimony can be taken from battery plates but it contains arsenic. to harden it.
Plumbers solder has set % of Tin so calculate by volume.
 
I see that in the pics. of the model it has plastic tracks filched from another model.
 
Clive
25/06/2011 18:36:51
Ill jump in again here, I have in my time used a lead melting pot to cast bullets and have used high values of Antimony and Tin to make harder bullets.
I think if I was to make track links I would diesink a mould in two parts and cast them with the hardest alloy of Antimony, tin and lead I could make up.
Then they could have their Brinell hardness raised by cooking them in an oven.
I have the details of this and would be happy to pass it on if Stub wants to go that way.
The quality of the casting is very good with full detail and if the die is cut using a slight taper cutter which I know are available then the item will release OK.
I have made bullet moulds to my own design and they worked fine.
It only then requires a jig to drill through for the pins.
The wieght of these cast links would satisfy the requirement to sag onto the road wheels and stabilize the running gear.
It also means that if any are worn or damaged over time then they are easily replaced by casting another set and re-using the old track links back into the pot!
I always ended up with more lead than I cast by salvaging the spent bullets from the sand bank.
With a quarter or a sixteenth scale then the track links are going to be quite large, maybe more than a inch width.
Just my thoughts.
 
Clive
24/06/2011 22:30:17
Tank tracks are made from Chrome Molybdenum steel and are cast.
The track pins make excellent chisels, tough and durable.
They have to be very durable as they carry vehicle wieghts of about 60ton on all types of terrain up to speeds of 40mph.
Tank tracks are of two types, 'live' and 'dead'.
The 'live' type have rubber bonded links that spring the track, hence the term 'Live'.
To keep the tracks flat the pins are hexagonal so as the track goes around the hubs it flexes on the rubber bushes of which there are about five or six in each link.
The 'Dead' type of track was the type used on Russian tanks and laid itself flat on the road wheels as it was carried around the hubs. The links were like flat cast slabs and had round pins.
For model purposes the requirements are not so severe as the model is small and light. Modelling the 'Live' track will be very tedious as the links would have to be joined with rubber bushes to be lifelike.
The Bren Gun Carrier had quite light tracks of steel and because of the type of springing involved the track was quite loose.
I think perhaps it would be possible to do die castings of track in a white metal, remember you need two or three hundred. Then using a jig, drill them and fit the pins.
Pins are retained with ring clips that are sprung over a taper on the pin into a groove.
There is a washer with a groove that the ring clip sits up against. This helps to retain it in place.
A very tedious project making tracks!
 
Clive
Thread: Super Glue & Balance Springs
15/06/2011 07:12:43
Because the nail polish remover is not pure, it has oils added to stop the spirit damaging the cuticles.
Unfortunately its hard to get Acetone in small quantities.
Perhaps buy the specialised super glue solvent!
 
Clive
Thread: Myford chucks
11/06/2011 21:23:23
Mark, they should go right up to the face of the mandrel.
If they do not then re-clean the male and female threads and try again.
If you still have trouble then using a cotton wool bud apply a smear of blue on the male thread and plain part and see where it is catching.
I have noticed on my 3 jaw chuck some slight scrape marks inside the plain part of the chuck body as if someone has relieved the plain part!
I dont use any lubricant on my chuck threads at all. The only part I clean and lube is the scroll and jaw teeth. For this I use a stiff graphite grease.
Under no circumstance try and force the chuck onto the mandrel, it should go very easy if clean.
 
Clive
Thread: How to dress a small diamond wheel
10/06/2011 19:42:20
To expose new grit on a stone wheel you should a Star dresser which has a multi head full of spiked metal wheels. These dig into the matrix and remove the bond and exposes new grit.
Using a diamond dresser on the wheel only smooths the surface and trues its shape and in fact lessens its ability to cut.
With a diamond wheel it depends which sort, a rubber bonded type will only burn if done with a stone and the harder type of bond will have diamond grit pulled out of the matrix.
I have not yet happily dressed a diamond wheel! Preferring to let it do its work gently and slowly and not forcing a tool being sharpened.
 
