Let your mates use your lathe for a small turning job! on the understanding they leave it as its mean to be! not as they found it....

On larger machines,with coolant pumps,brush swarf off slides after use then let coolant drain from the swarf and clean down machine next day,saves coolant and the swarf is relatively dry.I could not work with clingfilm on my Myford,its so easy to use 2 inch brush and dustpan ,news paper on the drip tray could be dodgy if hot swarf set it alight.During my apprenticeship it was hammered into you do not clean machines with an airline,and clean your machine ensuring it was free from soluble oil before going on to cast iron jobs,cast iron and slurry turns the iron into solid lumps.All machines not in use were thoroughly cleaned on a friday,and and those in operation would be rough cleaned and swarf removed during the last ten minutes of the day.A simple tool for operators was the swarf hook,a 1/4 inch dia piece of rod with a handle formed at one end like a meccano screwdriver and the last 2 inches of the other end was bent at 90 degrees, strings of swarf could be pulled off the lathes with this hook without cutting your hands, no gloves issued in those days, I still use a hook on my Colchesters.

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Thank God I'm an Atheist.

Actually I'm not, I'm an Agnostic because Atheist's don't get bank holidays.

Jason, don't need to raid the kitchen, keep big rolls of cling film in the workshop for wrapping parts onto pallets how ever don't think I'll go that far. Lathes and mills usually get a clean every week, often time big rats nests get lobbed in the skip if they get in the way.

However there is a big difference between a hobby shop and a working shop. In a hobby shop cleaning up can be part of the hobby and pride of ownership. Working shop, it's just a chore to knock money off the bottom line.

Bought a brand new TOS lathe 15 - 17 ? years ago now and put it into service. After a couple of weeks noticed that the paint on the apron, which was just a single spray coat onto bare metal was coming off, being abraded by the chips and was rather disappointed. Then realised that this machine had been bought to work, no polish and all was well in my mind. It soon lost most of it's paint on the carriage and apron but it's all machines surfaces anyway, as opposed to cast and 15 odd years on it doesn't look much different.

Last two brand new machines I have bought a 14 x 30 lathe in blue and a Warco WM40 mill in green I have had colour chipped at the local body shop and bought 2L of enamel paint for each. Mainly to paint attachments like the ex-Beaver slotting head that now resides on the back of the WM40. Recently fitted a 4" packing block to the same machine but this still needs to be painted as does the Hoffman dividing head that usually lives full time on this same machine.

At some point in the future I may properly clean, solvents etc, the TOS and titivate it up, more to match the newer machines that anything else, but please don't check the Bodgers Lodge thread every night waiting to see it

cheers

Hi all, I perhaps should put my thinking re the cling film in perspective!

I do lots of really small jobs over the period of a week or so producing very small amounts of swarf which I brush down into the tray. I walk away at the end of the session and just carry on next time. Once a week or so I will just carefully pull the film away and have proper clean up. Just seems to save me a bit of time is all.

I do like having things fairly clean but don' t consider myself anal about it....

Cheers, Martin

Sign seen in a CEGB engineers office some 30 years ago:

"A Clear Desk is a Sure Sign of a Sick Mind".

Don't necessarily subscribe to that view totally, but it gets a sympathetic airing now and again!

Chris

ChrisH : My desk was always clean and smelt of polish but then I hardly ever sat at the darn thing. The other one at school had quite a few scars which made interesting reading when in an RE lesson or some other boring nonsense.

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign of? (A. Einstein)

Mike

Einstein said something along the lines of 'if a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk a sign of?'

Neil

Very origan there Neil, I wonder what made you think of that ??

Anyways, everyone knows that cleaning stuff is for Girls and Southerners! How do you think we would have faired down pit if we were constantly wipeing everything clean??

Impending redundancy??

Russell.

Walk around the design offices at the McLaren Technical Centre in Woking and you wouldn't have a clue what they do there, or even if they do anything there at all. Their clean desk policy means nothing at all on the desks. And no drinks or food at the desk (you have to go to the canteen for that). Ron Dennis' obsession with cleanliness extends to every nook and cranny. Great for eating your dinner off the floor. An amazing high tech architectural experience but a soulless place to work.

Murray

Wouldn't have replied to this Murray, Saturday gone we had a designer from there that worked on the P1. Shows in social life too.

I'll clean the main swarf, reach over and grab arm fulls. When nothing better to do I might wipe the slides down or wash off with coolant.

Many years ago (as is so often said around here) the high-tech company I was working for moved to a new location. About 6 months later we had an "open day" where members of the board and other brass could come and view the new offices.

We were instructed that we had to have clean desks ... just the immediate notes we were working with and a pencil or two - to "create the right impression" (huh?). So there I was dutifully sitting with a notepad and pencil - and just for good measure a coffee cup - trying to look like I was doing something high tech. Not easy. I decided I needed a file (the paper kind) which, I believed was in the right-hand filing drawer. It wasn't. So (leaving that drawer open), I opened the left-hand filing drawer ...... and the whole (old fashioned, heavy metal desk) tipped over, spilling coffee everywhere - not the least of which was on me and my 18th (I think) edition of machinery's handbook purchased a week before - and injuring me in a minor way (bruises). It took several people to get the desk off.

At least some of the visiting brass had the decency to point out the irony.

Under my Bantam I have used a sheet of the free rubber that Ian Parkin kindly provided some time back to line the tray.

Marvellous stuff and makes cleaning up a breeze. Everything comes away in one clean lift. Away better than cling film for that job.

Thanks Ian!

The use of cling film will be used on my machines when using cast iron, it will save me time on cleaning the dust off everything.Thanks Martin for the tip.

Frank

When turning cast iron, I fold a bit of news paper under the chuck, between the headstock, and the saddle, makes picking up the chips without having to handle them, although hands are usually fairly black at this stage.

Ian S C

When maching cast iron, I wear a mask and also have a vacuum cleaner in use to clear away as much as possible of swarf and dust as it arrives.

If I'm iron dust or using a grinder I may wrap a sheet of kitchen foil round the lathe bed, but mainly I abuse a trusty old henry hoover for the end of session clear up. Maybe once a week I wipe it all down and oil it.

What used to amuse me was working in an Optical repair/service workshop and they allowed people to smoke in there. The anodised window frames were brown with nicotine I presume. When you see some of the videos of car assembly like Ferrari and Volkswagen the whole place is spotless. But then most of the items are made outside the assembly hall and under the, 'JIT' system.

Clive, PS. I have feet marks painted on the floor of my wksp/garage so I do not trip over anything!

Perhaps if McLaren stopped being obsessed with cleanliness and tidyness and put their effort into their cars they might end up winning a race. When a company gets like that the employees are always looking over their shoulder, loose interest and only remain because the moneys good.,