What did you do today (2015)

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Making two more Skyhooks to use in the Carport.

Saw my first Eurofighter Typhoons overhead this morning, just flying round the town, no tight turns.

Didn't realise the Canard wings where so big.

Been busy stripping the Austin Seven body down to bare metal, and to prevent rust, am applying a coat of Gumming Solution that is easily removed using warm water.

Geoff – The stuff works a treat.

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

Geoff,

If you want something that stops rust then I can recommend POR15, has worked a treat for me, needs to be over painted as does not have any UV inhibitors in it.

Bob

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Going back to the subject of broken Taps.

I was told that most taps break because of bending. For tapping holes away from the lathe or the Mill/Drill, I made up fitting for an old Bench Drill base/Column, with a 3/8 jacobs chuck., and driven by 6mm dia (High Pressure Injection Pipe) tommy bars.

For Tapping in the Lathe, I made up an holder to take ER25 collets, which slides on an arbor, the same diameter as my Tailstock sliding .Die Holder. (Much kinder than using a Drill Chuck in the tailstock and asking the new thread to drag the whole lot along the lathe bed. Doesn't work with ME40 threads on my Lathe anyway!) There is a stud which bears against the toolpost, and very often I use the "jog" facility on the Invertor drive to Tap or Die under power. If it gets too much, the eleven year old belts slip!

In the Mill Drill, usually use tap wrench on the squares, but with a Tap In Line gadget to keep it square and minimise bending. It would be nice think that some common sense is applied to the torque monitoring fingers.

Have have just made a free running chuck, with tommy bars on a MT arbor to fit the spindle. This will be OK for coarser threads as they are deeper and will stand the loads involved in pulling down the quill, especially if helped with a bit of manual down feed.

All these chuck/collet devices grip the round shank of the Tap, and so have the "fail safe" of slipping if the Tap jams, or bottoms.

Hope that this reduces the number of broken taps. (In the past, I have used the hardened drills that the guy used to use to drill hole sin ball bearing cases, at shows. They worked well, but eventually wore out/broke and he no longer seems to go to shows.

Wonder if a suitable sized Masony drill, reground on the Worden or any other Cutter Grinder, with a diamond wheel, would work?

Despite having a large can of Rocol STD, I tend to use the fat left over after grilling bacon. Seems to work quite well, and is probably not too different from the tallow used in days of yore. And its free, relatively!

My rule for Metric Coarse threads is to use a tapping drill which is (Size minus Thread Pitch). Otherwise, I refer to the Zeus charts from my apprenticeship started in the late 50s, or for threads not listed there, the charts provided in various workshop technique books by folk like Tubal Cain, Bradley etc, or the chart from Tap and Die Co.

If it starts to feel a bit too tight, stopping and redrilling using a drill 0.1mm larger usually does the trick.

Wherever possible I try to use 2D of thread engagement, or 1.5D unless ABSOLUTELY forced into using less, to prevent stripping as I graunch things up.

Hope that all this reduces the number of broken taps.

If you break a tap or a drill, it would be nice to know someone with a spark eroder. THAT does work!  Have had more failures than success at punching the Tap round to grip it with pliers/Mole wrench to remove it.  Have never tried the Alum method of removal so cannot comment on its effectiveness

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 09/06/2015 23:44:33

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Bob.

I do have some thanks, and probably every other brand as well, but I don't want to obscure any areas where repairs need to be made, especially welding and leading.

All I need to do now is a wash down with warm water to get to bare metal again.

When it's time to apply an undercoat, I may use a heat gun just to make sure that no moisture from the atmosphere had settle on the panel.

Geoff – Summer gone AWOL?

[StueeeeParticipant @stueeee]

Just got this finished today -it's a complete "spare" 4W toolpost for my S & B lathe -it's a complete unit that will just slide into the visible tee slot in the topslide.

