What Did You Do Today 2019

Me too - but then I'm no good at biking either.

No doubt golfers might come up with something familiar to them.

Magazine editors might use a part from a linotype machine? Link

Whatever floats your boat, but I can't help thinking there are other, more comfortable, handles.

Raised a smile, thanks for posting.

Wouldn’t want to get those cables caught up in it Terry, nice as it is lol.

Edited By Ian Hewson on 21/03/2019 09:38:05

Finally solved my problem with windows updates; I have an identical PC in the workshop that I cancelled the update on.

I've swapped PCs and now don't have a problem because the one in the workshop is only used for quick internet checks for information.

Brian

I have a KeilKraft Ladybird made in 1952 by my late father in law.

I flew it once (at Sutton Park) when it was 50 years old using a DC Merlin. I do keep meaning to re-restore it and perhaps add micro RC for rudder, just to keep it in sight!

Who needs a VFD, eh?

Great day so far......

Day off from work , MEW mag dropped through the letter box and shortly after that the Vertex rotary table I bought second hand from forum member David Corner arrived.

David I commend your packing sir and I can't thank you enough for being such a gent to deal with.

Many thanks,

Ian

Clive India I was hoping to find an old 1950s Raleigh type pedal with a loose central spindle, removing the rubbers and the end shells would have left me with a lovely chrome plated handle!

I'm making a pallet for my rotary table. Lots of M6 tapped holes. With this in mind I bought an Archer auto reverse tapper from ebay.

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 21/03/2019 21:25:18

Examined my Myford VMC mill to see how best to fit the Allendale DRO magnetic-strip profile. Not easy to find anywhere suitable, really!

If I put it directly along the front edge of the bed I will need either to make little dovetail nuts or drill and tap the back wall of the slot in which the bed stops work. Only they won't be there any more.

A fraction too high and the profile and its cover are above the bed surface. A fraction low and it fouls the oil-nipples. Also if for any reason I had to remove it from the bed, I'd have to destroy the strip itself as that is stuck on, and hides the mounting-screws.

So thinks on.... Machine a set of cross-pieces to be screwed into the bed face, outside the profile which would be screwed to them? Not much room available, but it might be possible. I'd still lose the bed-stops, probably also the locks, and risk the oilers being inaccessible.

And that's even before I think about trying to fit the cross and vertical travel encoder profiles on a machine not designed for such luxuries!

By now my stomach was telling me to forage for food, and my brain was fading from all that thinking! So I locked up and retreated to the house for the evening.

Indeed it is; the vice will take 8.5" between the jaws. Although given the ends were sawn I wonder if the work might have tilted over instead? Clearly I've still got a lot to learn about man-sized milling on a horizontal. On the high speed range the motor power is 5hp. The spindle is driven by a gearbox so at 100rpm that's a lot of torque. I suspect 'orrid things might happen before the spindle stalls. Thus far I haven't got the motor to sound like it's even working.

Andrew

Good investment Roderick, saves a lot of work, like your quick clamp method.

Emgee

Today I found the Mitutoyo digital mike that had been lost for 10 months. The one I bought as a replacement came yesterday.

Finished the pallet. I don't think my dodgy shoulder would have let me tap the holes by hand.

One half of the disc has holes on a rectangular array and the other half is radial. Not sure if this was a good idea or not. I've got a pallet on the CNC mill that's also waiting for an array of holes.

Rod

Andrew, could you arrange a method of holding the pieces direct on the table and doing away with the vice, a 1/4" bar across each end, and maybe something each side, I use that method when facing similar bits with the face cutter on the vertical mill and don't have any trouble with the metal getting thrown out side ways ( I thought that might be a problem). I'v only got the useless tilting vice that came with the mill.

Ian S C

Spent some time trying to figure out how to re-arrange my stuff ( take 'trying 'as optimistic ) ended up making an adaptor plate for my compound slide handle to allow me to use cordless drill as auto feed for tapers etc …
not designer chic but hey ! it works...

Didn't have any 8mm hex bar for the centre drive & wasn't going to cut down a piece of 12mm just for a 'make do' set up so used some 8mm screwed rod ,couple of washers, nuts & some thread lock... Bob's your auntie... summat like that.

George.

George - I really like that idea - turning the top slide handle to take a cut is a pain at the best of times.......

Chris

If you need to turn lots and lots of tapers, I wonder how feasible it would be to fit a secondary change-wheel train to the saddle, and linking lead-screw or rack to cross-slide, thus generating the taper?

In fact I have seen several You-tube videos of lathes apparently built with this facility - all were in Russia, being used to make large-diameter, quick-taper "wood-screws" the videos went on to reveal are log-splitters.

John Reese:

AWOL micrometer? One knows how one feels....

Awkward steam-engine design calculation a bit beyond my brain and paper-and-pencil range, and before I had a computer.

Find calculator. Oh, can't find calculator.

Slide-rule? Can't find my slide-rule.

Nothing for it: logarithms, with a quick self-taught refresher lesson.

Next day, bought new scientific calculator (surprisingly, significantly larger than the lost one).

Three weeks later, opening a drawer to retrieve something else, there was the absent calculator.

I'd swear homes and workshops develop black holes. Tiny ones, without the power of the cosmic sort so unable to sustain themselves, consequently dispersing fairly soon and dropping their "eaten" hence temporarily invisible items unharmed wherever they happen to have drifted as they dissolve.

Gentlemen,

I know its not model engineering but my wife and I both engineered the concept thirty eight years ago and yesterday evening our Daughter presented us with our first little engineer and stationary engine lover, a Grandson.

Martin P