Anyone been to the Harrogate show yet ?

I did ponder this.

But I have a faceplate anyway so decided to make things look nice and tidy. (for once in my life)

The stall had a few of these second hand D1-3 backplates. The taper fits uber snuggly (as it should) and they machine beautifully. If I had known this at the time of purchase I would have bought more from him.

Nick

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John,

Whilst I'm delighted that you enjoyed the weekend, and impressed a few folk ...

I find £170.99 a rather sad figure for 232 cutters.

MichaelG.

Went yesterday, good crowd, and good models, liked the working model of the shaper, and bought a ‘few’ goodies on my shopping list, mostly small items… Loctite 603, BA / small mm nuts & bolts, ally bar etc.… small items soon mount up!

A lot of people at Warco’s display; a lot of indications that people were buying Warco equip’t compared to Chester’s… not decrying Chester’s of course. RDG had their usual large display from which I got most of my stuff, pity some other retailers weren’t there but down to costs I suppose.

‘Myfords’ had their stall & a couple of machines on display… Conquest big bore with inverter drive? & a Super 7… very nice… but really, really ‘silly money’.

Had taken 3 milling cutters to be sharpened up at Arc’s lunar module stand; 2 x 16 mm cutters (1 hogger) & 1 x 10 mm 4 flute end mill, was somewhat disappointed, the 16 mm cutters could not be handled... too big for the machine, the 10mm was sharpened but the demonstrator, John S?… seemed over heavy handed with my cutter… he was quenching quite often as the cutter had a tiny chip off one edge, but the cutter ended up having brown overheating colour left on it… I would have thought ‘gently, gently does it’ to prevent overheating would be the suggested method… has this now affected the cutting properties of my cutter? (Ketan N.B.), I have yet to try it… the module does what it claims it seems but is way beyond my pension income. Put a contribution into the charity box.

On the whole a decent day out, actually met an old colleague who I haven’t seen for a number of years so chewed the fat for a while, all in all a decent day out. Will go next year… probably with another shopping list of ‘nice to haves’.

George.

Don't really see how you could be disappointed that it could not do your 16mm cutters?

In the long thread about the machine its mentioned several times it only goes to 12mm, MEW article also says max 12mm and where JS has said he will be doing demos he has also told people what size cutter to bring. ARC's site also states the size of cutters it can handle.

J

Hi Mechman,

Tempering temperatures for HSS are nearer to 600 degrees C, your cutters won't have been adversely affected. It's safe to grind HSS as brutally as you want.

Neil

I'm so sorry that you feel I'm being critical John S., far from it. I was just making the point that while all you guys were enjoying the show we were not able to.

I try and do most of the shows, work and commitments permitting, but just couldn't manage this one which is a shame.

As for

'4 out of these 5 are in the south so I feel it's very unfair that he criticises anyone in the North for having the balls to host one show ?

Where did you get that from?

Good job his Lordship had chosen to take a conventional grinder with him to grind down to a "Clean" surface getting rid of side chips to enable a clean cutting face. Strangely enough, in a preamble when offering the service via the forums he'd requested that this be done before presenting them at the show? If you do it again your worship, don't be so b****y helpful and turn them away.

Told him I hadn't taken any and was replied with "Good job, wouldn't have f****** sharpened them anyway". Good to see you again Yowdbugger.

Others have mentioned various but called at the pond and saw the old faithful Skeleton rowing around. Asked the guy how many have enquired how it works over the years to be interrupted with someone - - - asking how it works. While he was answering, another guy at the other side of me questioned "Do you know how it works"

Only thing that wound me up was those who in groups of three decided to stand and have a chinwag blocking the aisles together with the Haversack warriors.

Regards Ian.

It's safe to grind HSS as brutally as you want.

However it can result in burnt fingers, lots of dust and grit between your teeth, a face that looks more appropriate in a desert war film and rather stubby tools and two inch grind stones.

Sorry Neil it's just the way my mind works.

There was a guy demoing and selling very expensive alluminium welding wire.

He makes it look so easy.

I used to have a Devils job tig welding up my damaged boat props to try and repair them and thought what an easy solution.

My mate with me said he has tried it but it never worked for him. Seemed to think it was only good on one particular alloy.

What do you guys thing?

If it was alloy solder wire, as distinct from welding, then it works ok, but I wouldn't use it for anything stressed.

> There was a guy demoing and selling very expensive alluminium welding wire.

It is! I've already welded a stiffening plate to my tripod (which being a stiff extrusion was certainbloy a different alloy to his plate) and it was easy-peasy, although not quite as pretty as his welds. And yes, you can melt it and reform the weld.

He said that most of the wire out there was pure zinc and pretty much useless while his is some sort of alloy.

He also asked me to try and break the joint I made at the show, using two big pairs of pliers. The aluminium sheet bent, but no-matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the welded joint to distort, so I'm pretty much convinced.

Neil

Found the datasheet. It claims:

• Tensile strength 'up to' 120 newton/mm^2
• Hardness Rockwell B 55-62

Also, it is welding (as it fuses and alloys with the substrate completely, not a solder that just diffuses into the surface.

He claimed that it melts at 380C and forms a new alloy that melts at over 500C. Adding more wire can help melt an existing weld at lower temperature.

One caveat - I had to do a lot of scratching to get a weld through light anodising. I think it will be better to prep anodised surfaces.

Neil

Mea Culpa... obviously forgot to refer back to the long thread what with other things on my mind..

Neil / Jesse thanks for the feedback re HSS temperature range... wasn't sure about that... seem to be getting brain fade...

George

I saw a film at one time a long time ago showing HSS tooling on a big lathe glowing red and still cutting. I also made some HSS lathe tools and it was hard to get the metal hot enough to do bends and form offset ends.

Clive

I've posted a comment about ally weld material on Stevo's Shrink fit Aluminium tubing thread.

HTH,

Rod

Interesting stuff on the alloy and yes it did look like it was welding the way it pooled and fused the metal.

I had a job to do that required removing a lot of steel and ended up abusing a HSS tool and had it glowing, still cut fine and then when I ground a new edge on it to finish the job it kept it's edge as normal.

Steve