What have you been doing today?

[Basil]

A little more progress on the 1/6th scale Miss APBA. for the Seal Major 30cc

 

[SmithDoor]

Today was installing a Aloris AXA on my new mini-lathe.
Now I am home again never like the 4 way posts

Dave

 

[rleete]

I got out of work early today (gotta burn vacation time or lose it), so I went down to the shop to make these:

Low profile vise hold-downs. Made from a piece of scrap square tubing, so I assume hot rolled steel. Something I've been meaning to make for a while, so this gets them off the list, and frees up a couple of toe clamps in the process.

 

[Sprocket]

Parts came, so I fixed the snowblower.... luckily haven't needed it yet, but we've had snow the last 3 Mondays. This one they say will be rain.

Doug

 

[Steamchick]

I din't need snow blower. just a couple of minutes with a yard broom to clear the 1in. of snow (I exaggerate - maybe 3/4in?) that fell a couple of weeks ago. After 48 hours it rained and was gone in less than an hour.... We rarely get to use Toboggans here, except inland on th'hills..
K2

 

[Bentwings]

Nice looking “ what Evers” LOLI got out of work early today (gotta burn vacation time or lose it), so I went down to the shop to make these:

View attachment 152128

Low profile vise hold-downs. Made from a piece of scrap square tubing, so I assume hot rolled steel. Something I've been meaning to make for a while, so this gets them off the list, and frees up a couple of toe clamps in the process.

 

[Bentwings]

Eel I relearned an old lesson today you don’t drink hot coffee out of a straw. Yikes did I jump splattered coffee all over dropped the cup on the floor luckily not the carpet I YHINK I toasted my tongue and roof of mouth had a barely warm cup of soup for lunch . Tomorrow and Monday are the last big days of Christmas kids days and family days .

 

[Steamchick]

I was on a cruise ship and won some re-usable aluminium straws... with which you can feel the temperature of the drink as you suck. Maybe those would be useful to help you? - If you can find some on the web to suit you??

https://www.google.com/search?q=alu...INjgwMWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Straws-Alu...terial_browse:443533031&c=ts&ts_id=3187085031
K2

 

[Jonathan Coates]

Had a (another) incidence of not being able to find things yesterday. The outside gripping jaws for my good three jaw now seem to be a man down. So I got the ancient Pratt 3 jaw out that came with the lathe and mounted that. There was sufficient wear that a bar 200mm long x 20 diameter could be waggled by hand at the end even when the 3 jaw was tightened a lot.
We decided, my son and I, that this had to be fixed. As you can see from the photo this involved a Machine Mart (Harbour Freight in USA I think?) Dremel wannabe and a bit of very rough toolpost bracket. The jaws were jammed open by some offcuts of 16mm stock between the jaws and the chuck was tightened down.
After the first gring appeared to have cleaned up, with sparks from the outside to somewhere in the chuck where I assumed the jaws ended, I took the setup down to reveal great disappointment. I'd ground the spacers but not the jaws. Next step was to mill a curve in the ends of the spacers with a 20mm endmill to give clearance. The spacers were held in place by small magnets as I tightened the chuck and the grinding started again.
After a couple of hours the chuck was ground and the runout is 0.03mm, which is about 0.001 inch.
This was worth the hassle as the chuck now seems to have a new lease of life.

 

[ajoeiam]

Good on you mate!!!
If you use any tool enoguh its going to require some TLC.
Now you have 2 tools where you can lose bits - - - lol.

Forwards and onward sir!

 

[Jonathan Coates]

And this morning the Proxxon long nosed grinder toy arrived from Santa Claus so if I need to do this again I can do it better and faster. Still can't find the chuck key for the newly ground chuck though.

 

[timo_gross]

And this morning the Proxxon long nosed grinder toy arrived from Santa Claus so if I need to do this again I can do it better and faster. Still can't find the chuck key for the newly ground chuck though.

If I cannot find a tool, I buy or make a replacement, usually just one or two days after the new thing is available, the missing item shows up.
Plus the more tools there are, the more often I cannot find the right tool for the job and have to improvise.
That all makes not much sense, maybe I should stop accumulating rubbish?

 

[Richard Hed]

And this morning the Proxxon long nosed grinder toy arrived from Santa Claus so if I need to do this again I can do it better and faster. Still can't find the chuck key for the newly ground chuck though.

you might have a problem, however. If the chuck is as worn and used as you indicate, then regrinding will undoubtedly improve it. However, the problem is that the scroll may be worn in certain spots so that when you use it for one size (spacing the jaws), it may be good but a differnt spacing, it might be off a noticeable amount. This requires care to check it.

 

[Steamchick]

Hi Jonathan, I had a similar problem with an old chuck - that is mounted on my rotary table on the Mill/Drilling machine.
Having re-ground the jaws (the 3rd or 4th different set-up attempt to get a workable chuck!) I figured exactly what Richard explained. - My scroll is so worn I can't find the point where the jaws are anything like true... So this chuck will be relegated to holding round(-ish) stuff in the vice when required, when I make a suitable bracket (or modify the one I have that isn't very good) and get a decent chuck for the rotary table.
Just another job for '24...
K2

 

[Richard Hed]

Hi Jonathan, I had a similar problem with an old chuck - that is mounted on my rotary table on the Mill/Drilling machine.
Having re-ground the jaws (the 3rd or 4th different set-up attempt to get a workable chuck!) I figured exactly what Richard explained. - My scroll is so worn I can't find the point where the jaws are anything like true... So this chuck will be relegated to holding round(-ish) stuff in the vice when required, when I make a suitable bracket (or modify the one I have that isn't very good) and get a decent chuck for the rotary table.
Just another job for '24...
K2

There is the possibility of taking the chuck apart and chedk the scroll. If there is a visible spot, one might try some repairs, after all if it is so bad that it becomes a paper weight, you might try brazing or scraping or maybe some other way to either fill it or smooth down some high spots.

 

[Jonathan Coates]

The list of stuff to do is growing daily and I haven't got close to making anything non-vital. Coffee and you guys make the mornings very much more pleasant.

 

[michael-au]

Lazy day today, was warm and sunny now is cooler and raining, that's Victoria weather perfect one Minute and stuffed the next

Decided to turn some aluminium into swarf for no special reason using my small cnc lathe

Satisfying making something that doesn't need to to anything, just needs to sit on the shelf

 

[timo_gross]

Lazy day today, was warm and sunny now is cooler and raining, that's Victoria weather perfect one Minute and stuffed the next

Decided to turn some aluminium into swaf for no special reason using my small cnc lathe

Satisfying making something that doesn't need to to anything, just needs to sit on the shelf

View attachment 152667

View attachment 152668

Did you buy or built the lathe?

 

[michael-au]

Did you buy or built the lathe?

I converted it to cnc from new, I have had it for a while, I not long ago. change the controller from Mach3 to a Masso Touch

 

[Steamchick]

I have one of those lathes, but enjoy making with "the skill of my hands on the wheels...", so probably produce far less repeatable components than you do. But each to their own. Well done on the conversion and results!
Have you considered making a chess set? Perhaps using aluminium, and black Delron, or something? Then "the parts on the shelf" would be something to play with and challenge the brain afterwards? That would be a nice family heirloom.
When at school, a Woodwork teacher asked me to make 24 round door/drawer knobs for kitchen doors and drawers, to his design profile, using the metal lathe. I made 27 from the hardwood he supplied, and he selected 26 good ones... - rejecting the second one I made. A lesson in volume manufacturing repeatability!
K2