Author Topic: Good evening everybody (Read 7108 times)

lesterhawksby · « **on:** February 13, 2012, 05:39:48 PM »

Hi all,

I've been lurking here for a while and thought it was about time I had an account - mostly so I can applaud on project posts.

I'm a youngish guy who doesn't get many chances at workshop time so I'll be remaining a complete raging newbie for some time to come. Got my first lathe, a WM180, last year after having wanted to learn for about a decade. I'm still pottering and tinkering with it and not really attempting anything grandiose, just little learning pieces. At the moment my biggest bottleneck is that I don't have any kind of power saw, and hand-hacksawing through thick or tough stock wakes the rest of the household!

saw · « **Reply #1 on:** February 13, 2012, 06:55:00 PM »

Hi and welcome

Brass_Machine · « **Reply #2 on:** February 13, 2012, 07:00:17 PM »

Hi there

Welcome to the collective.

Whatcha want to make with that lathe?

Eric

lesterhawksby · « **Reply #3 on:** February 14, 2012, 03:56:29 AM »

I definitely aspire to make my own steam engine someday but it feels a long way off. At the moment I'm mostly making parts to repair things, and small components of otherwise not very metalworky projects - I've been doing electronics for a couple of years and have various servo powered toys that need to be more mechanically robust.

I don't have a very impressive record of actually *finishing* things though :-(

krv3000 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 14, 2012, 04:47:38 AM »

Welcome to the collective.

spuddevans · « **Reply #5 on:** February 14, 2012, 08:38:02 AM »

Hi there and Welcome to the cube

Tim

DaveH · « **Reply #6 on:** February 14, 2012, 08:40:16 AM »

Hi

Hello and welcome to MadModder

DaveH

Divided he ad · « **Reply #7 on:** February 14, 2012, 08:53:42 AM »

Hi Lester (that's what I'll call you I think!)

As said, Welcome to the collective

Quote

I definitely aspire to make my own steam engine someday but it feels a long way off.

Exactly the way I viewed things when I got my lathe 4/5ish years back. I'll certainly say I'm no where near a "proper" steam engine. But I have made a mini static one and a treadle/finger engine. Then spent many hours fiddling with various keyrings and gadgets.... Cause I find them fun!

The best bits of advice (health and safety aside) I got when starting out were, in no particular order:

One piece at a time.... Take a possibly daunting plan, split it up and just concentrate on one little part at a time.....

Try to machine it in your mind first, work out how you're going to hold it for each operation....

And

If the cylinder turns out 0.3mm too large then make the piston 0.3mm larger to fit it! It's hard to be bang on every time!

The third one goes for many parts. Not just cylinders and pistons. The main thing is you have the tooling to make the part to fit the other one.

I'm not a machinist by design either... But I do have fun

Don't be shy, post pic's of what you're up to and ask whatever questions you have..... We're always happy to see progress pictures (I've still got some stalled/unfinished from a few years ago

) and Someone will always help you if they can

Power saw.... That'll wake the household too! I used a "me" powered hacksaw for years, takes quite a while to cut through 55mm of hardened steel bar.... Even with the power chopsaw I have. I still use the hacksaw a lot of the time!

Ralph.

PekkaNF · « **Reply #8 on:** February 14, 2012, 09:38:09 AM »

Wellcome!

Just use good hacksaw and good hacksaw blade. I have pretty heavy bacho hacksaw and I use Sandvik blades. Just make sure your piece is clampped well and choce saw balde that has least three tooths in contact - even on the thinnest section. Then again use most coarse that satisfies this need. Never saw on the lathe (just too much trouble really....) just get clamp/vice right height on relation of your body and it will come out eaaasyyy.

Pekka

lesterhawksby · « **Reply #9 on:** February 14, 2012, 01:31:02 PM »

I don't think I made any sense with the power sawing thing

I assume a saw that eats volts would make more noise than the one that just burns elbow grease, rather than less - but the only daytime sessions I get are very short, so if I could go faster, I'd be much more likely to get my stock chopped up in time so I can turn it at night. (the hum of the lathe at lower RPM is apparently "soothing" - certainly the sound can make it through the walls but the baby seems to sleep happily through it)

I have a 12" hand hacksaw that usually lives with a fairly coarse blade and a 6" that I only ever fit with a fine one. I can get through 10mm mild steel or 20mm aluminium in tolerably good time. Not tried to claw my way through larger stock in anything tougher than aluminium - 40mm I can manage and still have time left to do something that's actually entertaining, but I have some 100mm-ish aluminium I want to slice discs off and I haven't even managed ONE yet

life always interferes.

SemiSkilled · « **Reply #10 on:** February 14, 2012, 02:22:35 PM »

Hi

you could get some 12" 14 teeth per inch blades, one lives in one of my 3 or 4 saws and once I cut some 50mm dia mild steel bar just turn the bar around to give you an easier start.

