Member postings for Old School

I use that company for PCD inserts for turning high silicon content aluminium and parting off inserts for aluminium will try their milling cutters now.

Jason I follow this thread with a great deal of interest, I have a few projects waiting to go onto the machine. Can you reveal your source for milling cutters with the radiused corners please.

Have a look at Arceuro,s Seig SC2 or SC3, i have used the my sons SC3 its a nice small lathe capable of doing real work. I think anything smaller you would struggle making parts for air rifles.

If you can visit Arceuro they have the machines on display and they are very helpful, i live local and use them regularly.

Got it booked Shongola dune express Walvis bay to Pretoria. Did Rovos rail Victria Falls to Pretoria this year.. Rohan Voss,s train set is probably one of the best in the world.

I was also helped along my way to "model engineering" by a clockmaker he taught me to grind lathe tools in hss and make form tools from carbon steel for making pillars and fly cutters for wheel cutting. This person was my father who made his living from making clocks from simple skeleton clocks with escapements you only saw in books to orrery clocks all to his own design and made from scratch.

Thanks Emgee thanks what I use for the final turning to size, the cuts you can take are tiny you can see the tiny bits of metal coming off the piston in the cutting fluid. Its the £30 ones that I use not worth using cheap tools on a lot of time and expensive material.

Barrie 5 of the piston already have new homes in Sweden and Switzerland just got to fit them to the liners, the rest are for my son Aaron

Next race is in Basel over the bank holiday weekend followed closely by one in Poland. Going to miss the nats this year.

With this initial success I have moved on to making some pistons for 1.5cc Kapu tether car engines. The pistons are made from high silicon content aluminium, its nice to machine but wears the tools out quickly.

I make the piston blanks double ended so you can use the other end to hold it while machining. The gudgeon pin holes also go in at this stage.

All set up on the machine and milling under way.

The pistons all hollowed out maching time just over 4 minutes each at lot quicker than doing by hand on my milling machine and the are all the same.

The final operation is to turn them to fit the to the refurbished liners.

I am finally starting to get the hang of Fusion 360 and my KX1

This is the first project it is an adaptor plate for a 2.5cc tether car engine to fit a Zimmerman disk induction system instead of the drum valve induction apparently faster the one at the top is the original one that has stripped threads the blue one a practice run and the one on right the last attempt. Just a little more work to do on it the the big holes have a 3mm countersunk screw it them with a head diameter of 4mm, just waiting for a spot drill to arrive to put the countersink in.

What about a Myford 254S the metric ones are cheaper than the imperial ones. Only secondhand machines now. Very happy with mine.

Surface piercing propellor run with only about half the prop in the water very efficient for fast boats, they give a lovely rooster tail.

One thing I have found with ER type collets is the range the have for example 11 to 10mm it is accurate at 11mm and a bit under but nowhere near as accurate at 10.1mm.

I have moved to 5C collets now and use emergency collets for the odd sizes that I need to hold.

We had a variety of 7 series Myfords my only real memories of the last new Myford was the regular appearance of the Myford service engineers to scrape the bed. My father was a clockmaker who made clocks for a living.

i started off with a Raglan Loughborough lathe the only modification I did was to speed it up, I made the flat belt pulley st work on an old Myford.

Next was a Raglan Little John an ex school machine in pink apparently to attract girls into engineering. I t had a full strip down clean and paint parts replaced as required as that was part of the deal with the supplier so I ended up with a good lathe.

i had this lathe for a long time and it was getting tired and it was part of retirement plan to replace it.

I looked st the Chinese offerings in a similar size to the Little John but they didn't feel right to me then a friend suggested I look at a Myford but not a 7 series. My current lathe is a Myford 254S which I am very pleased with and it won't be changed unless I can find a nice Schaublin.

I am impressed with what you are managing to do with your machine. Must stop using the manual mill and get on with the using the KX1 got some Fusion 360 drawing done just need to get the g code done and cut metal.

Thanks for all the advice, I feel a lot more confident now in taking the next steps. I have had a quick look at the document that John has posted its tight at my level thanks again.

Oliver

I have the machine set up and running and have done the Sieg logo test piece. I have drawn a couple of simple parts I want to make in Fusion 360 I want to make on the mill.

i am struggling with putting in the data required by Fusion 360 for cutter speeds and feed rates etc. The milling cutters come with some of this information but my machine does not achieve anything like the spindle they suggest.

i want to machine mild steel and aluminium primarily, is there an idiots guide to this subject to get me going. Found lots of complicated formulas on the Internet but maths is not one of my strong points.

Any help rear fully recieved.

it will not let me edit the title it should be step.

Edited By Old School on 03/07/2019 08:52:17

A possible solution is to have the bores and the valve area hard chrome plated, like the high performance model aircraft engines. The challenge would be finding someone to do it.

I have finished my Sun engine and have a drawing that you can have pm me your address and I will post. It all in inches and fractions.

Jason

Thanks that worked cut out half the Sieg logo will have to buy the full version. Their is a section on the screen about tool offsets will have to study it.

Hello Les

I have loaded the Sieg files, on the main Mach 3 screen it shows KX1 my machine and it has the "correct" Tool information but will not run on this. I have loaded the additional file to run the USB lead the machine has. The main screen shows KX1 USB and works but different Tool information.

Edited By Old School on 04/05/2019 16:07:07

I have got my Seig KX1 all set up software working all axis going in the right directions. My machine is running on an usb lead.

I am trying to cut the first part the Sieg logo all go well until I get to "click the Tool Offset On/Off button" . On my panel in the Tool Information box I do have this button, my tool information box is different it has Auto Tool Zero, Remember and Return.

Any help gratefully received