What Did You Do Today 2020

[Ian Skeldon 2Participant @ianskeldon2]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 23/06/2020 23:54:10:

Ian –

Thank you for showing us progress.

I am following it with particular interest as I own a Myford VM-C too and you might be able to help with a couple of small snags.

The first is that the leadscrew appears to miss a beat now and again. It's an odd effect, as if somehow the leadscrew occasionally saves all its backlash up and releases it in one go, in mid-wind in one direction. Any clues?

The second is one that came with the machine but fell down the priority list, and that is a very stiff quill, making sensitive drilling difficult. The stiffness is enough to prevent the quill springing back up. The problem may be as simple as congealed grease on the rack and pinion, but Myford did not make it particularly accessible. I am also very reluctant to interfere with the wound-up spring. I do not have the tools or knowledge for handling clock-type springs and past experience dictates leaving it well alone in its little housing, still clinging to the shaft! Would I right thinking the rack and pinion are accessible but only by removing the entire unit from the head of the machine?

+++

Hi Nigel,

Firstly I have to tell you that I am not an expert with any piece of machinery, I just knew that although mine is in good nick it was about time to check everything over and adjust or replace as required.

I would think there could be a number of reasons for the table jumping first thing to check is that the gib is correctly adjusted and the table ways are lubricated. From your description it could be a broken or missing section of thread on the lead screw. It could be a particular area of wear that gives out when the load on the thread and half nut is sufficient or it could be an accumulation of wear in the screw and half nuts. Have you tried adjusting the half nuts to see if that helps? If adjusting the half nuts does not fix the problem then it would be best to take the table off and check everything out.

The quill being stiff could just be down to lack of lubrication or miss alignment with the bearings. Maybe it has been stripped and put back incorrectly before you bought it. I would undue but not remove the inspection cover screws, check that there is nothing pushing against the cover before removing it, if it is free moving slip it off and take a peek.

Hope that helps.

Ian

Edited By Ian Skeldon 2 on 24/06/2020 20:30:09

[DrDaveParticipant @drdave]

Bit of a mixed bag today. I thought that I was making good progress milling the excess off a block of aluminium for a new engine. Heisenberg, my SX2 mill, was sounding unhappy, so I put a brand new end mill in and tried again. Even worse. I got hold of the bed & gave it a wiggle: there is about 1 mm play on the Y-axis.

I wound the bed all the way out to see if I could tighten the anti-backlash nut only to find that the problem is that the nut has come loose from the bed. Ah, well, time to give it some of the TLC that it needs, and check to see what else has come loose.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

SWMBO has ordered me to make a new garden gate after its predecessor lasted less than 25 years.

I'm ashamed to say that I spent some of today cutting tennons in allegedly 150x47mm C24 timber on the milling machine. Mortices will be cut when the 16mm long series cutter arrives from Ketan at Arc Eurotrate…

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Ian Skeldon –

Thank you for the suggestions.

I think a broken lead-screw thread would make its presence felt a lot more markedly, but anyway I did not notice any broken areas when I rebuilt the machine I'd had to dismantle in order to move home and rebuild it in its new workshop.

Uneven wear though does sound very likely, and it's noticeable the gib clamping-screws are very sensitive in certain areas of travel.

I'll see if I can adjust the lead-screw nut.

'

I noticed the cap covering the quill pinion shaft bearing had worked loose, and needed re-tightening. I am not sure how that could have happened – vibration I think.

Looking in the manual I see there is a large opening behind the spindle but you need remove the whole unit from the head to reach it, or even see it. Since I intend to replace the motor with a 3-phase conversion – and possibly either overhaul or remove the intermediate belt pulley – it would be best to attend to both at the same time.

(Machine servicing is one reason I am building an overhead travelling-crane for the workshop, but looking at the clearance I think the hoist would have to be some form of pull-up jack rather than block-and-tackle for working on the higher parts of the mill.)

'

Elsewhere Today…

I refitted the 3ph motor and inverter to the Myford lathe, and completed a fabricated shield for it. Made from two pieces of 3mm PVC sheet in mid-grey, it looks somewhere near the part! I've set its end face fractionally behind the faceplate surface, but I needed make a pan in that face for better clearance round the motor's mounting-clamps and ventilation holes.

After pondering on how, I came up with pressing it…..

