Member postings for Trevor Wright

Sorry for the delay Alan, I have been distracted....

The stop bar is a bit pointless unless you have a Y axis power feed, in which case you will have to retain it.

I fitted the X axis at the rear so that I could fit the limit switch for the X axis power feed on the front.

No, I do not have any drawings, the Aluminium mountings were bent and drilled to suit.

Trevor

Note the snagged cable from the y axis where it gets caught on the oil pipe.

Trevor

I have.....and it was a bit of a nightmare.

Will post some pictures shortly.

Trevor

Todays youngsters are just as interested in making things but there are few activities around that allow them to use/show the results.

Robot Wars was mentioned earlier and I have been involved for 18 years, I am on tomorrow btw, and the number of old boys like me are confined to "Dad and Son" teams. Most participants start as students building featherweight, 13.6kg machines, and due to the revival of the show are now making their first heavyweights. The appeal of this show is like the cooking shows mentioned earlier, youngsters see others their age doing it and think I can do that.

Steam and vintage cars appeal to the older generation whereas the youngsters want racing bikes and some form of extreme sport that we grow out of as the bones start to stiffen up....

Much as I like model engineering shows static displays get tedious if you cannot appreciate the difficulty in making it as youngsters do. Ally Pally show invited Robot Wars to put on a small display recently and the most enjoyable, and busy, section was where we got the kids to make their own cardboard robot with glue and sellotape and have a Sumo competition. I am not saying that is what we have to do, but we need to step back from our traditional superbly built show mentality and involve the kids in activities they can do easily.

My two penneth anyway.....stands back to be shot down.....

Trevor

PS, on tomorrows show there is a young lad, 21, who built his machine from laser cut parts which had been drawn in cad and is self taught. The youngsters have the drive, but they need to be guided to something that excites them.

Going back to the earlier reference of female parallel to male taper, I have found this to work superbly with thread tape on pneumatic and hydraulic fittings - the hydraulic fittings are for high pressure CO2 gas - taking up to 60bar pressure. The taper thread will deform the parallel thread and lock solid without the need for face seals, dowty seals etc. and are easily removed and re-used.

It may seem an odd way to use these fittings but are ideal for my hobby of building fighting robots, aka Robotwars, as ordinary pneumatic fittings will not handle these pressures.

Trev

Looks identical to the Warco dro recently purchased with a VMC mill.

Not used it much yet but functioned well out of the box, bit of a swine to fit though. A lot of head-scratching before I made my own mounting brackets.

Trev

John,

Had a play on Solidworks this morning and came up with this sketch.

Basically, a Ø22 cutter inclined at 15° will give a profile that matches to within 0.03mm the high spots at either end and a gap midway.

Trev.

PS. you may remember me coming to see you about the laser engraver, well, thanks to your help I had the confidence to buy my own.....and very pleased with it I am thanks. One question; do you put antifreeze in the coolant? Am getting a bit nervous as the machine is in the unheated shed.

David,

Try Clickmetal.co.uk. For your sizes they quote £63 + del

Trevor - usual disclaimer just satisfied customer

L'Occitane liquid soap......came with a christmas pack for SWMBO.

It is superior to Swarfega, will not hurt the skin and even removes dried on paint. Not tried it on Leylandi goo but would not be surprised if it did. Thick grease is washed off with very little at one attempt, even fingernails.

It is expensive - but works better than anything I have used in my 40 years in industrial engineering - and I have tried a few.

Trevor - usual disclaimer, very very satisfied customer

Edited By Trevor Wright on 22/06/2015 12:53:01

Was apprentice then NC miller at the ROF Nottingham where all the tank barrels were made, 'solid centre boring' as it was called then always fascinated the visitors. The 'drill' had 3 cutting teeth and carbide runners down the side to make it follow the hole already cut. It was never more than 1/4" out over 25ft. There were stories from the old boys who drilled them during WW2 of drills going from either end and completely missing each other, the barrels were 4-5" bigger on diameter to accomodate the drill wander.

Fascinating place to work - all flattened now with a Homebase, Experian and a bank on the site. Went the same way as Raleigh cycles another major Nottingham engineering company, it is student accomodation now......progress.

Trev

Know them as 'gun drills' and will cut dead straight, dead size and highly polished. Must have coolant through the centre tube though.

The best peice of kit I have ever used. Officially they guarantee a 1mm wander for every 1 metre drilled, pretty good.

The first time I used them on a Nimonic alloy we had a spray mist device working off the air line and it stank, didn't do the chest a lot of good either.

Second time years later on Titanium I used the 'through the spindle' coolant on the CNC. It cut like butter but sprayed the whole shop with coolant.......cutting time was 2 hours for the batch and 2 days to clean the mess. The bore to cut was Ø11.03/11.00 so we ordered Ø11.015 drills and it cut Ø11.015, straight through in one cut. You have to pre-bore to start though but after that just watch the swarf fly out of the hole.

Trev

Edited By Trevor Wright on 24/03/2015 13:20:46

Edited By Trevor Wright on 24/03/2015 13:23:41

Like Nick G I am also right handed but left footed.

Didn't have a problem with this until watching a news item on the tv a few years ago that said people who were opposite handed were usually mentally retarded.............

Trev

Michael,

"Drill rod" is the american name for our silver steel, a medium carbon steel.

Tool steel is a higher carbon steel (unless you mean HSS) and will be harder, it will just make bigger dings in the end of the bar. HSS will make even bigger dings....

Trevor

Have a pair of reading glasses and a stronger pair for closer work, normally one on the nose and the other on the head, the other day the ones on top fell down onto the others and was able to see something 2" away.....havent done that since my twenties....so Gordon, I think that is your answer, it does work!

Trevor

My only experience of spray mist was coughing profusely and sore eyes from the fog. Will not go there again, I much prefer WD40.

Had to use spray mist when gun drilling - the air and coolant went through the drill bit - the finish, size and direction were in the 0.0001" tolerance, wonderful tools. Still had me coughing and eyes smarting though especially if the coolant hadn't been thoroughly flushed before use (old spray mist stank of mouldy fabric).

Always cut dry now in the garage and squirt some WD40 when needing a finish or parting off.

Trevor

Edited By Trevor Wright on 10/02/2015 13:08:29

Bob,

I am not familiar with Turbocad, but dxf and dwg files are 2d formats while IGS are full 3d.

Perhaps another 3d format - stp, stl, parasolid - may be better. It is not clear from your post whether Sprutcam cannot handle dxf/dwg or IGS.

64 bit or 32 bit usually refers to your operating system ie Windows7 64bit or XP 32 bit. If you are on windows7 then turbocad will want to have a 64 bit upgrade

Trevor

No - I got the job, and a pay-rise...

Trevor

Slightly off topic, but when applying for my present position - Prod Eng - I had to sit a test of which one question is what does DTI stand for.........in the ten years the test had been used by the company - primarily for graduates - I was the only person to answer the question correctly......

You can get back on topic now....

Trevor