A thing.....

[Darren]

Ok, like I need it, I have started something new whilst I wait for some killer drill bits for my other ongoing project.

I'm not going to tell you what it is for a change, be interesting how long it takes for someone to call it out. It's hard as nails, err, no that's not right. It's way harder than that.
So I decided to make something that didn't need any threading....!!

I wanted to do some milling, well I've wanted to do that for some time, but now I can 

I was really needing some larger stock, but this will have to do for now.

No idea what it is/was, but it's heavy. Around 60mm dia.



Chopped a piece off the end



Tidied it up in the lathe, now the halfshaft I last used was hard, this was much harder...I'm talking a lot harder and it was right through as well. No soft core in this one. My band saw cut the halfshaft, it wouldn't touch this.....



Like the halfshaft material the finish was excellent, bit tough on the carbide tips though....

Next job was to drill it off center, 5mm in this case.



Then bored to 28mm to a depth of 1,25", yes I know mixing measurements. Been around John too much 



Now to part it off, I got down to a 10mm core and tried to hacksaw as my parting tool wasn't long enough. All it did was make a scratch and take the teeth off the blade. Tried a new blade and it did the same thing. That's how I know it's hard to the core 



Anyways, I modified one of these into the parting tool above, That sorted it. The tough guy just melted when poked with this.



Cleaned up the parted face and we have this, that's the lathe work done for now. Next stop the miller

[Darren]

Cor, nobody guessed what it is yet? 

Better put some more pictures on then....

So now on the miller for some flatwork, those of you with keen eyes may spot the cutter has a tooth missing. A fair old chunk of it gone too. My old mill was good at doing that if you showed it some steel. Almost every time I used the thing 

HSS is never gonna survive cutting this lump so this carbide end mill was used. I do have a couple of good ones I could have used (thanks mate  )
However I was not going to chance them on this. One because is was a hard unknown material and two, because I'm used to breaking cutters 

So here we go, looking good so far, cutting very nicely.....so far........



Yep still cutting smoothly......fingers crossed....



AND IT'S STILL GOING SMOOTHLY.......
I'm not used to this....



And that's where I finished off tonight......

Considering how hard this metal is I think the miller is behaving very well indeed. Giving a really smooth finish, no snapped end mills and it's not even complaining...

 

[bogstandard]

Darren,

I think this job would be a very good candidate for trying some coolant on it. I can almost guarantee the cutter will be well and truly knacked by the time you have finished.



BTW, I think I now know why you were having so much trouble with the old mill. My guess is that it was an old imperial machine, and everyone knows that you should only put the cut on for metric cutters in mm instead of thous.
The cutting angle was totally wrong for removing imperial chippings and so the cutters duly snapped off because the flutes got choked with imperial swarf. 


Bogs

[bogstandard]

Darren,

I have just reread the whole post, and by the looks of it, your bit of metal seems to be a drawbar or large pivot pin. If it is, then that will be some real tough material. Designed to take very high shear loads without bending or breaking.

yes I know mixing measurements. Been around John too much

Measurements are only there to give a guide to finished size. Use what you need until you get very close.

These are imperial terms.

Tweak - between 0.002" and 0.005"

Gnat's cock - 0.0005" to 0.001"

A 'sniff' or 'snifter' - 0.0001" to 0.0004" (as in 'a couple of snifters' - 0.0002")

For metric, I suppose you translate the above to French.

'Il or Elle tweak' (verb, as in 'I tweaked a couple of thou off'), 'Un Gnats cock', has to be masculine, a lady gnat doesn't have one. Then 'Le sniff' masculine, 'La snifter' feminine, both have noses.

Bogs

[HS93]

I work in Ferkins , they come in units of two  two ferkin big two ferkin small   two ferkin heavey.. etc   



ooops that's me banned
oh well it was good while it lasted

peter

[Darren]

Did I say it was "ferkin" 'ard.

There, a reference point for all to work from 

Hi John, no I don't suspect the cutter will be too clever by the time it's done on this. That's why I used a knackered one. Call it a learning curve.....
I'm learning how you guys managed to cut such great stuff.

But at least if the miller can do this it should be great for sane work... My old miller would have snapped this cutter clean in half by now and that's no exaggeration.
I'm suspecting a worn bearing or something.

Yes, a draw pin/bar looks a good candidate from the shape of it.

It's got to go on another machine to finish it off. The miller, even though it's doing a grand job is only removing bulk quickly.
I could have done this on the shaper with a carbide bit. It would have taken days...... The shaper will have to finish it though.....another clue 

[NickG]

This has got me stumped Darren  , what on earth is it?! 

[Darren]

You ALL know what it is.......

New post coming soon, you'll get it then.........