I made the original (on the left in the photos) about 35 years ago just after I bought the lathe -the machine had come with an incomplete single way toolpost. The minimum order of this size of steel from the stockholder's turned out to be big enough to make three toolposts. Of course, once one was made, the other two pieces that I had cut with my donkey saw languished in the "short ends" box. Over the years, one of them has been lost in the couple of house/workshop moves since.

It wasn't any attack of engineering zeal that caused me to finally get round to making a second toolpost (which is now loaded with four different tools to create an alternative quick change tool setup). Two months ago I had an accident at home and had a short stay hospital stay where they kindly added some Titanium into my leg and put a plaster cast round it. I have discovered that being on crutches or in a wheelchair means that machining is still acheivable from a seated position, the only downside is being positioned at exactly the right level to get a facefull of hot swarf or coolant.

Not sure if this is the usage that the NHS had in mind when they issued my new workshop stool!

The plaster cast is off now, so looking forward to spending more "upright" time in the workshop once I get some more movement back in my foot.

[ken king, King DesignParticipant @kenkingkingdesign]

At last, I got around to making these for a friend who is restoring a 1949 Jaguar Mk V. He wanted copper gaskets to fit between the block and the six individual exhaust manifold branches, so we purchased some conveniently sized pieces of 2mm copper sheet on eBay. He inked the branch faces and 'printed' the shapes onto thick paper. That was at least a year ago, and prints and copper have been staring at me reproachfully from a corner of the bench ever since.

Finally I could stand it no longer, so today I overlaid the prints on the copper and in time-honoured fashion marked through the outline and other features with an automatic centre-punch.

Much sawing, drilling and filing later all six gaskets were finished and a bucket load of guilt fell from my shoulders. For the eagle-eyed, the tiny edge notches identify the cylinder number.

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

Look  carefully at the pile of white Swarf on the chest of drawers. It flew in a continuous stream about 4 feet from the lathe. I think it's the first time I laughed out loud whilst turning something in the lathe.

I was turning some PTFE discs about  90mm in diameter at 800 rpm😃

I videoed it and uploaded it to utube but couldn't work out hou to post it here  look up Anzaniste1 if you want a laugh..

Edited By ANDY CAWLEY on 11/06/2015 01:26:44

Edited By ANDY CAWLEY on 11/06/2015 01:38:41

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Andy – how have you ground your tool? Could you post a photo(s)? From what I recall, you need to ensure it cuts on 2 edges and the edge needs to be very sharp.

Murray

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

Tangential tool holder, ground surface finished off with a diamond file.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Finished threading/cutting 100 off square S/S nuts tapped M3. I know you can buy M3 square nuts but they are too big for my use.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Thats taken you long enough to get round to, when was it you got that square stock?

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Busy day today with the bees, my intention was to just transfer a 5 frame Nucleus into a National hive by adding 7 new frames of foundation to draw out, no, it did not happen like that. As I walked into the apiary I spied a swarm in a Pear tree, which I first decided to take and then wait while it settled in the swarm box. Then do the transfer of the original Nucleus. I had then to divide the frames I had between the National and the Nucleus for the new swarm. So, 4 frames to the Nuc. and 3 to the National. I did the transfer of the Nucleus 5 frame into the national and added 3 frames and they seemed happy enough and in minutes there were bees orienting themselves to the new box. Now, back to the swarm which was quiet and calm in the swarm box, took this to the Nucleus which will be their new home and set up a ramp and placed the box at the bottom of the ramp and they started to march in without any problem. 20 minutes and they were all in or clustered on the face of the Nucleus box so all was good. By 1600 I was back with extra combs and sugar water to feed them. Then onto the new National hive and add more new combs to them. I hope thats the end of the swarming.

Clive

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Blimey, this thread has had over 200,000 views in less than six months!

Neil

[NJHParticipant @njh]

That might be seen as encouraging – or maybe a measure of the time spent " putting off " all those workshop tasks, which I for one, should really be getting on with !!

Norman

[charadamParticipant @charadam]

To the Beefans and Beekeepers – how about signing this?