Lee

PekkaNF · « **Reply #11 on:** February 15, 2012, 02:26:01 AM »

I hear what you say. I have a small chinese metal cutting band saw that has serviced me well, but luckily I checked first the gearbox (it had tablespoon cocontion of sand debris, detegent water and such). No chinese blade lasted any time, but then I got better blades and learnt to chooce right blade for a job. It is pretty quiet, no irksome high piched whining nor low booms.

But 100mm of ali is pretty tall order for chip removal, I.E. you would need a coarse blade (4*6" band saw will not allow very coarse blade) and flood coolat to leave it chew trough. Under 30 mm of most metals will go so fast that I use spray bottle filled with water/oil emulsion. I tried air nozzle hooked to a compressor right before lower blade guide, but that area is crowded and my compressor is loud.

Now I use variable pitch blade and it is pretty damn good for all but channes and thinnest materials.

PekkaNF

andyf · « **Reply #12 on:** February 16, 2012, 07:49:24 PM »

Hi Lester, and welcome.

A power saw is a great boon; it lets you get started on projects which you might otherwise put off because of the time and effort involved in hand sawing the piece of stock you need.

I too have a WM180 lathe. If you are interested, I have done a few mods to it to make it easier to use and remedy one or two deficiencies, as shown here: http://andysmachines.weebly.com/

Andy

lesterhawksby · « **Reply #13 on:** February 17, 2012, 07:03:28 PM »

Gosh, you're that Andy? I'm slightly embarrassed to say, but your site was one of the major reasons why I went for that particular lathe. I had had brief experience of one of the Sieg types seen everywhere, and from your description the WM180 sounded a bit better, so I convinced myself that was the one for me. Is it better? well, I'm not qualified to judge... but I like mine a lot, so far. (That it's all mine has NOTHING to do with it

) My range of possible choices was quite limited due to space and needing the machine to live upstairs - no half-ton antique beauties for me, sad to say - but this one seemed just about workable in those circumstances, and so it proves. Thanks for putting all that information up on your site, I really appreciate it.

I have decided to hold off on irreversible modification for a while (to hold on to the warranty if nothing else!), but I definitely need to get around to a few more easily un-do-able tweaks. Most of it seems to be a matter of personal priorities or preference rather than absolute necessity (thank goodness) and I'm not really ready to make decisions on that kind of thing yet - but there are certainly a few places that really should have handles rather than needing me to get the allen key out. (When I DO commit to permanent changes, the first thing is undoubtedly going to be a hole to let me reach the oiler on the left-hand leadscrew bearing without having to take the end casing off!)

andyf · « **Reply #14 on:** February 17, 2012, 07:43:11 PM »

Hope my comments haven't led you up the garden path, Lester, though I did try to be objective and mention the bad points as well as the good ones.

Easiest way to get at that oiler is to remove the cover altogether and store it away in case of any warranty claims. All that's behind it is the unthreaded part of the leadscrew, and there doesn't seem much elf'n'safety point in covering that up when the entire threaded portion is exposed.

Andy

lesterhawksby · « **Reply #15 on:** February 18, 2012, 04:49:53 PM »

Unfortunately they have changed things a little since yours was made. The curved plate with the RPM display and speed dial now comes all the way down to the bottom of the headstock so, though I can indeed remove the cover underneath, it doesn't really help unless I slice that front plate short. I've been reaching the oiler by taking the end cover (the belts & changewheels cover) off, which is a bit of a fiddle as I don't otherwise want to delve into that section of the machine every session. I must admit it only gets oiled half as often as the one at the other end, which is no doubt wicked of me and a recipe for bearing wear but I'm just not in the habit yet.

Other than that rather petty complaint I'm really thrilled with the machine so don't worry, I'm pretty sure your comments haven't led me up any garden paths! I didn't see you as either recommending or execrating the WM180, just describing.

Only other changes I've encountered so far, in case you're curious:
- Warco now say they don't sell a vertical milling slide for it (asked them in person at Alexandra Palace last month); in light of your comments I wonder if they had too many unsatisfied customers.
- The machine now comes with a threading dial in the box.

doubleboost · « **Reply #16 on:** February 18, 2012, 05:34:25 PM »

Hi
Welcome to Mad Modders
John

AussieJimG · « **Reply #17 on:** February 19, 2012, 05:12:00 AM »

Welcome Lester, I am fairly new here myself but I enjoy my daily dose of MadModder.

Jim

lesterhawksby · « **Reply #18 on:** February 22, 2012, 06:20:37 AM »

Hi Jim, me too! Very friendly people and some amazing work on show.

bvd1940 · « **Reply #19 on:** February 26, 2012, 01:41:16 PM »

Welcome to the forum,

dont be shy and jump right in & do not forget the pictures

News:

Author Topic: Good evening everybody (Read 7108 times)