[Darren]

Back to the thing again tonight 

Time for a sitting at the shaper now. I do like using the shaper, so relaxing compared to other tools. Can even go and make a cuppa whilst it's going as mine has auto stops fitted.

Using my lathe index tool here, the finish is more to my liking than the mill gives...



Checking it's all square, yep looks good enough to me



Now then, another clue as to what it may be. I needed to cut some 60 degree dovetails. I don't have a milling cutter for this job so I'm going to use the shaper. After all, it was designed to shape things 
I needed a cutting tool, the index was no good as it's angle was over 60deg. I guess normally Iyou'd grind up a HSS blank to the shape required. But this metal is hard, too hard for HSS. It was destroying carbide tips at a rate of knots.
I found this, it stated 18%, I presume that meant HSS with 18% cobalt?
18% is a high ratio, my other ones are 5%. Maybe it would last the course, only one way to find out....

I used a threading tool gauge to determine the 60deg angle. Anything less than would be ample, this turned out to be 55deg.



I set the top slide over to 60deg on the shaper and started cutting



A little while later, like an hr later.....and we have this



Turn it over and machine the other face



Shaping finished and now off back to the miller, drilled another hole and tidied the edges up with a chamfer tool..



Right then, have you guessed what it's to be yet. You should have by now 

A quick clean up and it's looking rather good...



Incidently, I dropped it on the floor. Took a chunk out of the concrete, and I though oh no !!!

Picked it up, wiped the concrete dust off it to look for the damage......not a mark on it....

I was going to make two of these, but making just this one has been a task. The metal is simply too hard, it's destroyed tooling, not one but about five carbide tips and one carbide milling cutter, two hacksaw blades, a bandsaw blade and my scribe !!!!!

Well ok I can sharpen the scribe....

I think I'll leave the rest of this bar for something else, something much simple.......like a rusty bar or sumut....

[sbwhart]

Is it a tool post ?

Nice bit of machining by the way, 
That stuff really looks hard 

Stew

[Stilldrillin]

I know what it is, now! 

I think....... 

Well..... 


Well, I would...... If it was made of brass/ bronze...... 


Hmmmmm.........


David.

[bogstandard]

Darren,

You are doing a sterling job murdering this bit of metal, it looks like you have got the hang of cutting stuff to the shapes you want. A very well done for that.

We've just got to get the quantity of tool kills down a bit. But I hope that will come with experience and the use of lube/coolant.

I know it is messy and gets everywhere, but it is either that, or your pocket will start to feel the cost of all the cutting bits. To such an extent, it might be cheaper to buy the parts rather than making them.

As soon as you start to get onto harder materials you must consider getting some sort of coolant on there, before tooling attrition gets too much to bear.

I will be looking at the spray jet unit I have just been given within the next few weeks, maybe that should be considered the way to go.

John

[Darren]

Well done Stew, yes it's a QCTP, 

I have to be honest, I wanted a bigger one than this. But it is at least bigger than the one on my mini lathe. I may just end up cutting the dovetails down a touch to the same size as the mini QCTP. Then I can use it's tools on both lathes.

Also I will be ordering some steel stock and having another go. I'm hoping mild steel will be a lot kinder to tooling and be a bit easier to use. Having said that, even though I have killed about £30 worth of tooling, a block of steel would have cost me almost that with postage. So it's swings and roundabouts.

The aim was to have a go at cutting dovetails, I think it's worked rather well and I'm fairly pleased for a first attempt. Bit of a learning curve and lots of thinking. Didn't all go to plan of course but I'm learning.

For the dovetail I cut a tool to 60deg, wrong, let the shaper deal with the angles and the tool the cutting. I discovered I needed less than 60deg on the tool.
My shaper is not marked for 60deg, only goes to 50. So some re-marking was required there. BTW, at that angle it's a long way over and you start to run out of room. 45 might be a better choice here, but existing tooling is 60 so it had to be.

I was inspired by this chap...
http://homepage3.nifty.com/amigos/qctp/qctp-e.htm



http://homepage3.nifty.com/amigos/qctp/s-img_8081.jpg[/url]

Have a look at the rest of his site, very talented chappie

http://homepage3.nifty.com/amigos/index-e.html

Now then, I need to buy some steel stock, but what and from where? There are so many grades to choose from. My biggest fear is spending a ton and ending up with material that machines like poo...
Some help chaps if you will, I'm not finding much at the scrappie other than small pieces.

[bogstandard]

For what you are doing Darren, I personally would use EN1A steel.

I hate quoting numbers, but that is recognised everywhere as a lightly leaded, free cutting mild steel.

If you can't get an easy smooth cut, and a superfine finish on that, you should take up knitting.

John

[NickG]

Looking good Darren, that is a project I wanted to do too but think I may just buy one and concentrate on making engines, otherwise I'll never get anything done! 

