First Time Milling!

[Stefan Pynappels]

 I got some shop time with Tim (Spuddevans) last night, and I really enjoyed it. I had my first go at milling, and it is great chopping a bit of steel off a length with a hacksaw, squaring it and getting it ready to make into a part. I reckon I learned more in those few hours than from weeks of watching and reading, shows how much better doing a thing actually is.

A couple of things struck me though:
1. Tims workshop was not originally designed with 2 people in mind! Good job we are friends!
2. Its is amazing how much material has to be removed to make a part that is useful. I guess this is less if the original steel is closer to the dimensions of the part, but when you are working with scrap bits which have been scavenged, a lot of metal has to be removed to make things.
3. Flycutting is harder than I thought, getting the tool steel ground correctly is NOT easy, normal end mills may take longer, but they are easier to work with. It does take a bit of practise judging how fast to feed the work through, but Tim was a very patient teacher.
4. Working to tolerances tighter than I've ever had to do is quite challenging. In plumbing and joinery stuff I've done to date, getting it to a mm is good, but yesterday I was measuring and cutting it to 0.01mm, where lapping on W&D with oil actually makes a difference.

I am hooked, it is a shame that there is no hope of me getting any machinery any time soon, but I hope to get more shop time with Tim and making more hot swarf to burn my hands with. Thanks for the help Tim

[Brass_Machine]

Awesome isn't it? That's great you have a friend that has the tools... but where are the pictures? What did you make?

Eric

[Stefan Pynappels]

I never thought to take pics! Will take some next time I go to finish the part. It is an odd shaped bit of a mechanism that needed to be remade and were about half way through. Will get some pics up next time.

[usn ret]

Welcome to the world of hands on metal munching. A long dead famous Italian artist that worked in stone once said that the object of art was inside the stone and all he had to do was chip away the stone that was not needed....  I guess the same can be said for machining, the bit we need is inside the metal lump and all we need to do is cut, file, mill or turn away all the extra metal... Welcome to our world!!
Once you are really hooked you WILL find a way to get your own tooling and space.  It only took me 40 years to get mine and I got hooked while taking a machine shop class in the late 1950's in college. I don't believe the metal working spark ever dies, it just smolders until it can be ignited. Patience and persevance, you will get your own tooling somewhere down the road.  Yes, having your own tooling and space is nice.  I have used a file, vise and drill press to make bits on ocassion. A little crude but effective.   Here in the Colonies, many of the community colleges have progammes and provide access to machine shop equipment with qualified instructors. 
Happy chip making
Clilff

[spuddevans]

I never thought to take pics! Will take some next time I go to finish the part. It is an odd shaped bit of a mechanism that needed to be remade and were about half way through. Will get some pics up next time.

I'll see if I can take a couple of snaps of the bits and post them up here this afternoon, because 


Tim

[spuddevans]

As Stefan had left the parts in my workshop, I was able to grab a couple of pics. I dont really know much about this particular mechinism, but I'm sure Stefan will chime in to explain all.

This is the original part, made up from 3 pieces that were most likely stamped out of sheet steel.



This  pic shows the newly sized and prepared steel block on the left (it's upside down, I forgot to allign it with the pivot hole at the bottom  ) and the original piece on the right.



The red circled area is shown is extreme close up now to show what the problem is with this part ( If I remember right from what Stefan told me  )


And from the other side (and just to confuse matters from a different angle)



I think the problem lies in the poor manufacture of this part, the edges show in the 2 close-ups are not well defined, and I guess because it's made up of 3 pieces it makes it kinda hard/impossible to smooth out and crisping ( is that a word, if not I lay claim to inventing it ) it up so that there is a nice sharp edge to it.

I'm sure Stefan will explain it better ( and that would not be hard to do looking at my attempt at explaining something I know virtually nothing about  )




Tim

[NickG]

Well done, great stuff! Hope you've started saving the pennies to buy some tools!

Nick