Member postings for I.M. OUTAHERE

Looking at fig 3 the holes for the boring bar lock screws are at 10mm centres and the drawing shows the centre line of the hole for the leadscrew nut runs halfway between the centre boring bar screw hole and the outer one so 5mm off centre and on the opposite side to the lead screw dial .

This would give 12mm travel when turning the leadscrew clockwise from the point where the head and slide align , you would have around 3.5 mm of the end of the leadscrew protruding from the leadscrew nut at this point and this gives you some movement to turn the leadscrew counterclockwise from the point where the head and slide align .

This can be usefull for tool overlap when using the boring head to open up holes that start out fairly small and you have to change the position of the boring barfrom the middle hole to the outer hole to achieve the larger hole sizes as needed - but as with all things it comes at the cost of losing some boring diameter which can be worked around using a different way of mounting the boring bar in the boring head

Neil, how is assembly made easier having the leadscrew nut on the same side as the dial ?

As the retaining screw for the leadscrew support is on the same side as the dial negating the ability to mount a boring bar on that side and having the leadscrew nut closest to the dial gives a minimal amount of travel from the point where the body and slide align when turning the leadscrew clockwise .  I believe having the leadscrew nut on the same side as the dial means the centre boring bar hole starts out on centre (body & slide aligned )and its swing increases as you turn the dial counterclockwise but this means the outer boring bar hole  has its swing reduced  as it is move towards the centre ?

Edited By XD 351 on 19/05/2016 17:20:04

It has never caused me any problems , the only thing i would check is if it is corrosive to aluminium which i doubt but some tapping fluids are and instead of nice chips coming out of the hole you get black gunk .

Ian.

Looks like something to check wall thickness on a tube or pipe , maybe ammunition ?

Have a look at the Kyocera website it has a pretty good section on carbide inserts ,you can also get the app for apple devices from the app store for Kyocera and Sandvik both are excellent reference tools

Ian

Must be for those days when everthing you touch turns to crap !

FSWizard has some use but the free "lite" version is very restricted .

Kyocera , Sandvik and Starrett have some useful catalogues .

There are a few electronics apps but I can't recommend any as they are of limit use to most but still fun to play with .

The lapping process aids running in as it ensures that the OD of the rings make full contact in the engine cylinder as they have been fitted to a dummy piston and lapped in a dummy cylinder that is the same bore size as the engine cylinder the dummy cylinder has also been honed and a tapered leade machined in one end to aid getting the dummy piston and rings to be lapped into the dummy cylinder it is just a matter of lubricating then working the dummy piston back and forth in the dummy cylinder around 50 strokes then checking the rings . You should see a nice shiny surface around the OD of the rings if not lap again and any dodgy looking rings can be pegged in the bin , it just helps to sort the good ones from the bad before you install them in an engine , many rings in full sized engines are lapped at the factory that makes them.

The engine cylinder is honed as usuall not lapped .

Ian

Yes i feel this website could be more than just a forum and some advertising !

But this depends on those that run it and what they want to do with it , it could be the number one place for info and communications among model engineers with a few adjustments and some hard work from those in the know engineers that are prepared to give their knowledge and time to make it happen..

Think of like a wkipedia of model engineering on this website!

Ian

I feel that you may gain more benefit by lapping the rings in a dummy cylinder after they have been heat treated and forget the grinding process , wish i had a cylindrical grinder though as I used to run one at a hardchrome company and they are one handy piece of kit!

Hi Andrew, thanks for your reply , all good information there for the beginner especially using a saw to split the rings .

I must admit i have never considered grinding the OD ! Do you think there is a benifit in doing this?

Hi Jason ,

Wow ! Thanks for taking the time to post such a comprehensive answer! There are two bits of information in there that i think most beginners are looking for :

The size of the spacer to spread the rings for heat treatment and the ring groove clearances .

Most articles tell you to insert a suitable spacer in the ring gap and heat etc but never explain what suitable is !

It would be nice if on the home page there was a link to a page/pages for info like that ,probably never happen though as anything submitted would have to be proof read before adding to the library - but one can only hope .

Ian

Search for an essay on piston rings on your choice of search engine and you should stumble upon a usefull article by walshaw.

I don't blame fizzy as some subjects re occur with regular monotony , which lathe to buy is a classic example .

I too would like to see some input by the more experienced engine builders in regards to the process of making rings more easily and with a higher success rate for beginners .

Yes sure i could go and dig through my library and find what i need to know but that doesn't help anyone else as they may not have access to the same books as i do .

Ian.

Also known as jewleling in the gun trade ,it is used to smoothen the sliding action of the bolt as it retains the oil film on the bolt.

Hi Mathew,

all the books noted so far are all excellent choices but it can be difficult to gauge your level of experience on the lathe .

some books will start you off with the very basics and work their way through to more complex set ups ,others will assume you know the basics and take you from there to making some tooling etc .

So after a rummage through my library and a look at some of the books i have read i will list what i think i would recommend to a person who has only a very basic understanding of lathe work through to some one that has had some time on a machine , i won't place Model Engineering a foundation course in this list as it offers much more than just lathe work .

1- The amateurs lathe - LH Sparey - this is on e of the best books written on lathe work ever !

2- how to run a lathe - south bend - been around for a million years and once you get past the pictures of their machines it does have a lot of useful information although some of the pictures are quite old in my copy there were newer versions printed .

3- The compact lathe - Stan Bray - this is also an excellent book and fairly comprehensive but is more aimed at very small lathes like a sherline , taig or toyo which may not have screw cutting abilities so i found it a bit wanting in that regard but none the less still a damned good book.