[shoey51]

very nicely done
I wish I had those skills

[Darren]

Thanks for the kind comments chaps. Who said skill?

Wrong place for that, I'm only learning and bumbling along as I go.

John, I'd be interested in how that misting unit gets on when you have it sorted. I did use WD40 on this, but that's not the same is it.

I would have done more tonight, but I'm in too much pain this evening to go into the workshop. I'd have a job to walk there never mind stand at the machines for an hour or so.
It comes an goes, old bike injury, lost my right hip about 20yrs ago. Completely shattered it, was too young for a hip replacement apparently. Can't do it till you have stopped growing.
It was either leg off or make do with a badly repaired hip, if you could call it even that. I chose the latter, like you would....

Anyways, I'm rambling no, must be getting old or sumut.....

[Darren]

Moving on a little today, time to make some more parts to go with this.

Starting with the cam I used a piece of 30mm alloy bar. Turned it to 27mm the same as the bore in the main block. I chose 27mm because a have collet in this size.
See, I've started doing some forward thinking at long last !! 



Next task was to machine an off center cam for operating the piston. A distance of 2mm was chosen which happened to be the size of this piece of scrap. So it was used to measure the offset.



That's the cam done



Turned it around and stuck it in that 27mm collet I mentioned earlier to machine the head.



Off to the miller to drill and tap for a handle, I chose a 6mm thread.



Now we need a center spigot. Selected a 20mm bar for this and duly turned it down on the lathe.
This fits down the center of the cam and is slightly longer, half mm would do. This allows the main block to be tightened down without pinching the cam unit.



Next up is the piston, nothing fancy, it's just a small slug. Mine has a hole down the center simple cos it was already in the piece of scrap chosen.
It could do with a couple of o-rings to hold it in the main block to stop it falling out. I'll get to that when I can find some and put a couple of locating groves in the piston to hold them in place.



Sum of parts so far, used a 6mm bolt for a handle for now till I make something better.

[sbwhart]

You're making a real nice job of that Darren like how you thinking ahead and using stuff you've got arround you 

What size tools wil it take ?

Have fun

Stew

[Bernd]

Nice looking bit of kit as you Britts would say. Looking good Darren.

You are using aluminum for the cam. Won't that gaul up are a few uses?

Bernd

[Twinsquirrel]

Looking superb, wish I could yhink things through as well as that.

David

[Darren]

Thanks guys,

Stew, This lathe won't take big tooling as the compound slide is quite high. I doubt it was designed for such as it's really a "second operation lathe" and used a sliding turret.

I tend to use 10mm size same as my mini lathe, but both could take 12mm easily. You could make toolholders for the QCTP to take larger tooling though I would think. I'll prob have a go at some time.

Bernd, yes I know, it might, have to wait and see. If it does I'll just make another in steel. It wasn't hard to make. I just didn't have any steel at the time to make it from.

David, there is nothing difficult here. Even the dovetail could be made on the lathe.
If I were to do it again I'd get a dovetail cutter for the miller. It would be much simpler to keep everything in line. As it is my effort is slightly out. But it works fine.

What I need to do next it adapt it so that the tooling drops on center for both lathes without adjustment. I know how I'm going to do it 


Some more pictures...

Look John, you'll have nightmares tonight 
I'm using it, first thing I noticed is how true the chuck is. Superb !!!
Second was how noisy it is, I'd forgotten...

Altering the size of the piston for a close fit


And here it is in action cutting a piece of steel. I cut the dovetail down tonight to accept the mini's tooling.



Another view, see how much I've adjusted the height setting nut, nip the top off the dovetail will cure it...



I'll also make a clamping handle (the top one) so it's better positioned.

Lever forward, released piston



Pull lever back and the pistons fully out. You don't need this much movement, 1/5th of a turn will do to make it nice and tight.



The piston has a good 45 chamfer so that when you drop the tooling in it automagicaly gets pushed back. I guess when I put o-rings on the piston you'll have to push the tooling down.

All in all, it works....

[bogstandard]

Very nice job indeed Darren, your bits don't look too bad either

I was wondering how long it would be before you tried it out, hope it comes up to your expectations.

John

[Darren]

John,

One of the reasons I made this tool holder is so that I can use the mini lathe more...

Don't make sense eh.....sure it does...

It goes like this, I'm doing a bigger, tougher job, need to use the bigger lathe. But the tooling is on the mini lathe, so I rob and get the job done.

Then along comes a little job, be nice to do it on the mini with all it's features. But he tooling is on the bigger lathe. So I think sod it, too much hassle and just use the bigger lathe.

See, makes sense now dunit 

To be truthful I'm dying to use the mini lathe again, I will think of something to do with it....

[sbwhart]

Good Job Darren
 

Stew