…. With some lateral thinking on what to use as punch and die…

The two main parts of the cylindrical base of the lifting-equipment for the steam-wagon boiler are a plywood ring and disc with a generous clearance annulus. This is necessitated by the firebox being a vertical cylinder whose inner protrudes below the foundation-ring, so the base effectively supports the end of a tube.)

They proved ideal as thermo-forming punch and die!

Set up on the bench-drill with a bit of M12 studding as ram, topped by an aluminium-foil pie-dish to deflect heat from the machine, the operation took no more than about 8 or 10 iterations with a hot-air gun to soften the plastic enough to deform. I held the quill down each time to let the plastic cool and harden, so I could examine progress and adjust where necessary. A further heating and a steel plate under the "punch" removed some distortion from the surrounding material to finish.

The result – a flat-topped dimple 4 – 5 inches diameter X about 1/4-inch high that even looks right .

I've made one or two small, single items by hot-bending PVC sheet but this was the most advanced I have done, and useful experience. For example, I realised afterwards I should have masked the surface next to the joint so the over-brushed or extruded solvent – standard plumbing adhesive – did not etch it.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by DrDave on 24/06/2020 21:36:35:

Heisenberg, my SX2 mill, was sounding unhappy, so I put a brand new end mill in and tried again.

Heisenberg?? Hopefully not because it is uncertain?

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Definitely not today, but over much too long a period, finally fitted a 2 axis DRO to my D-W mill. Thanks are due to all the members who provided hints, tips and suggestions plus the customer support at Allendale for sorting the digital bit! I'm posting a couple of pics which, if you can ignore the crap workmanship, may be useful for other D-W owners. The last pic is of the repair to the motor/head support tbe which was broken and which several members offered suggestions for repair. For logistical (proximity) reasons, I tool Pgk's advice and went agri-engineer. The repair has been deliberately left 'as-is' on mutual agreement that it would probably be stronger and the 'looks' suit my 'style'!!

Thanks to all who helped.

rgds

Bill

[DrDaveParticipant @drdave]

Posted by Nick Clarke 3 on 25/06/2020 09:25:13:

Posted by DrDave on 24/06/2020 21:36:35:

Heisenberg, my SX2 mill, was sounding unhappy, so I put a brand new end mill in and tried again.

Heisenberg?? Hopefully not because it is uncertain?

You got it in one!

I never know quite how much is going to come off until afterwards…

[DrDaveParticipant @drdave]

Removed duplicate posting

Edited By DrDave on 26/06/2020 11:57:08

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Finished and fitted the new motor-guard / splash-back for the ML7.

It's all fabricated from 3mm PVC sheet, glued with plumbing solvent-adhesive then the joints reinforced with hot-melt glue.

The panels are joined using "angle-plastic". All the bending was after softening the PVC with a heat-gun, then for the angles, pressing them manually between two lengths of angle-steel. The steel soon cooled the hot plastic, so my fingers on the opposite sides of the conductive metal informed me.

The former for the curve along the box, was the steam-wagon's rolled steel "stovepipe" chimney laid along the 'Workmate'. (Don't worry, it wasn't harmed!)

The rear of the box portion and its far end are fully-open for ventilation, and it is slightly shorter than the motor. The main panel has a big rectangle cut out from its end to match the exterior of the box.

The up-stand angle at the far end of the box is to impart a little extra rigidity and restrain any stray debris that gets up there. The "roof" is not temptingly accessible to use as a tool-tray!

Took a couple of photos of the assembly, then fitted it.

The box is held to the countershaft frame by 3 M6 screws through a shallow PVC channel bridging the frame's central hole, and tapped into an area with a doubler-strip glued behind it. The main panel is held to the Sterling-board workshop lining by 3 wood-screws, via simple wooden block spacers, along its top edge. All the holes are visible in the picture.

I made the circular raised portion that clears the motor mounting and stiffens the face also by hot-pressing, using a plywood disc " punch" and plywood "die" – actually borrowed parts of the lifting-cradle for my steam-wagon's boiler.

