Member postings for Paul Lousick

See previouse posts

**LINK**

Depends on the direction of the cut (climb milling or conventional milling) but a sharp cutter can also leave a burr on the trailing edge, just smaller. (see video above)

Edited By Paul Lousick on 22/03/2021 07:19:17

The direction that you are cutting will effect the edge of the machined part.

If the endmill is cutting from the inside and finishing the cut at the edge of the part, you will get a burr but if the cut is started at the outer surface and the endmill cuts towards the inside, you will get a sharp edge.

Paul.

As demonstrated by Joe Pieczynski in this Youtube video. **LINK**

If there are only a few parts that are too big for your mill or lathe, you could do them somewhere else. Join a model club and members will normally help you.

I did not want to make my own gears and bought them from a model supplier company. The engine is 6"scale and some parts were too big to do in my home workshop and did them elsewhere. For example, the rear wheels are 24" diameter and I had the rings rolled at a local engineering shop, fabricated them in my workshop and had machining done in a commercial shop.

Paul

You have to get a backplate to match your lathe and attach the collet chuck to it.

I use an ER32 collet holder with a 3MT on my mill. Also use it on my lathe as it also has a 3MT taper in the spindle. My rotary table is also 3MT which allows me to keep the job in the collet holder and transfer to another machine without losing its centre position.

Paul

Edited By Paul Lousick on 17/03/2021 04:12:03

Using a larger 2 flute drill bit to centre on the hole does not always work because it sometimes digs in more on one side than the other (both flutes have to be ground exactly the same to cut equally), producing an offset chamfer. Even worse with a long slender drill that can flex. Using a rigid cutter, held on centre with the hole is a better option. Or a cutter with 3 or more flutes if held by hand.

This type on the left works well, as it has a large flat area for locating on centre with the hole. For larger holes I use the type with a hole thru the side. (these are easy to sharpen by grinding the cone end)

Edited By Paul Lousick on 15/03/2021 03:06:31

I protect newly machined or cleaned and dried parts that I want to protect from rusting and don't want to coat with oil (because they will be painted, silver solderred, etc) by wrapping in kitchen cling film. It also protects tham from bunps and scratches.

Paul.

According to the Proxxon FF 400 User Manual

**LINK**

It can use commercially available milling cutters with a maximum shaft diameter of 12 mm and a tool diameter of max. 40mm can be used. For an optimum working result, it isnecessary to adjust the milling machine and the milling parameters (feed, depth of cut, speed) to the workingconditions and to choose these accordingly.

We can recommend the milling cutters from our accessory range such as the end-milling cutter set (2-5 mm) 24610 or, for larger jobs, the end-milling cutter set(6-10 mm), Item No. 24620

Therefore should be able to do a 4mm cut in mild steel.

Paul.

There are bargans to be had when buying online but it is buyer beware. If it looks too good to be true, it's probably not true. I saw a photo of a great set of slip gauges which were adverlised as second hand but looked to be in great shape in the photo and bought it at a ridiculously low price. When it arrives it was exactly as advertised but I failed to read the advertisement coirrectly. I had bought a photo of a set of slip gauges. Grrr $$#@@**&&.

A good lesson and I'm much more careful now. I have purchase a couple of slip gauges that came with a certificate and use them for checking the accuracy of micrometers and gauges.

Paul

This has already been discussed in depth. Do a search on MEW for posts.

Paul

Hi Les, If your worried about a thread disappearing and don't want to make paper prints, you can print to a pdf file instead and save it on your computer.

When reading posts that are of particular interest to me, on MEW and other sites, and want to keep them for future reference, I copy the parts that I want to keep and paste them into a Word document. Do it as you are reading thru a document and you don't have to remember where they came from.

Paul.

I only have an inexpensive gear puller which has served me well for 20 years. (this one advertised on ebay for $12.50) Also available from hardware stores and car accessory stores. (there must be similar stores in Italy where you can check the quality before buying)

Paul

The flat transmission belts in the link may all be made of canvas but that was not the first material to be used to make them.

