Difficulty with setup

[goldstar31]

I'm running Norton, obviously the UK one and Cromwell Tools is OK on my Mac.

Actually Cromwell is a very big UK outfit and principally supplies to industry. We are 'peanuts' to them.

However, we little peanut people in the UK have to pay the earth for drills which are not metric.

My son is big in the 'transport of parcels business' and despite being in the family so to speak, he isn't bothered about the hassle of small time no bodies - like me.

Just to put things into perspective, I have just far more time trying to unbolt a Crompton Parkinson rotary switch on my old Myford prior to sale/exchange. Can I find a 1/4 inch 1/4 inch socket to fit my metric box of goodies- no way, Jose! 6.5mm is a sloppy fit ----

There ye go, laughin' and scratchin'.

 

[Apprentice707]

There is no doubt that our hobby is becoming more and more expensive, some of us will have a good stock of drills, mills and other semi consumable items acquired over the years, but will still need a top-up or in my case to buy metric items in an attempt to join the 21st century.
I agree with the correspondent who observed that metric items were being overpriced in the USA. ( I live half the year in the US and half in the UK). Even the imperial stuff is expensive in the US, not a good situation.
In an attempt to economise I buy cutting tools directly from China, they can be delivered anywhere in the world and are usually tax-free (Small items only). The delivery times can be quite long (Forward planning is needed here), but the wait is worth it. Friends at my Model Engineering Club have been surprised at the quality of the items I order and have started to order themselves.

I use either eBay (Try the US eBay site for imperial items) or Banggood with all carrying their usual money-back guarantees, what can you lose? I recently bought a 50mm face cutter with 10 inserts for £23 from China, the cheapest I could find in the UK was £65 rising to £140 from another supplier. The quality is good and it does a good job.

This is Banggoods url https://www.banggood.com/

Cheers

B

 

[David Shealey]

Seems like they have an SSL issue so they are vulnerable to being 'hacked' but there is nothing actually malicious about the site. Should be quite safe to browse normally. You can check the report here : https://www.ssltrust.com.au/ssl-tools/website-security-check?domain=www.cromwell.co.uk

Not going to chance it though.

 

[goldstar31]

There is no doubt that our hobby is becoming more and more expensive,
B

As I sit it is almost a month since coronavirus stopped almost all production in China and as I view the news on TV, the USA seems to have caught a loss of production. In schoolboy arithmetic, devoid of political propaganda, this is a 1/12th.
No one knows just how long it will continue but lost production means that someone swill have to pay for it-- and sadly, this means us.

 

[L98fiero]

Gents,
This is probably a little off topic but back in 1963-4 I attended a demonstration at a trade show in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) where a local trade school demonstrated a "thread swirling system" of cutting threads on a lathe. In comparison to single point threading the results were spectacular. I have never seen or heard of it since. Has anyone, maybe Norm in his vast experience, ever built a device to do this. There was recently a short video showing cutting threads using a vertical mill but obviously computer controlled.
RonW

The thread seems to have diverged a bit from threading but I think you saw a demonstration of 'thread whirling', it's a system where the thread is basically milled, it's used a lot now, particularly on Swiss lathes to produce titanium bone screws and the like. Those threads are similar to a wood or sheet metal screw that has a narrow projecting thread with a large pitch, i.e., ^----^----^ Schwanog and P Horn are big on making tooling for this.
When geared to the spindle whirling can be used to produce polygonal and other shapes on turned parts. The following videos show how it's used, probably beyond the capability of most home shops though the same can be done with appropriate gearing to synchronize with the spindle as I've seen it done on screw machines. and

 

[chrsbrbnk]

With just about any 3 axis cnc mill thread milling will give you anything you put in you could mill a thread on the out side of a triangle if you were so inclined But I suspect the lathe in the video is using a cnc powered milling cutter with rotation encoding along with the lathe spindle having its rotation position encoded versus a really complicated gear train. then it would be be up CAM software to get things in the right spot at the right time. all requiring programming skills wildly beyond me

 

[Southernsandman]

I thought I'd bring this all back on track the thread I had difficulty with turned out to be 10 tpi i used a 60° thread tool. I turned the OD to 28mm to match the existing piece but I got it sorted my small lathe only just coped the thread isnt very clean but it works all that's left is the milling and parting off.

 

[awake]

the thread isnt very clean but it works

From what I can see in the pictures, nothing at all wrong with those threads - they look great!

 

[BaronJ]

I agree ! Nothing wrong with those threads at all.