4- Lathe work a complete course - Harold Hall- if you have had a bit of a go on the lathe and want to improve your skills and make some excellent additions to your tool box this is also a fine book , it is part of the workshop practice series (available through this website i think ?) along with many other books in the series- a veritable library of knowledge you will find in the Workshop Practice Series .

Ok so now for Metalworking a foundation course - Peter Wright - i feel that anyone starting out or moderately experienced in model engineering or just general plain metal work will find this book extremely useful , sure if you have been doing this sort of thing for 40+ yrs you may know everything that is in this book but for model engineers i feel this book to be one of the best ever printed and covers a wide variety of topics not just lathework.

cutting oil : i use the following .

Aluminium - all operations -any WD type spray or tap magic , if you want to use a brush to apply just spray some in a small tin .

cast iron , brass , bronze - cut dry no cutting oil .

steel - i usually use tap magic but it is costly , i have a lot of old unmixed soluable oil that i pilfered from somewhere , i use it neat but it smokes like crazy and stinks even worse but works well when tapping . the stuff that Neil uses sounds pretty good to me .

Ian

By tap wrench do you mean you are using the conventional type or one of those tee handle types ?

I will only use the tee handle type in desperation as thier extra length makes it easier to transmit the turning force off centre causing the tap to flex , this makes breaking a small tap easier .

3mm x0.5 pitch = 2.5 mm drill

4mmx 0.7 pitch = 3.3 mm drill

Depending on what you are using the thread for you could go up 0.1 mm in drill size but if you stick to the thread diameter minus the pitch you should not be having a problem .

Also measure the drills you are using you wouldn't be the first guy to cop an undersized drill or one with worn flutes if in doubt peg it in the bin and get a new one .

You can make a simple tapping block out of scrap by drilling a hole the same size as the thread in a small block of aluminium (use a drill press ,mill or lathe for ths so the hole is at 90 deg to one surface ) this will help get the tap in the hole nice and square .

If you are tapping a hole and you feel the tap starting to bind back it right out of the hole and blow the hole out with compressed air re - apply your cutting fluid if your using it and continue , i have found that chip build up can cause the tap to bind especially with cast iron , aluminium and copper .

Buy only good quality taps the extra expense is worth it - trust me i have broken enough taps and had to scrap a part more times than i care to think about to ever scimp on quality ever again !

I have subscribed to a few different types of magazines over the years and if you want to see ideas , techniques or articles that have been repeated many times pick up a magazine about fishing !

I can assure you that every 2 yrs or so a new fad will pop up that will catch you more fish but if you go back through the years you will soon see that it has all been done before and i have seen on many occasions the same person has written the article but they have just changed the photos to make it look like a new story .

i have read a few that were exactly the same word for word even the page layout was the same but different photos !

I no longer read fishing magazines for this reason!

electronics has gone PIC mad and every project they put out uses thes programmable chips or the magazine went crazy over the valve amplifier they designed and kept flogging this over and over for near on two years !

Once the Editor started to write more and more editorials about climate change and how we should all use electric mowers to combat the evil of pollution i stopped reading that magazine as well !

There is one U.S based magazine that is about machining and home workshops but seems to be doing more and more gunsmithing stories and is getting the flick when that subs runs out - not that i have anything against gunsmithing its just that the stories are usually about AR15/ M16 type rifles that are banned here so i'm not likely to see one anytime soon .

There is usually something in M.E & MEW for the majority of readers and there will always be times where there may be little of interest to a few readers but the editors cannot control that as every one is different and has different tastes , interest and views .

If we were all the same and all liked exactly the same things i'm sure that would make the Editors job much easier as all they would have to do is put into the magazne what they like and we would all be happy but what a boring world that would be !

Just renewed my subs and MEW will be done later in the year.

keep up the good work Diane and Neil  your job is one i could never do !

Ian

Edited By XD 351 on 15/03/2016 17:13:48

+ 1 for c-tek chargers .

There are some really crap trickle / float chargers out there that kill batteries , i had one of those so called float chargers that are meant to keep your battery topped up but after it killed the second battery in my boat it was binned and a c-tek purchased .

One extra bonus for those in colder climates is the temperature sensing abillity of the c-tek unit so it won't punch in full power into a cold battery.

Best thing i ever bought for my boat - along with the Ultimate brand battery , now 5 yrs old and still going strong !

Ian

It tops my list of all the magazines i read !

Although Model Engineer and Australian Model Engineers magazines are nipping at its heels as far as i'm concerned .

I also subscribe to home shop machinist and machinist workshop and Model Engine builder but a few things i see that differ significantly from the UK and Australian magazines are :

The U.S based magazines are smaller and seem to have much more advertizing and the seem to have gunsmithing tagged to the magazine , while i personaly don't mind that 3 or 4 pages of modifying an AR15 Assault rifle is of little use to me as they are banned here in Australia .

I think i will trim my subscription list this year back to MEW ,ME & AME .

If you modify machines or build your own tooling MEW is for you , If you're into Making models then ME is what you want and if you live in Australia you should buy AME anad support the local rag .

Ian

Good oppertunity to upgrade to brushless , sooner or later the controller will die anyways so new controller and brushless motor is the way i would go finances permitting .

Merry Christmas to all !

Looks like it will be a nice day here in Sydney Australia - it usually rains !

Cheers and beers !

Ian.

We used copper sulphate solution to check the hardchrome plating on rollers , if you wipe the roller down with a rag that had been dipped in copper sulphate solution it would react where the chrome had been ground off .

There is a catch to using it for stainless and that is you could have a carbon steel bar or rod that has been plated so a magnet test would be useful as well .

The next thing is to test if it is stainless or monel , from memory another acid test .

I vaguely remember something about austenitic manganese steel not being magnetic either

Edited By XD 351 on 03/12/2015 17:38:46