A different line of work from metal, and an interesting if sometimes awkward and frustrating process.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Low precision machining and fitting of non-isotropic material has proceeded nicely in the shed. Tomorrow I hope to weld it together,,,

[pauljamesParticipant @pauljanes79128]

Bill,

One of the photos about your DRO installation has a small crane for lifting jobs onto the mill. Can you please post some details about it. (About a month or so ago there was some posts about lifting devices in the workshop)

Paul

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Hi Paul – thanks for the query. The 'crane' started life as a mobility scooter or wheelchair car lift. Capacity about 160 kgs? I bought the basic, non-working motor, base and jib. It's mounted on a 6 mm steel rectangular tube welded to a 170mm, 6mm thick sqare base plate. I 'fixed' the motor and wired in a vari-speed RS transformer to give the 12volt power. The jib is about 50mm long, slightly extendable and swings through 270 degrees. I use g-clamps to secure it so that I can use it on other caster-based benches. I'll take a few more piccies and put them up here.

Let me know if any further needed.

rgds

Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Courtesy of the News feed, I stumbled across TROVE this morning:

As a spot-check, I searched for ‘Synchronome’ … and yes, this does appear to be a pretty comprehensive resource: **LINK**

https://trove.nla.gov.au/search?keyword=synchronome

Thank you, Australia

MichaelG.

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Too late now to edit my post re. the 'crane' but, as no doubt realised, the quoted jib length of 50mm should have been 50 cm!! … (Bloody new-fangled meaurements! What was wrong with the groat and bushel?)

rgds

Bill

Edited By Cornish Jack on 30/06/2020 09:35:12

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Yesterday the guard on my bench pillar drill finally disintergrated. I has been a PIA for sometime, constantly coming loose and to be honest, was more dangerous than not having one.

It also supported a primitive depth gauge/stop. (those of you with a similar model drill will know what I mean). I decided not to re-instate this as the hole it was in makes a convenient chuck key storage point.

I decided that I would make a large graduated wheel to fit the operating spindle and finally finished and fitted it this morning. I do have some 2.5mm number punches, so the next job is to make a jig to accurately mark the dial. I will have to check how they perform on a curved surface first. It is perfectly useable as it is.

edited for duff formatting.

Edited By Anthony Knights on 30/06/2020 10:33:41

Edited By Anthony Knights on 30/06/2020 10:35:56

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Anthony, I've got the same model, but different "badge" don't use it much now, but looks as if you've gone the right way forward, very good.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 30/06/2020 10:51:32

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by Cornish Jack on 30/06/2020 09:34:37:

(What was wrong with the groat and bushel?)

Excellent pub, but the mild was unreliable at times!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Cornish Jack –

50mm / 50cm.

Easy mistake to make but you raise an interesting point.

I wonder how common such as mistake is becoming, thanks to schools teaching metres and centimetres even though the centimetre is not used for anything technical, except for a few specific purposes.

I find myself actually having mentally to convert sizes, usually those quoted in shops and catalogues, from cm to mm to be able to assess them. That I have often then to relate them to real measures – 150mm is close to 6 inches for example – is by-the-by.

It is the cm / mm point that sticks, and one a teacher tells me he encounters in trying to teach so-called "STEM" subjects rightly in millimetres, to pupils whose Maths lessons in the same school, use only centimetres.

++++

As for the Groat and Bushel… It was a fine pub till the Far-East-owned chain that had bought it, renamed it thus within its ….and Bushel estate, so to run it into bankruptcy for cheap sale to a Mayfair speculator for conversion to second-homes for the Canary Wharf set!

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

One issue with ignoring the cm is volume. A mm3 to m3 is a big jump, and I wonder how many can visualise either.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Keith Wyles on 01/07/2020 15:22:09:

A mm3 to m3 is a big jump, and I wonder how many can visualise either.

Simples, it's a factor of 10^9. Easy to visualise too, a cubic metre is what my garden supplies are delivered in, and a cubic millimetre is about four 0402 capacitors stacked two across and two high. Given that the world, and the parts we make, are inherently 3D, I would have thought that any self-respecting engineer would have no trouble mentally visualising in 3D.

Andrew

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Keith Wyles on 01/07/2020 15:22:09:

One issue with ignoring the cm is volume. A mm3 to m3 is a big jump, and I wonder how many can visualise either.

Imperial is so much easier to visualise!

A gallon of water weighs 10lbs so a ton of water must be 224 gallons. As 1 gallon occupies 0.1605437 cubic feet, a ton of water must occupy 35.9617888 cubic feet. Or 62141.9710464 cubic inches. Being called the Water Ton means it's only used to measure Oil.

