What did you do today? (2014)

Hi Ian, if it was part of a crowbar, I wouldn't want to pick a fight with the guy who may have used it, as it's about 2" across the flats and the couple of foot I've got is heavy enough. I think it might have been a drive bar of some sort as it came from where I used to work a few years ago. It was last used as a drift, because one end had the corners ground down and was slightly mushroomed and the other end is rather more mushroomed where it's been hit with a sledge hammer.

Regards Nick.

Been putting a very light fiberglass skin on the latest hydroplane hull and while waiting for the epoxy to dry had a trip to a steel stockholder for some EN24T.

They are only stocking tool steels now but found an offcut of EN24T 120mmØ x 230mm at a giveaway price.

Its for my redesigned cylinder head to sort the problems of last year.

It stressed my lathe cleaning it up then parting a slice off but will get two heads out of each slice.

I now have plenty of metal to play with for experimental heads and valve designs.

Nice to get back to metal munching after wood butchery on the hull.

Paul

Sounds like a classical wrecking bar to me. You just lift it up a couple of feet and bring it down point first as hard as you can. Not many things stand up to that. Great for smashing up concrete floors etc before they invented those Kangol things. They are best used by themselves without a sledgehammer - the bigger and heavier, the better.

Murray

They tend to use those here attached to the end of the boom/jib of a mechanical digger.

When I built my workshop hoist, I used 4 ball races for the wheels, the rail is 2 bits of angle iron back to back, I use it to move my chucks off and on the lathe, 8" chucks are heavy. Ian S C

Fitted the new riser block this afternoon and also finished of the quill stop with scale, all works very well a big thanks to Gary Wooding not only did he make the riser block he also sent me a name plaque for it and a PDF file with his drawing for the vertical stop, thanks Gary really appreciate you help and advice.

Al.

Riser block and scale, just need to put the plaque on the riser block.

The light is brilliant reminds me of a spaceship when I look at it.

Alan,

I have one of those lights on the Bligeport but a bit larger and I find mine is OK with the quill fully retracted but once it's out a bit the tool is actually is a circular centre shadow.

I have fitted mine to the bottom of the head, not the quill as I often need to get the quill close into what I'm machining plus going onto the head means I can fit the biggest one they do at 6" to try to remove this shadow

Hi Alan,

I have just made my own version of the angel eye ring light myself. It is brilliant and is so much better than directional lighting. My version is here:

http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/ring-light.html

Mike

Mike, Do you find the further down you go with the quill the more the tool is in shadow ?

I see in your picture that there is shadow at the end of the cutter, mine isn't so bad but at 150mm diameter itprobably won't fit many desktop machines.

I do have a couple of those LED arrays 6 x 5 or similar at the back angled downwards and the two together does help.

Hi John,

I don't really find this a problem. When I am milling I bring the cutter down to contact the work. and then raise it a little, using the Z axis leadscrew. I then start milling using the fine advance on the quill. It is rare that I mill anything deeper than about 6 mm, sometimes as much as 10 mm. This is hardly any distance compared with the protrusion of the mill holder and mill itself so it does not really affect the shadow effect. The ring light is a vast improvement on the directional lighting.

Of course this comment applies to my tiny X1 milling machine. Maybe on a Bridgeport then things are different!!!!

Mike

Hi John I don't seam to have that problem as the light is on the end of the quill so moves with it, Gary's idea is a real help for this job, I glued the ring light on with epoxy glue I've had for years it's rated at 12 tone so it shouldn't fall of hopefully, had a look at yours Michael it looks well good job there mate.

Al.

.

John,

This is [predictably enough] a common problem in close-up photography.

The best solution I have ever seen is the "Munchkin" Ring Light. This is implemented with fibre optics, but I think something similar [and, hopefully, much cheaper] could be done with LEDs.

It's worth having a look at Chiu's Patent ...

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 11/04/2014 22:08:58

After nearly turning over and going back to bed I decided to go to a bootsale this mrning. Result...

7 brand new Dormer drills from 9.0mm to 13.0mm (some repeats) for £3

A set of very nice looking TiN coated 4-facet metric drills by 0.5mm 2.5mm to 12.5mm (9.0 and 7.0 repeated instead of the 9.5 and 7.5) branded 'Brook UK HSS Co'. for £8

Two used but resharpenable Mt0 1/2" machine reamers both fitted with MT0-MT1 sleeves for £2

A rescuable tap marked HB48256 R.R. Ltd (no size) for £1. Did Rolls Rotyce have individual serial numbers for their taps

A big (15" adjustable diehead with one set of well rusted die bits for £1. Logo is a man standing next to a target.

One other stall had some nice used bits and pieces, but they were a bit pricey ("£3 and up in that box" although three small machine reamers and a tiny adjustable square caught my eye, but i passed on them.

Add in three OS maps for £1 and two dog toys a quid each, I think that was good morning's haul.