Flat belts were usually made of leather in the mid-19th century. They also used ropes made of cotton, hemp, flax, or even wire. Power transmission with leather belts remained a popular solution until the start of the 20th century. Today, most power transmission belts consist of elastomer covers combined with a belt body made of synthetic polymers.

If you have wet steam, a slide valve will lift and prevent a hydraulic lock and blown cylinder covers with luck, a piston valve will not. Cylinder drains are vital with piston valves.

I used to drive an Aveling and Porter steam roller which was fitted with piston valves. The action of the throttle lever was much easier and smoother to operate than those with slide valves. It was also fitted with spring loaded, automatic drain cocks on the cylinder to prevent hydraulic lockup.

Paul

I originally bought a standard mill vice which came on a swivel base and it has served me well for 8 years. The swivel base is seldom used and I just use the vice and clamp it directly to the mill table. A key slot has been added to the underside of the base for a key which aligns the vice with the mill table slots. Very quick to remove and re-mount the vice for most work..

Also have a 70mm wide precision vice which I use for those more accurate milling operations. It is also handy when machining parts with a double inclined angle by holding it in the standard vice.

I am considering upgrading and would like a Kurt vice but my pockets are not that deep and am looking at getting a versatile vice, a clone of the Kurt but much cheaper.

The advantage of using a precision type vice is the clamping action of the jaws which pull down as the jaws close and not lift as it does in a conventional vice. This also what happens in a Kurt vice.

The jaws can also be re-positioned and used for light clamping of wider parts that wont fit between the standard jaw position.

Paul

You could make your own by forging one.

Making a square intermal shape can be done by drilling a hole in a piece of round bar that just slides over the corners of the spindle on the valve. Then heat the round bar (red hot), insert a piece if square rod with the same size as the spindle and squash it down onto the square rod. Remove the square rod while still hot or it may not come out.

40ft sounds about right. A steam traction engine would be about 20ft away from the threshing m/c and the belt would be made from a number of lengths of leather, each laced together.

The original threshing machine probably used a leather belt. Why not keep it original ? The ends of the belts did not use metal joiners but were laced togeter. They are quieter, no clack noise when the join runs over the pulley.

I have an old Southbend lathe with a flat belt drive. The belts are made from new material but are laced together. They get a lot of use and the lacing does wear thru but last for 3-6 months before replacing which only takes a few minutes.

The ends of flat belts were also glued to together.

Paul

Edited By Paul Lousick on 21/02/2021 11:24:03

The tapers on the stem and body of the plug valves on my steam engine have all been lapped together to achieve a water/steam tight seal.

A possible problem doing this on a lathe spindle with a tapered plug is that the plug and spindle surfaces are both worn away to achieve a common taper between them and this taper angle may not be exactly tha same as the other tooling that you insert into the spindle. On a valve, the 2 are a matched set.

Paul

A CAD package will require a lot of study time to master and many give up and say its too hard but great if you know how to use it. Learning the commands is like learning a new language. (How long would it take you to be fluent in Russian or Mandarin ? Learning CAD is no different.)

CAD is only a tool to help you design things and is more accurate than doing it by hand in 2D but it will not make you into a designer if you don't have the skills to start with.

I have been a professional engineer / draftsman for 50 years. Started with Autocad then ProEngineer and Solidworks. Learning is much easier now that we have access to the internet tutorials. With ProE, I was sent on a 1 week training course to learn the basics for modeling parts. Then a month later, another week to learn advanced drawing techniques and finally another weeks training to learn advanced modelling. It was estimated that it took a qualified 2D draftsman 3 to 6 months to be as efficient as they were on a drawing board. But after that time you were way ahead. The big advantage is the accuracy achieved and the time and cost saving when drawings have to be changed. Learning Solidworks was a bit quicker. The software was more user friendly and I already had an understanding of modelling in 3D.

Paul

Edited By Paul Lousick on 19/02/2021 03:12:44