Clive
Thread: Using Micrometer/Hi-Spot blue
10/06/2011 14:35:35
Working in the Instrument repair business I have only used the Laser as an alignment tool.
Mainly aligning the graticule of an optical system to the laser so that the beam can be projected to a distant point. Actually using the laser as a surface/level device is very crude and not accurate at all. Even in industry it only works to about 2.5mm tol. over 50mtrs. Laser beams are highly diffracted and hard to determine the centers. If the beam hits the graticule it will diffract and special grats. with the no markings in the center are used.
Examples are boresights for setting up gunsights and aligning the weapon to the mount in an aircraft or fixed mounting.
Another example is for Zenith and Nadir optical plumbs for mines and lift shafts.
Also used for the run of drainage beds to allow for the fall of the drainage.
 
Mention is made of Autocollimation which is accurate and the readings are half the reflected image.
Lots of applications use autocollimation such as a long line of rollors in a mill and alignment of structures in ship building. Specially made Theodolites with stiff axis are used and they can be mounted sideways/rightangles on a bulkhead.
Personally I have used Auto collimation to survey the bed of a ships engine that threw a con-rod, this distorted the crankshaft and that then distorted the bed.
I measured the bed every 300mm and also did it across the bed and was able to determine that the bed was shaped like a banana with a max. error of 237Thou. dip in the middle and that one side was 180Thou. higher then the other.
The Insurance paid out for a new bed and a new crankshaft.
There is a long story about this engine and the ship and when it happened.
The simplest method is a theodoilte with an autocollimation eyepiece fitted and a Titanium mirror fitted to a levelled mount or cube which is absolutely square and can be put in any position.
Examples of this are aligning Head up Displays in aircraft and some aircraft and ships weapon systems.
 
Back to scraping, part of my training was to scrape Inspectors Clinometers, this entailed scraping the base and then using a ground square, scraping the end face. The material was Bronze and it was easy to overscrape and make it worse. Then I had to stone the cam that rode the underface of the drum and this was all checked on a master Clinometer with a long swinging arm.
Later I was faced with levelling the trunnions of Theodolites, this I did on a face plate and lapped them in until there was no Tilting Axis error. This faceplate had little quarter inch squares and was loaded with diamond paste.
Later I lapped another surface plate to it and trued it up and I still use that plate today.
 
Optical flats are for determining the quality and flatness of a surface, can be used to see if the anvils on a micrometer are square to each other. They are easily scratched and can soon become useless. I only used them for inspection purposes.
 
Clive
Thread: Scale turnbuckle connectors for Three and half gauge loco
08/06/2011 13:33:07
Thank you very much Stick, thats just what I need.
 
Regards, Clive.
07/06/2011 21:15:38
I have searched high and low for drawings of the Turnbuckles for my loco.
Does anyone have sized drawings of these for the above gauge?
 
Clive
Thread: Super glue (cyanoacrylate)
03/06/2011 08:22:59
Rather than buy the cheapo stuff in the £1 shops go buy the Engineering adhesives, the containers are always full.
I agree that the small containers are near useless and have no shelf life and the adhesive qualities are suspect.
Yes, its all a rip off I am afraid.
Try Goldfish flakes, at £2.70 for 10grms. To save you working it out its £270 a Kilo.
 
Clive
Thread: Axle box lubrication
01/06/2011 21:55:36
On my Evening Star there is a hole drilled through the axle to a cross hole in the axle where it sits in the axle box. Grooves and other holes will let the oil move around.
The book suggest pumping thick oil through the hole which should be easily accessible from the side of the wheel.
To me this would have the effect of flushing the bearings and the axle box.
It just needs a pump with a cone that will go into the small hole.
 
Clive
Thread: Ultrasonic Cleaners - Experiences? Any Good?
31/05/2011 14:12:12
Here is a follow up on the MICRO-90.Aqueous Cleaning solution.
This is distributed in the UK by:-
 
International Products Corp.
Unit 5
Green Lane Business Park
238 Green Lane
London SE9 3TL 020 8857 5678
 
Web address. saleseurope@ipcol,com
 
Clive
 
31/05/2011 07:50:36
We do use a small qty of White Spirit in a container to clean out small brgs. Care is taken not to contaminate the aqueous solution and then only for a minimum of time.
The container I let sit in the basket slightly tipped over and it seemes to resonate OK and you can see the fluid turbulating as it cleans.
 
Then the components are washed in detergent and put back into the tank in the normal way to complete the cleaning.
 
Clive
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