THE MONTHLY TIPS COMPETITION – THE ENTRY THREAD!

[Charles LamontParticipant @charleslamont71117]

Just measured a green Rizzla at 0.0012″ (at 9.5°C and 55% humidity). I normally use the feeler gauge method.

Here’s mine: When setting work up on the faceplate, use spring or belleville washers. This allows the bolts to be tightened just enough to hold the job, but allow it to moved with a light tap.

[Charles Lamont]

On Charles Lamont Said:

Just measured a green Rizzla at 0.0012″ (at 9.5°C and 55% humidity). I normally use the feeler gauge method.

Here’s mine: When setting work up on the faceplate, use spring or belleville washers. This allows the bolts to be tightened just enough to hold the job, but allow it to moved with a light tap.

Good tip about bellville washers Charles, always a problem to hold a part on the faceplate at just the right pressure.

Just to continue the paper theme, when cylindrical grinding you can’t always get a bit of fag paper to stay on, so we used to mark the surface with a Chinagraph pencil.

Andy

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

I like the chinagraph pencil tip Andrew, I use mine to write numbers down on the paintwork of the lathe/mill in case I forget or get sidetracked.

[Neil Wyatt]

On Neil Wyatt Said:

A lot of pedantry here? Anyone with a micrometer or even a digital caliper can get an accurate enough for this rule of thumb measurement.

…

Neil

So I did,  I own Rizla Silver in the belief it’s thinner than the others.  Could be wrong!

Not easy to measure accurately with a Micrometer because paper crushes, so using the ratchet I took the average of 5 measurements taken along the length of 3 folded fag papers. i.e. 6 sheets.   Result in mm: 0.108,  0.097, 0.091, 0.093, 0.096.  Sum: 0.485,  Average thickness of 6 folded fag papers:   0.097mm

Therefore each sheet is approx:  0.0194mm, or 0.00076378″  (about ¾ of a thou).  My eyeballs suggest wetting fag paper with spit or oil makes it thinner. Not confirmed.

Fag paper is a good way of positioning a cutter very close to the job, but not high precision if one is chasing tenths.

Dave

 

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

Whilst on the subject of paper.

I often use a sheet of paper between the work and table on a milling machine, and similarly on a lathe faceplate, it helps prevent the work sliding around.

Phil P

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Yes Phil an often forgotten little helper.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I have a very sparse looking Readers’ Tips In-Tray at the moment.

I suggest anyone wishing to enter, email me up to four photos and about 100-200 words of text.

There’s a monthly Chester Voucher up for grabs (for UK readers).

I’m sure that every single forum member could come up with a unique tip if they just put their minds to it for ten minutes!

Thanks, Neil

Please send tips to [email protected] as this enter by thread approach clearly didn’t work.

[PeteParticipant @pete41194]

For lots of items it may not be needed, but the use of those cigarette rolling papers might be under appreciated by some. I keep a couple of packages with my precision tools, and mine seem to be very close to .001″ thick. Thicker paper can also be used, but it’s in my opinion a bit less accurate since it can compress more. Just as useful on a lathe after changing tools to then set very close to a known starting position to a parts face or side of a shaft. Not of course accurate to probably much less than about a half thou. / .0125 mm, but close enough in most cases. It also works when you might be trying to pick up and center a threading tool tip to an existing thread.

Another old machinist trick is checking a parts flatness. Best with a surface plate and one paper under each corner. Then checking for the amount of drag to move each one makes a fair indicator of any twist in the part. Detecting the amount of drag on the paper between a tool edge or tip and the part does take a little bit of practice though, but certainly anyone can learn to do after a few try’s at it. In something like a mill, I’ve even used it with the tool rotating while edge finding. For the obvious reasons, the end of the paper is then gripped with pliers if you value your fingers. When the paper starts ripping or getting cut, I estimate I should be somewhere within about .0005″ / .0125 mm. My first and very cheap edge finder couldn’t do as well.

 

[HollowpointParticipant @hollowpoint]

Bit reluctant to post anything given the response the other guy got!

But anyway, here’s my “tip”. It’s one of those things that is so simple you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it earlier! It took me 20+ years realise. 😂 It not something I see other people doing either so I’m probably not alone.

