What Did You Do Today (2017)

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I would think the angle plate in the vice without added support is more rigid than the mill column, so any additional support would be better off on the column than the angle plate.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

True but it might help the vice jaws out a little.

regards Martin

Looks like it worked anyhow.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Looking at that pic again Neil, another thing I would do is dispense with the swivel base for the vice, it will not only give you more head room but also mean the head does not have to be so far up the column which will help with rigidity. There will also be more vice in contact with the mill table that again will make things more solid.

I think I have only used the swivel once or twice in the 11 years I have had my vice.

Edited By JasonB on 31/07/2017 12:30:00

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Good advice Jason, I took the swivel off my mill vice for both those reasons you give with the thought that if I ever did need it then it was sat on the shelf waiting.

Chris

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Problem is the keyway slots on the top part are along the length of the vice.

For now I have the swivel base aligned and keys fitted so accurate setting up is very quick. I will put a crosswise keyway in the top part when I get a round tuit

Column is pretty rigid for an X2 because of the 5mm thick stiffening plate at the back.

Neil

[Anonymous]

Spent the day machining plastic for work, after a massive clear up on the Bridgeport, and floor, to get rid of all the metal swarf.

Then made a few M6 washers for the clack valves.

This evening I bit the bullet and assembled the eccentric, strap and connecting rod for the water pump drive. I've been putting it off as it would involve dismantling half the engine, including the gear change. However, by removing the crankshaft bearing and housing on the flywheel side, and loosening the other side, I was just able to get the eccentric onto the crankshaft. Along with the pulley for the governor. There is a small U shaped lug that fits into the water pump ram and holds the pin that connects the pump rod to the connecting rod. This was a bit tight so I eased it out with a file, and made the pin. Thought it was odd I couldn't find the other U shaped lug; must have put it somewhere special.

I got everything fitted – and the drive didn't work. Clearly something hard within the pump was stopping the ram when it was nearly fully inserted. At this point I offered a naughty word to the inadequacy of the English language when it comes to curses. In my copy of the 'The Good Soldier Svejk' the translator explains that he was hampered by the inability of English to convey the full range of insults and rude words available in Czech. Unfortunately I don't speak Czech.

So get the 3D CAD model on the computer screen to find out where I'd gone wrong. First thing was to check how far in the ram should go at maximum insertion. With this information I looked at the water pump to see if this was causing the problem. And out fell the second U shaped lug; one hell of a special place!

Having sorted that out I am pleased that the water pump drive now works exactly as designed, even though the worst case clearance between the connecting rod and pump ram is only 10 thou. The eccentric drives the pump quite freely even though there are no grub screws holding it to the crankshaft at the moment. So there can't be that much friction within the water pump. Here's the arrangement:

Just for the hell of it I'm now going to have another quick turn of the flywheel to watch the whole thing going round.

Andrew

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Today I had a major break through!!

I've been building a Topsy organ for quite a long time, but had got to the stage where all the pipes worked but I had to work out how to connect the serial/parallel box of tricks to the computer. I'd re-done my laptop to Linux some time ago, and was floundering. However I then remembered that fellow club member Bill was into Linux, and is a very helpful chap, so he came over and introduced me to the Linux command line so I could play Midi files via aplaymidi. This allowed us to get the organ to make a rhythmic noise, but not a tune. Further investigation found that there are lots of notes missing from Topsy (by design) to make best use of the 29 pipes available, so if you're in the wrong key it sounds really odd. The midi files I had were given to me by a chap in Irlam who used to sell the pallet valves, but he has now retired. I was about to get my hand in my pocket and buy some midi files specially arranged for Topsy when Bill offered to write some code to compare what the midi wanted with what was there, then shift the midi a semi tone, compare again and so on to get the best match. Having found the best match it would then output a new file. This lunchtime we got it all working, so the house has been echoing to Blaze Away, which I always thought was Sousa, but is by Holzman.

As soon as #2 son visits I'll get him to put it on you tube and post a link, suffice to say that I'm one happy bunny

Edited By duncan webster on 01/08/2017 15:30:41

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Posted by Andrew Johnston on 31/07/2017 23:09:26:

Just for the hell of it I'm now going to have another quick turn of the flywheel to watch the whole thing going round.

Andrew are you going to test the pump at this stage or wait until everything is assembled? If nothing else hooking it up to a water container and pressure gauge will give you another excuse to twirl the flywheel round a few more times.

J

[Anonymous]

Posted by JasonB on 01/08/2017 15:33:59

Andrew are you going to test the pump at this stage or wait until everything is assembled?

Not at the moment. I've got a busy work and social period coming up, so I won't be doing much of anything on the engines for a week or several. I suspect that once a real load is applied the eccentric will slip on the crankshaft. I don't particularly want to fit the grubscrews at the moment.

Andrew

Edit: Don't really want to flood the kitchen at the moment either!

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 01/08/2017 21:57:11

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Thought the pump eccentric would be keyed to the shaft as it takes quite a load

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Having a break from work this week and doing a bit of online shopping this morning, tools etc – all essential stuff ! and also came across an enjoyable scenic model railway video on youtube (Black Forest area of Germany).

Yesterday, made a start on one of my projects. A conversion of the Vertex HV4 rotary table, to stepper motor control. Drawn up in Fusion 360. Hope to get it near finished today, at least the machinging part. The electronics are already done and tested.

