Chester 626 mill CNC Conversion

[Pete.]

Gotta agree about those gloves - we wear them at work. With revolving machinery you have to be careful which type to get though. The super-stretchy ones (we use ninja-flex) have a very grippy palm-side coating and will grip onto the smoothest revolving surface even when wet, causing some pretty nasty injury. I don't use them when drilling (concrete) but I do use them when wire sawing for the extra dexterity. On the drill I use a heavier glove with a thicker and shinier coating (ours are called pro-lite) which is not grippy at all on a smooth wet surface so you can safely handle a spinning core drill.

[loply]

I'm no expert, and I'm conscious that we're going O/T, but I did read a rather extensive document some time ago from the American equivalent of the HSE (are they called OSHA or something?) about most common causes of accidents with machinery, and they basically broke down various types of injury and what causes them eg finger amputation, hand amputation, arm amputation and so forth.

Bottom line was the vast majority were caused by gloves or sleeves getting caught in moving parts, pulling the attached body part with them.

I've only ever worn latex gloves since as I think they're fine, but I'd be wary of heavier gloves. Even a drill bit can grab a glove and break your fingers off, assuming you have the spindle power.

[Rob.Wilson]

I'm no expert, and I'm conscious that we're going O/T, but I did read a rather extensive document some time ago from the American equivalent of the HSE (are they called OSHA or something?) about most common causes of accidents with machinery, and they basically broke down various types of injury and what causes them eg finger amputation, hand amputation, arm amputation and so forth.

Bottom line was the vast majority were caused by gloves or sleeves getting caught in moving parts, pulling the attached body part with them.

I've only ever worn latex gloves since as I think they're fine, but I'd be wary of heavier gloves. Even a drill bit can grab a glove and break your fingers off, assuming you have the spindle power.

Very true Loply ,,,,,,,,,,,,, I would not recommend wearing gloves wile operating machinery in the shop .

John DB  ,,,,,,,,,,,time for Walters finger me thinks ,, just as a  reminder  on what can happen wile wearing gloves .


 Don't worry about the O/T


Rob

[doubleboost]

DO NOT WEAR GLOVES WHILE MACHINING
My mate was only drilling a 1/4 inch hole when his glove got stuck in the drill
It pulled the end of his index finger off just leaving the bone poking out






A bit graphic i must admit
But this is what happens and it happens very fast
This lad has worked with machinery for 40 years
He just forgot to take his gloves off
I hope this post has not offended any one but on the other hand i hope it stops you from wearing gloves with machine tools

[John Swift]

Hi double boost ,

Graphic  ,  but  if you save one person you have done a good job

its better to be shocked by the pictures than go into shock after having the same sort of accident


John

[AdeV]

I'm with Loply on this one - I'll wear fake latex gloves, on the basis they will rip away rather than drag me into any rotating machinery. Probably the nearest miss I've had is with a shop coat getting wrapped around the drive leadscrew of the lathe, fortunately my lathe goes so slowly that as soon as I felt it tugging I could pull back, no harm done.

[Rob.Wilson]

Evening chaps

Made a start on the Y axis bearing/motor mount block ,,,, whittled from a bit mystery metal .

Setup in the lathe for boring .


Bored for bearings and seal .


Still needs a tad more machining.


JS must have past me in the CNC build off by noow 


Rob

[John Stevenson]

No mate, build is on hold whist I get a new bench put in.

Doesn't sound much but this had to come out.



Which left this mess,



And so far we are here.



12 foot long, 700 mm wide.

Well actually just a bit further on, 5 steel bins in a rack at the far end for steel offcuts in assorted sizes. 2 Machine mart tool chests for tooling and inserts etc out of the wall cupboard and that can then go.

Large two door cupboard with shelf inside for some computers and heavy gear on the bottom. next space is a 2 door cupboard on the bottom and a sliding drawer in the top to take the little engraving machine. It only need access to the front to change plates so no point it taking valuable real estate up on top. The two end shelves have already been changed to a new smaller one piece cabinet.

It needs doors fitted, front of drawer fitted, top fitted and the frame painted, all the doors top etc have been cut.

This will leave room on the top for the original CNC X3, the Myford VMB and I went up to HPC Laser in Halifax last week and bought one of the bigger desktop lasers so that will sit on the end nearest the camera.

Should get this in a couple of weeks, after playing with it for a bit i can then get on with the VMB build

[Rob.Wilson]

   ,, Looking good John ,,,,,,,,,,,,you going to slap some paint on that steel work   

Laser sounds fun ,,,,,,,,,,,, you going to let on what ye plan to do with it ,,,,,,,,,,at a guess etch parts ?



Rob 

[John Stevenson]

Paint  ? Hang on let me google that......................

