Hello from Dublin

[twangman]

Hello All,
Never posted anything on this interwebnet thing before – so go easy on me if I make a total “town halls” of this.
I have been following many of the of the excellent posts on this site for the past number of months and gained much valuable information regarding machining, tooling and methods (including safety procedures) from the various contributors.
Big thanks to all – especially for the top class pictorial details which accompany many of the engine builds. I’m very impressed with the attitudes of the members towards complete Noobs (amongst which I count myself) and appreciate the patient manner which some of the questions are treated. – In the last 4 months I have gotten my hands on a Sieg X3 Mill and followed with a Sieg C4 lathe. While I had learnt the basics of turning and workshop safety in Tech School way back in the late sixties I have never used a mill before and hopefully will manage to get to grips with the capabilities of these machines sometime (typically Stubborn Irish attitude) – I have managed to mangle some scrap metal (and tooling) as exercise pieces and am surprised at the difficulty of manually achieving accuracy and parallelism and I wonder if I will ever be able to approach the levels of skill and artistry which I regularly see displayed on the site?
I am based in Dublin (the one in Ireland – not the one in Texas) and have decided I should stop lurking and just join in.

 

[rake60]

Welcome to HMEM twangman

Rick

 

[Brass_Machine]

Welcome to the club!

Eric

 

[Cedge]

Twangman
Welcome aboard mate. The X3 is a nice piece of machinery and will stand you in good stead. Learn to tram it, get yourself a good vise and learn to use a dial test indicator to make sure it is running parallel. Those three items will get you going as nothing else I've learned, so far.

Keep your depths of cut light until you figure out how much the machine will tolerate. Avoid climbing cuts, something this machine can do if done lightly, but it can also result instant tool breakage, if overdone. It'll save you a lot of tooling and materials.

The only modification I've found that I wouldn't be willing to give up are my DRO's.

Steve

 

[kellswaterri]

.

Avoid climbing cuts, something this machine can do if done lightly, but it can also result instant tool breakage, if overdone. .

Steve

Welcome ...Twangman...and happy modelmaking...

Hi Steve, this is good advice...but where can a good video demonstration of the above be found...I have ,as the poster has, discovered...the Climbing Cut... ;D
All the best for now,
John.

 

[twangman]

Hi Guys
Thanks for the welcoming words – Steve, absolutely – one of the initial things I learned with the mill was the necessity and method of “tramming”, purchased a DTI and spent a full day indicating – noting deviations - loosening column bolts – inserting shims (beer can variety) – tightening column bolts – re-indicating - noting deviations - loosening column bolts – relocating / adding / subtracting shims Etc. Etc. Etc. The head is now within (for my usage and skill level) an acceptable (0.05mm) over 250mm measured length.
Smoggy’s tramming programme would have been a great assist but that was up-loaded after the work was carried out.
The vise that was supplied with the mill is not great, it has one of those rotating bases which I thought would be handy – Wrong!
This roundy bit is now languishing in a corner with the vise well bolted down directly on the table (and trammed to parallel).

Ah yes! - the Climbing Cut – I found that the hard way.

I will consider fitting DRO at some stage but for now I would like to learn to “drive on the dials” and get into the habit of accounting for backlash by approaching the cutter correctly.

It will be an interesting (if steep) learning curve and if I get stuck I’m sure that someone here will be kind enough to point the way.

Regards

John C.

 

[wareagle]

Welcome aboard! We're gald that you decided to join the group. Feel free to ask as many questions as you need!