And 0.9617888 should be a fraction: it is 86561/90000

Don't forget these are proper British Gallons rather than weedy American gallons, and a Freight Ton of water is 40 cubic feet on both sides of the Atlantic. Otherwise the sums go horribly wrong.

Dave

[Taz MeadowsParticipant @tazmeadows29006]

Been scraping a lathe top slide to get oil retention boring!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Keith Wyles –

I did say the cm is used for some specific purposes, and the c.c. for small volumes of liquids was one of the purposes I had in mind; the other of course being engine cylinder capacities.

On which note, anyone know why car reviewers insist on giving a car's internal volume in litres, as if you're going to turn it into an aquarium, and sometimes engine power in some strange unit called the kP rather than either HP or W.

For some reason I thought that stands for kilo-poules (1000 hens?) but when I looked it up just now, I was given the kilo-pond – appropriate I suppose if you insist on measuring a vehicle's interior by how much water it can hold.

Andrew –

You are right that any self-respecting engineer can visualise 3D objects, but it's visualising 3D units of measure that can be harder. It was the inconsistency of units I had commented on.

Later Today…

Resumed work on the crab (the cross-travel trolley) for the workshop hoist. I had 4 aluminium-alloy, plain wheels with bronze bushes, running on mild-steel cores drilled 12mm through. I have no idea of their original purpose but thought they'd come in handy one day, and so they are proving; converted from plain rims to flanged, with a slight taper.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Completed the wheel-sets for my travelling hoist's crab.

Unlike a conventional railway axle – and the long-travel on this hoist – with a rigid wheel-axle fixing, I've adapted the four aluminium-alloy wheels I already had, to revolve on their existing bronze bushes, on a "dead" axle. They are retained by a shoulder, washers and circlips – no nasty split-pin ends to attack one's hands!

I recall rarely if ever seeing circlips and E-clips mentioned in model-engineering circles. Perhaps we are all conditioned by model practice, where visible fastenings do need replicate the full-size split-pins and taper-pins.

Had to "stretch" three stretchers on the beam assembly upwards so a 25mm-square tube laid across the axles will clear their undersides by about 1mm. Kitchen-fitting shims in the right places did the trick.

I painted the axles with ordinary spray paint. Based on an article a while back in ME about modifying a low-cost barbeque rotisserie to aid painting cylindrical items, I used the Harrison lathe, which will tick over at around 60rpm without upsetting the motor. A flattened carton behind the machine, a bin-liner on the bed and a lot of oil clinging to everything kept the overspray under control. I needed run the lathe for only a couple of minutes or so for each axle. Next thing- design and make the trolley itself.

++++

Things are easing! My sisters graced me with their presence yesterday morning, to scrounge a coffee; using the side gate to avoid going through the house, and sitting in the sun in the garden the regulation 1-1/12 fathom apart. We live within walking distances of each other, but this was the first time we'd met since the week before the lock-down started.

As for my model-engineering society though… I'm afraid that's going to be tricky with a very small club-room and fear of using communal tea-making facilities, but in any case our hosts, a school, are still keeping the gates locked out of school hours. (That also bars access to public sports hall and outdoor pitches.)

Even where a club or society has its own access though, I wonder how many others, by no means confined to model-engineering, are in similar situations; not knowing when they will feel able to open even if allowed to open. My caving-club for example, has just announced members can use the grounds, with its lawn, couple of picnic-tables and kit-washing area, and can arrange to borrow club equipment, but not enter the building even for the toilets.

Also of course, how many older members of many clubs will feel unable to attend anyway.

Or to visit exhibitions. Fingers crossed for the Midlands one, with a decision I hear to be made in August. That does not give very much advance notice for the traders, though obviously they will all be aware of the situation, but it's hard to see what else anyone can do.

Meanwhile… carry on making swarf!

[clogsParticipant @clogs]

living in a warmer part of the world…….

Nobody here uses mm…everything is measured in CM's……

went to the wood store, they looked at my sizes and had a look of horror…….

hahaha……

luckily I work on both sids of the street….imp and Metric…….

not so long ago I was in a large DIY store (outside the UK) and was accused of stealing a Stanley Fat Max tape measure…..

I deliberatley made em eat cheese cos the said tape was metric and IMP.……

[Author]

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