Laser is to do about 4 jobs in a niche market, one is some very complex gaskets for hydraulic valves.

Can't etch on steel without using some stuff called Thermark, comes in paste or aerosol and mega expensive. Paste is £85 a small tub, like a pill bottle and the aerosol is £100  Trouble is you spray on or paste on then laser it and wash more off than you have used. It also sits on top of the work melted to it, it's some form of glass slurry so if you say did feeler gauges everytime you closed them it would pare some off. So we will forget that.

You can do anodised aluminium but the lettering is always white or parent metal colour, no good doing plain anodised as you get the same as an Italian flag, white letters on a white background.

Black comes out nice.



From the web site of the people selling the sheets.

Make ace screwcutting charts for older machines that you can't read   

[Rob.Wilson]

I can see were it would be great  for cutting gaskets ,,,,,,,,, some of the one i fit  that go between the transmission body and valve block are really complicated ,,,,not cheap either ,,,,,,,,,,, suppose ,just thinking out loud , bye one new gasket , scan it , use Scan2cad  and you could wiz out as many or when ever you need one ,,,,,,,,,,, mmmmmmmmm  slap ye oldie motor bike casing on the scanner and off you go .

The laser/water jet company i do work for etch SS sheet ,,,,,,,,wonder if it has some coating .


Rob

[John Stevenson]

Lasers can etch SS but they either need more power than a desktop or a different laser, this one of mine is only 40W but a 7W YAG laser will cut 7 thou steel, only problem is a 7W YAG is about 12 grand.

I'm having a job done at the moment in 1.6mm stainless, the cutting costs are very good but if you ask they to engrave the company logo on the price triples or they are not interested, just wanting to block as much out as possible.
Can't blame them a 7KW Bystronic with self loading and twin beds is about 70 pence short of half a million quid.

That's what the little Roland engraver is for, drag engraving a company logo on these plates.

When I get setup Rob, scan one and sent the file down, don't bother with scan2cad VCarve pro can convert a picture anyway. Do you one on a cornflake box.

[Rob.Wilson]

Do you one on a cornflake box.

  no experience spared     

Dose Vcarve do a better job of converting an BW image to DFX  than Scan2cad ?


Rob   

[John Stevenson]

Thinks so. send me a image / logo
john [at] stevenson-engineers.co.uk and I'll send you the DXF back

[Rob.Wilson]

Will do John 


Rob

[Brass_Machine]

,,,, whittled from a bit mystery metal .
...

Would the mystery metal be CHROME??

or is that just the camera lens?

 

[John Stevenson]

No he's got a secret weapon,
He takes the bits down to Newcastle United's ground puts them on a trestle table and turns all the floodlights on.

That why they look shiny.

Can you laser cut ju-ju dolls ?    

John S.

[Rob.Wilson]

  its the camera Eric ,,,,,,,,,, no idea what steel it is ,,,,,,,,,was a free bit 

Some were i have never been in John ,,,,,,,, everyone in the street is raving on about my neighbour ,, Olivier Bernard  ,,,, some football bloke ,, bet he cant weld 

  do you reckon the laser would lop a finger off   


Rob

[John Stevenson]

Try it on yours ?

[NickG]

Fantastic work and enjoying the banter ... have you been hacking bits off the angel of the north during the night? Looks quite good under all the rust!

I sort of want you to scrap the Chinese bits and make the rest of the machine yourself though!

[Rob.Wilson]

Try it on yours ?

    not that stupid ,,,,,yet 


Hi Nick ,,,,,,,,,,,were you bin ?   ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Some days i wish i had started from scratch ,,,,,,,,,next one will be 


Well grabbed an hour or so in the shop tonight .Mounted block on the fixture plate i used to machine the table ends and set the job up on the face plate to machine the spigot that locates the block on the knee.


Ruffed the job out .


Had to leave it there for tonight and let the job cool down and check that nothing has moved as i was riving on.


Rob

[doubleboost]

Looking great Rob
You can not beat a bit of  "riving on"
John

[Stilldrillin]

Riving!

Now, that's a term I'd forgotten.   

Tare-arsing is another one.......

Thanks for the memories!

David D

[NickG]

Hi Rob, I thought if I stopped watching peoples projects I might find the time to do some of my own. But it didn't work, I'm too lazy  !

Me and mates hear that term a lot when working on cars ... usually trying to get a rusty old bolt out or something!

Well one thing's for sure, this machine is going to be transformed! 

[loply]

Hi Rob,

Do you mind me asking where you manage to acquire such large lumps of steel from?

I feel like I'm forever finding ways of building big parts by bolting little ones together, due to a shortage of large stock.

I rummage around the local scrapyard and the offcuts sections of some of the metal suppliers, but rarely find any solid steel above 50-60mm dia either as square or round.

Cheers,
Rich