Member postings for John Hinkley

I said in a previous post in the 2019 thread that I foresaw a marathon gear-cutting session looming. It did! Spread over a number of days and those days spread over a couple of weeks to preserve both my sanity and what remains of my hearing, I've at last finished the machining of the entire gearset for my 5-speed gearbox. Here they all are, laid out from left to right, 5th to reverse.

Boy, am I glad that bit's over!

I'm going to use 10mm thick perspex sheet as casing "faces" which in turn will be fixed to a base plate made from an off-cut of solid oak kitchen worktop. That should be interesting in itself, as I've given away all my woodworking tools.

More photos to come, as work progresses.

John

Steve,

Thanks for clearing that up, Steve. I obviously got the wrong end of the stick.

John

Steve,

Are you referring to a bench grinder or an angle grinder? If the latter, I wouldn't be using that for tool sharpening. I don't see how you would use a bench grinder for TIG and fabrication work. I've never seen a bench grinder with 3" or 4" wheels, either, but then I have lead a sheltered life!

John

I had a similar problem to the OP. I ordered 4mm thick bar which turned out to be imperial and slightly too thick. I tried to thin it down and ended up with brass bananas. You've been given a source for 2 x 8mm and Jason has suggested cutting from 3mm sheet, but if you really must have metric flats, then you are probably going to have to order from Europe, I would have thought. Without wishing to labour the point, these suppliers will sell you 3mm x 10mm x 250mm brass flat at €4.60 per length and also do 2mm x 8mm x500mm at €5.30 per length. Plus P&P of course.

John

Another source of 8-tooth pinions, albeit in steel is:

L'Octant

Bit pricier than Speelwerk's link and of course you'd have to add postage, too. And yes, I do realise that the OP wants to cut the pinion directly into the armature shaft, but as discussed at length above, a separate pinion gear is another way to do it, if the original request can't be met. L'Octant can also supply matching larger gears, although you'd have to work out if the centre spacing is correct for the application.

John

P.S. Their various catalogues are worth downloading, if only to pass the time of day.

Mike,

I can see that the boss would be a problem and instead of removing it , I think I would make a spacer to fit over it to bring the topslide "up", as it were. That will retain the strength. Ideally surface grind the spacer and topslide, or failing that make the spacer slightly thicker than the boss. Think big rectangular washer.

John

Edited By John Hinkley on 13/01/2020 12:14:20

You asked for advice - so here goes .......

If it were me, I'd go for a 100mm versatile vice from Arc, like this.

I originally bought the larger one for my mill ( a Warco VMC ) and nearly crippled myself lifting it onto the table. Toute suite, I took it back and swapped it for the 100mm version. It's well built, accurate as far as I can tell, and suits my purpose well. I'd go along with the others, too and suggest that you avoid the ones with swivel bases and gain a bit more airspace.

John

P.S.  Forgot to mention - the relocatable jaw function adds exrtra versatility as well.  Hence the name, I guess!

Edited By John Hinkley on 12/01/2020 10:12:43

Mike,

I use a 000 size wedge type toolholder from Arc on my 9x20 lathe and it suits it very well. I think the chester DB7 is slightly smaller, so the 000 size should fit fine. I would be surprised if anything bigger would be suitable.

I also fitted the Arc thrust race kit, ostensibly for Myfords, which has improved the action of the locking nut, in my opinion. See here.

The code number you referenced has been converted to a phone number in my browser, the link you need is this one.

John

Welcome to the silly arse club. Pull up an armchair and pour yourself a drink. There's bound to be more along, soon.

Ron/Jason,

You are both right, of course. Only on Pocketmags from Saturday. It normally appears on here the same day for me, at least, so I got confused. Easily done, these days, I'm afraid.  I'd blame it on too much mulled wine, but I'm only allowed one pint of Guinness a week due to medication! To paraphrase the old saying - "Read twice, post once!"

Happy New Year.

Spelling corrected.