Neil

Made a version of my interface for "Yuriy's Android DRO" to display output of a "Wixey" type angle gauge.

Interface board.

To get it to display the value correctly requires a different CPI value for metric and imperial use. When using in metric mode CPI needs to be set to 254 In imperial mode needs to be set to 10.

I will put the details on my website shortly.

Les

Well, today was a learning day for me. Firstly I learned all about deflection:

I won't be doing that again!

But to make up for it I then learned all about VFD drives. A friend of mine had given me a Siemens VFD controller and three phase motor. In the past I have read posts by people raving as to how the VFD and motor has "transformed" their machine. Well all I can say is Clucking Bell! This is just amazing. I have immediately ordered one up for my drill press and in future ANYTHING a VFD will fit or I can make fit will be getting one of these. The Tieg Lathe is a completely different animal AND I now have a Jog function, reverse if I want it, it stops almost immediately and there is plenty of grunt at slow speed. I am astonished. And a complete convert.

There I was, happily milling on a piece of the old R & B when the smoke alarm decided to test itself on a pungent and rapidly spreading plume of smoke emitting from the motor capacitor box.

I think, judging by the deformation of the plastic case and the heat damage to the motor box it was very close to catching fire.

The thing is, I was so engrossed with what was going on at cutter level I don't think I would have noticed until a fire was actually established.

Fortunately the emergency stop did its job and major crisis averted, but it goes to prove the efficacy of having a smoke alarm fitted

I think its broken

Usual Sunday stroll round the pasting tables.

Have been keeping my eyes open for some time as my stocks of good high tensile cap head / socket head screws are running very low so am pleased that I managed to buy a jam jar full of assorted sizes £1.50.

However, today's main boot haul came in a manky looking box the seller had chucked on the ground. I didn't give it much of a look and thought I was buying ally plate but when I got it home I donned the marigolds and groped through the filthy crud. Underneath the ally I uncovered treasure.

Apart from the ally bits there was:

A "WHITEHOUSE" planishing hammer.

2.2 kilos of plumbers solder.

2 x copper tipped plumbers soldering irons

Length of 16mm dia. solid round stainless.

A new syringe of silver solder paste.

A 3" length of 1.5" dia. solid copper

and this:

A 36 ounce ingot of "CERRO MATRIX". I have googled this stuff but info is a bit thin on the ground. It seems like it might be a type of white metal or BABBIT metal. It is non magnetic, looks and feels like lead and scratches like lead. I might try my hand with a bit of casting - bearings maybe?

Two quid the lot - bless the boot for all it provideth

Rik

in hunter gatherer mode - again!

Rik, that cerro is normally called 'Woods metal' and used for filling pipes to enable them to be bent easily, it melts in boiling water as a rule.

You melt it and pour it into a pipe, let it set, bend pipe and melt it out again.

It's still available **LINK**

Lofty - diamond info there - thanks for your helpful reply.

Rik

I heard from the local bee shop that the Son had taken a swarm at their apairy, as it was quite chilly and windy I thought nothing more about it. Today I went to the orchard to take some scrap wood down for burning and as I walked through my hives I spied a swarm up in the Ivy at the top of an apple tree. Out with the ladder and on with the bee suit and armed with a pair of secatuers and a small wood saw I went after them. As luck would have it I had also taken a Nucleus box with me with 6 combs of foundation. I cut away all the Ivy strands and got to the main branch and proceed to saw through it. Got it free and came down the ladder with the branch and swarm in one hand and the saw in the other. Placed the branch across the top of the Nuc. box and they slowly went down into the frames. My bees are very well trained and they know what to do ! After a while I closed them up and left them to it, a nice cluster of bees on the front face of the box to call the stragglers in. Tomorrow I will give them a feed of sugar water to help them build comb. Spring feed of sugar water is 1lb to a pint. I lace it with Thymol to help knock out Varroa. That was my mid-day job.

Clive.

Last night I started a de-rusting experiment on my finds. I cut the top off a bottle of cheap diet cola and dropped the rusty bits is (after dismantling the diestock and dies with a bit of gently heat and 'sunny jim'. I drank too much of teh cola so i had to top it up 25% with water.

After a day the diestock is looking much nicer already, as its that tap. The other bits of the diestock are looking less improved, so I scraped off the lose rust and changed for a new lot of cola (neat this time). I think it may be that they are at the bottom, of the bottle. Anyway, i'll give them a few days and report back.

The non-dormer drills are excellent; they are split point not 4-facet above about 7mm. Even my weedy drill press managed to drive the 12.5mm drill into a random chunk of mild steel (probably EN3).

The reamers and their taper adaptors turned out just to be grubby, not rusty. Just need sharpening. I must make an MT1 adaptor for my grinder.

And... last night and today i started a really silly little project that I won't reveal unless it works, because if it doesn't... let's just say I declared war on the scrap bin.

Neil