Member postings for Roderick Jenkins

On my S7 I now use ccgt tips for 90% of my turning. The exceptions are rough interrupted cuts or large reductions in diameter.

Rod

By coincidence we got a new PC yesterday. We had a local company put it together according to our requirements. The only fancy work on it is Fusion 360 so that gave the base spec. Desktop case and a horizontal CD drive. The company cloned our existing C drive to an SSD. It's all pretty whizzy now. There is also a 1Tb hdd and several external drives for backup.

Rod

I hadn't done any 3D printing for a couple of months. So, I fire up Cura and, as usual, download the latest version (4 in this case). I started printing something but after about 5 minutes the PLA filament stopped feeding and broke. Right, I thought, the filamant is old, I'll get some new stuff. Same problem. OK, we'll try a new hot end. Same problem. Close scrutiny of the filament end showed tell tale marks from the drive splines - it seems to be reversing. Go back to Cura 3 and problem solved. After about 1/2 hour the print separated from the bed. I've tried everything I know but the nice new black filament will not stick. I go back to the old filament. Success! Great adhesion, so much so that when I separated this print it brought half the glass bed with it:

I had a spare.

Anyway, this idea from Neil's book worked very nicely.

Still can't get the new black filament to stick though

Rod

**LINK**

It's all to do with a VE day celebration

**LINK**

Rod

Looks like they could actually be 5/16 x 24 (UNF).

Rod

Something like this:

Came with the lathe when I got it. As did this indexing arm:

The pivot slips rather tidily onto the reversible thread/fine feed stud. Of course, if you have a gearbox it is unlikely that you will have many change wheels! (Mine did since it was a conversion, the gearbox was a later addition). I don't think the idea was ever completed, it needs a spring or something similar to keep the detent engaged. It's quite a neat idea though.

Rod

My toolpost mill is very convenient to mount and I have been considering a similarly quick and convenient way to do simple indexing rather than mount my GHT HDA. This solution is based on Harold Hall's design **LINK** except I have made the base a permanent feature, that still allows the headstock cover to shut on to the buffers. The indexer slides onto a T slot and is secured by half a turn of the locking lever.

The detent spring is pretty strong, hence the big knob. The traditional coloured dots are for 4, 6 and 10 divisions.

Rod

I needed to cut a thread on the end of an ER11 parallel shank collet holder when using it as a spindle in my home made tool post miller. This was too hard to thread with carbide inserts so I warmed up the non-collet end with a torch until it was somewhat hotter than blue but not glowing red and let it cool. Cutting the thread was fine after this treatment. I did wrap some wet rag around the shank to try and stop too much heat getting to the collet end.

HTH,

Rod

Hi Bruce.

I've been logging all my mistakes and cock-ups over on ModelEngineMaker under the Tangler pseudonym.

Cheers,

Rod

This is Len Mason's take on a small parting and grooving tool in "Using The Small Lathe":

I've just used mine to cut grooves for 3mm E clips

You do need to make sure that the hacksaw blades are solid HSS not Flex Bi-metal.

Rod

I've been getting on with my Farm Boy. These are some of the governor bits:

Rod

Very nicely finished. Mine aren't nearly as nice.

Rod

My stupid machine won't play with the computers any more. I HATE RS232

Rod

Actually, I've given up using a pressure washer on the patio. I find "Patio Magic" more effective, longer lasting and much easier. I had to go and find the Karcher in the loft.

Rod

Yup. That's what happens on the beach round here.

At £4.75 for a large bag of sand ( c 25kg) the loss is not great. I used about a kilo to do the con rod and my steel fabrication.

Rod

This is a messy method. The con rod was held down on the patio with a welly clad foot for blasting and there is wet sand everywhere but the garden can cope with that. As for the texture, I can just feel that the surface is not silky smooth but is more uniform than the machining marks left from the milling.

I've been doing some really crap welding with a basic Parkside buzz box that I was given (I will not show this, it is too embarrassing ). The blaster made a decent job of cleaning off the fuming and much of the discoloration, thereby emphasising all the slag inclusions. I guess one could try a different medium but I'm not really up for spreading £50 of wet garnets over the garden.

I have no other requirement for a noisy compressor so this system will do for me.

Cheers,

Rod

I like the effect that sandblasting gives to the finish of aluminium engine bodies and components so I thought I would have a go with one of the £12 accessories available for my Karcher pressure washer. These are the results using kiln dried sand from Wickes

2 similar components (both failures for various reasons). I've shown 2 different lighting conditions which I hope capture the effect. I was rather pleased with the result for very little outlay.

Rod

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 04/09/2019 23:28:47

Have another look at ARC, I've just had a notification that they've slashed the price of some of their 4Jaw SC chucks - almost in half

Rod

Worth bearing in mind that tethered hydroplanes were popular at the time - definitely not models. ET Westbury was at the forefront of designing engines for power.

Rod