Edited By John Hinkley on 27/12/2019 11:37:59

I've had no problem viewing the digital copy of 289 on this forum and Pocketsmags on my iPad since last Saturday.

John

P.S.  The paper copy came on Monday!

Edited to add P.S.

Edited By John Hinkley on 27/12/2019 09:24:57

I've been following this thread with interest. I was completely ignorant of the need to torque ER collet chucks to a specific value. I've always used a C-spanner as supplied with the chuck and a large adjustable on the chuck flats to hold everything fast while applying the tightening force. I have square and hexagonal Stevenson blocks from Arc which are supplied with bearing nuts. I've never had a cutter or workpiece come loose in any of my (many) ER chucks from ER11 to ER32. Can you over-think it and end up with a problem of which you weren't aware?

John

Or, if you don't live in the U.S. and/or have deep pockets and short arms , try these identical ones from Chronos at £48.

Dividing plate set

John

(Just a satisfied customer.)

A quick follow-up. I didn't know that Windows 10 had a snipping tool until I read Jason's reply. Just tried it and he's right - it is much easier and quicker and in my version has the option to save as a jpeg in the drop-down save menu.

John

I'm afraid I have to disagree, Steambuff. I tried it out - using Windows 10, Paint and an image manipulation program to crop the image, I produced the image below:

OK. It may not be pin-sharp, but I would say it's perfectly useable and if you have no access any other way .....

Mind you, if it's a long article, you may have to set aside an afternoon or two! But that's not much different to the old pdf download business, if my experience with it is anything to go by.

My 2d.

John

Jason linked to this in an earlier topic a short while ago:

MEW and ME index

John

Edited By John Hinkley on 05/12/2019 09:27:52

As a break from the seemingly endless production of gear blanks and gear engagement dogs, I decided to add a little embellishment to the end of the input shaft of the gearbox. Having messed up the splines once when the cutter broke (my fault!), I turned up a sleeve and Locted it to the shaft. Partially to disguise the join, I've added a concave radius like this:

As an aside, you will notice that the cutter is slightly modified from that described on Steve Bedair's site on which it is based. That is to say, I didn't like the way the body was mounted directly onto the base, so I introduced a "thrust bearing" of sorts - actaually a caged ring of ball bearings from a bicycle steering column - and to prevent any rocking motion it also rests on four brass pads. I've tried to take a photograph to illustrate this, not very successfully. The end resuly is a smooth angular motion that gives a good finish. The lathe has to be run in reverse for the cut shown in the first photograph, so not suitable for some chuck attachment methods without extreme caution and VERY light cuts.

You can just about see the ball cage and brass pads in the photo below:

I've also made the insert holder double sided, which extends the range of radii availble for cutting.

John

Ndiy,

Robert was right. Twice!

John

Getting to the end of the manufacture of the gear dogs for my gearbox and realised I'd misread a drawing and needed to cut off another slice of 65mm bar. Unfortunately I'd only got a short length left. Mounted it in the bandsaw and started to cut it. Halfway through, it cocked over and ruined the cut. I should have known better! A little head scratching over lunch and I came up with the solution pictured below:

Luckily, I already had a blank of the same diameter partially machined and mounted on an arbor, ready for the next stage. I drilled and tapped the "bad" end 10mm and screwed the arbor into this, mounted it in the bandsaw vice on a parallel as shown and, hey-ho, stable as you like. Set the bandsaw going and before long, I had my new blank. Quite satisfying. I might even be able to get another out of it by placing plates along each vice jaw to extend their reach. Hopefully I won't be making any more mistakes and the scrag end can go back into the scrap box.

John

Phil,

My go to program for gears is GearDXF, available free from here:

GearDXF download

As Jason says, there's very little difference between 1.5MOD and 16DP. I just input figures for a 40 tooth gear and the difference in diametral pitch is 0.020 inches. If you have play around with the specifications of the gears you require, it will allow you to see the differences and make your selection of suitable gears easier to visualise.

John