What is it? Well, it’s just a mat. I cut a piece of rubber (leftover from a rubber roof) to fit in the bottom of my lathes coolant tray. It protects the paint from damage caused by dropped items and also it collects a large amount of swarf! The mat can then be removed along with the swarf, folded and poured into the bin for easy cleanup. It seems so obvious now huh?

No doubt you’ve all been doing this for years. 🤥

 

[Hollowpoint]

On Hollowpoint Said:

Bit reluctant to post anything given the response the other guy got!

But anyway, here’s my “tip”. It’s one of those things that is so simple you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it earlier! It took me 20+ years realise. 😂 It not something I see other people doing either so I’m probably not alone.

What is it? Well, it’s just a mat. I cut a piece of rubber (leftover from a rubber roof) to fit in the bottom of my lathes coolant tray. It protects the paint from damage caused by dropped items and also it collects a large amount of swarf! The mat can then be removed along with the swarf, folded and poured into the bin for easy cleanup. It seems so obvious now huh?

No doubt you’ve all been doing this for years. 🤥

 

What a good idea, I’ve always used an old baking tray discarded from the domestic department.

I think that’s about to change!

Andy

[JohnFParticipant @johnf59703]

Plus one for Andy’s comment ! I too use a baking tray but like the rubber mat ideated it could be cut to go either side of the headstock mounting points

John

[HollowpointParticipant @hollowpoint]

I was using a small tray too, but I found myself knocking it over and spilling the swarf everywhere quite often. So far, this is working better for me. 🙂

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I tried this with some of that ribbed rubber flooring. It didn’t react well to oil, swelled and wrinkled (sounds like me on a bad day). Must be different rubber, I’m now on the lookout for some roofing rubber offcut.

[Beardy MikeParticipant @beardymike]

Got a bunch of chuck keys lying about the place? Keep picking up the wrong one or forgetting where you put it down?

A set of sump plug socket bits is pretty cheap and includes a wide range of metric and imperial square drives,as well as hex (and others). You can pick out the ones that match your various chucks and then buy a T-handle and extension to create an adaptable all-in-one key set. I’ve pictured mine, complete with heads for the camlock spindle plus 3-jaw & 4-jaw, on a custom backsplash hanger but it could easily be kept in a cutout tray kept on the headstock or in a drawer if you don’t have a 3D printer.

As well as reducing the number of things to put down somewhere, the sliding handle and swap-in shaft length can allow for adjusting jaws in positions that would otherwise be awkward or impossible:

[Charles LamontParticipant @charleslamont71117]

DON’T WEAR RINGS IN THE MACHINE SHOP. (and I mean to shout)

[Andrew CrowParticipant @andrewcrow91475]

Hope that advice has not been learned through painful, personal experience Charles.

Andy

[Charles Lamont]

On Charles Lamont Said:

DON’T WEAR RINGS IN THE MACHINE SHOP. (and I mean to shout)

I appreciate the concern, and to be honest did expect this reply when I reviewed the photos before posting; in this case I simply went to the shop to take some photos for this top tip without turning anything on or cutting any metal and was too lazy to redo the ‘photo-shoot’ when I noticed the prominent ring in the shot.

[Charles LamontParticipant @charleslamont71117]

Mike – fair enough, though you might have said

Andy – fortunately not, just a brief period of good training, half a century ago.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Wearing rings on the fingers is going to increase the risk of trouble even outside the workshop! I only have 4 fingers and a thumb on my left hand due far more to luck and the Good Lord. I jumped off an elevated platform, the back of the ring caught on a bracket, stopped me in mid air and I crashed short of the landing strip ! My finger was a mess and the ring was ruined !

Never worn rings since !  Noel.

[noel shelley]

On noel shelley Said:

I only have 4 fingers and a thumb on my left hand…

I am confused. I have counted twice and I have the same number of digits in the same arrangement on the same hand.

—

With regard to the sump plug wrenches, it would be easy to modify the next-size-up to a smaller size if an exact fit was not available.

Perhaps colour coding each wrench and a dot of paint on the chuck would be useful if you had more than one of each type of chuck.

[Neil AParticipant @neila]

I think that if you replace the word “only” by the word “still” in Noel’s post you will then know what he means.

Neil

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