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/ban-the-pesticides-that-are-harming-our-bees

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

"Blimey, this thread has had over 200,000 views in less than six months!"

There you go Clive, you and your bees have found stardom. Enjoy the buzz!

Rik

[Raymond Sanderson 2Participant @raymondsanderson2]

My 6×4 bandsaw has/had a vertical table but I always found it to light in using it as it would flex, come loose with harmonics. I have to thank a variety of other 6×4 owners who modified theirs in a similar manner. I used 1/4" plate made it approx 1" larger all round and cut the back corner off to allow it to fit.

Testing on a quick cut had no harmonics and a tight plate which didn't come loose.
The plate cost me $9.00 from Edcon at Revesby.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Charadam, the pesticide with herbicides and GM plants are a big problem for Bees, the manufacturers say that the weed, herbicide breaks down on contact with soils but tests have proved it is still viable 24 months later. With systemic pesticides they said it would not come through in the pollen, they were wrong as it is found in pollen samples, in fact 24 different pesticides and herbicides were found in samples taken from hives. Grubs in the comb fed these combinations die in the comb, other effects include disorientation and bees becoming lost while out flying.

In China they used so much pesticide on fruit farms that it killed all the pollinating insects and now have to manually go around fruit trees with a rabbits tail pollinating. In Spain they use a pesticide on bees treat the parasite Varroa, that is used to kill ticks on sheep, its a nerve agent! I will not eat Spanish honey. In Italy all wax and hives/hardware are contaminated by pesticide as they used the wrong product and too much. So it goes on and the EU has to legislate to control the use of unregulated products. Most GM plants have weed killer applied at least 3 times and now I see no bees or pollinators working Oil Seed Rape, not that the honey is very nice and sets hard in the comb withing 3 days.

If you want good honey find a bee keeper as he cares for his bees and take time to produce a good product, unlike Honey processors who melt honey out of the combs and lose all the flavour and esters in it, it becomes just like sweet water.

Clive

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

charadam/Clive,

Signed the petition and mentioned, in the comments section, what China has had to resort to after that region killed off all their bees and other pollinators.

When I first read about that some time ago, I couldn't believe the depths of stupidity reached in arriving at that situation.

It would appear we, the West, are hell bent on ignoring the lessons/mistakes made by others.

Geoff – "Against stupidity the Gods themselves strive in vain"

 

Edited By OuBallie on 12/06/2015 09:42:53

[john carruthersParticipant @johncarruthers46255]

Bought a M&W 1" – 2" mic for £3 as "…it's knackered, it reads 35 thou over all the time…"
Got it home, gave it a good clean up and zeroed it, wiped with oil and made a little box for it

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Who's going to be first to make one of these in their workshop? ED209 crossed with John Cleese:

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 12/06/2015 19:15:57

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Saturday night down the local pub comes to mind, perhaps a bit of alcohol might improve them!

Clive

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Looked like chucking out time on a Saturday night at our village watering hole. At least they don't hog the doner kebabs – do they?

Rik

[OldMetallerParticipant @oldmetaller]

You are right Clive and Rik, they definitely fall over like p*$$ed-up people!

Regards,

John.

[Bruce EdneyParticipant @bruceedney59949]

Well I haven't posted for a while here but I have been making things.

First is the con rod linkages for the Twin Piston – single cylinder engine. I have had about 3 attempts at making these on the mill. What a great learning experience but the scrap bin is getting a bit of stock in it.

Next I needed to make a Bandsaw Small item clamp as the only stock I had to make the Slider unit for the engine was a big piece of square brass and I don't trust my hacksawing skills. It is based on the clamp from the following web page .

I then cut and milled the Slider unit

So there has been some productivity in my workshop

Oh and I have ordered some Stepper Motors and drivers to convert my mill to CNC. The drivers arrived from Hong Kong to NZ in 3 days

Bruce

[Author]

Posts