Ed.

Edited By Ed Duffner on 02/08/2017 07:57:07

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Made an ER25 collet chuck for my Pultra. This fits on the spindle nose rather than on a 10mm collet. 7/8" x 26 tpi thread and a 40 degree angled register:

Most of the ER chuck was made on the the Myford, I just finished the collet seat taper on the Pultra.

The ER 25 chuck actually has slightly less overhang than the 3 jaw mounted on a 10mm collet.

Also have to find room for this:

I've never touched a shaper before – needs some fettling. The auto advance moves towards the end of the power stroke not, as I would expect, during the return. Perhaps the ratchet needs turning around. At least now I can kill my ebay search and get rid of all those pictures of comfy ladies squeezed into strange shapes

Rod

Rod

[Anonymous]

Posted by JasonB on 02/08/2017 07:26:00:

Thought the pump eccentric would be keyed to the shaft as it takes quite a load

Not on the drawings. Mind you that doesn't mean it wouldn't be necessary; the drawings have been in la-la land on quite a few other issues.

Andrew

[Anonymous]

Posted by Roderick Jenkins on 02/08/2017 21:23:18:

Made an ER25 collet chuck for my Pultra.

Wow, that's a lovely looking Pultra – puts mine to shame.

A shaper should feed at the end of the backstroke, so something is the wrong way round.

Andrew

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

It was yours! ( well some of it) Amazing what a lick of paint can do

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Roderick Jenkins on 02/08/2017 22:14:06:

It was yours! ( well some of it) Amazing what a lick of paint can do

Almost looks like a real lathe

No very nice! Could be a runner for OMAHL series 2?

[Anonymous]

Posted by Roderick Jenkins on 02/08/2017 22:14:06:

It was yours! ( well some of it) Amazing what a lick of paint can do

Ah, I wondered if it was, but didn't like to say, just in case. I'm really glad they've cleaned up nicely. Are the oil sight glasses new, or cleaned? Mine will definitely need sorting out, as the lenses seem to have yellowed.

Andrew

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Thereby hangs a tale, which I am considering writing up for Neil. I'd assumed the transparent bit was glass so left them in when stripping the head:

Wrong! They were plastic so I had to make some new ones.

Very impressed with the bearing design, even on this earlier all plain bearing model. The bronze bearings sit in tapered housings with buttress threaded rings either side to control the clearance on the spindle. Absolutely no sign of wear on disassembly.

Rod

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

MT2 Finishing reamer from RDG dropped through the letter box today. Great I thought, now I can make some progress on the ML4. Wouldn't you know it, I don't have tap wrench big enough to fit the reamer

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Easy enough to make one from a couple of bits of bar and two bolts, don't need to turn the handles round for now just drill and tap the holes

Even filing a square hole in the middle of a bit of bar would do for now.

Edited By JasonB on 03/08/2017 16:06:54

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

JasonB,Thanks for the encouragement and the photo and this is really painful for me to say but my workshop is so new to working with metal that I have a great scarcity of scrap metal of any sort. I have a couple of short lengths of round EN1A, different diameters, and a piece of angle iron!! Pitiful I know

I am visiting the Peterborough Model Engineering Society on Monday evening and hoping it will be the sort of meeting where members try to sell their odds and sods to raise funds.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

So file a square hole in your bit of angle iron. It doesn't have to be a brilliant fit.

[mark smith 20Participant @marksmith20]

Posted by Roderick Jenkins on 02/08/2017 22:14:06:

It was yours! ( well some of it) Amazing what a lick of paint can do

 

Roderick very nice ,i have a model P , i have always wondering why the Pultra cross slide carriage only has one strip on the underneath at the front . Ive asked this on here before but i dont recall anyone commenting .

Ive heard some place saying it doesnt need one at the back but i dont quite follow this thinking as surely when you make a heavier cut there will be a tendency to push the carriage away from the work. I know it does on mine and i dont really like to tighten it up to the bed a ridiculous amount .

Any ideas????

Thanks

Edited By mark smith 20 on 03/08/2017 18:55:28

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Mark,

My experience of using the Pultra boils down to one operation so far so I have now experience to relay. However, off the top of my head, the bed in cross-section is a truncated triangle. If you had a wedge shaped fitting on both sides of the bed then you couldn't guarantee that the cross slide would be in good contact with the top -which is the most important – and both sides as well. So I don't think that the addition of a wedge at the back would add anything to the solidity of the cross slide. I'm going to make a C spanner to tighten the nut on mine.

As far as the shaper is concerned, rotating the engagement knob on the top of the ratchet through 180 degrees makes the auto traverse work in the correct manner.

Cheers,

Rod

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by duncan webster on 03/08/2017 18:43:04:

So file a square hole in your bit of angle iron. It doesn't have to be a brilliant fit.

It makes for a good handle too.

You can just drill a hole smaller than the square and needle file it until it goes in, that would probably be good enough.

I do remember some tap wrenches being like this with numerous different sized square holes along a piece of thin flat bar.

All this talk of square holes is making me tempted to go for these square hole ER32 collets, cutwel are selling for tapping in the lathe 

Michael W

Edited By Michael-w on 03/08/2017 20:39:04

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