tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51911270484949954872024-03-18T22:21:17.374-07:00"Nothing Too Strong Ever Broke"Ongoing journal of a life spent designing and building special tools, instruments and mechanical devices for the scientific, medical, metalworking and product development industries. Idea's turned into reality by the mechanical pursuits of Tom Lipton (OX)Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-55278585272370806232015-07-26T15:45:00.000-07:002015-07-26T15:45:09.128-07:002015 Toolbox Giveaway ProjectLoyal followers and viewers,<br />
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Its been a long time since I put up a written blog posting. For those of you that have been checking back once in a while thank you for hanging in there. Much of my effort goes into the Youtube channel work that I do and I only have so much free energy these days. For more current work you can follow me in the virtual world on Instagram and Facebook.<br />
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This particular post is related to YouTube activity as well. Some of you may know a fine gentleman named Keith Fenner. He has a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/KEF791" target="_blank">YouTube channel</a> that is responsible for getting me involved in making videos about metalworking, craftsmanship and the trades.<br />
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Every year now for the last three years Keith puts together a toolbox with the intent of finding a worthy apprentice/recipient to give it to. He calls this activity <a href="https://turnwrightmachineworks.com/whats-in-your-box-the-giveaway-project/" target="_blank">"What's in your box?" </a>This has been hugely popular and directly supports young folks getting a foothold in the trades. Candidates or acquaintances of the candidate submit a video nomination for consideration. These candidates are voted on by some of the metalworking YouTube community and the box is awarded to the selected person.<br />
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Keith accepts donations during the year of tools and material to fill the boxes so there is an opportunity for lots of folks to participate and contribute to this great cause. A good portion of the tooling items he has put up himself. This it really a powerful demonstration of Keith's dedication to the trade and his willingness to teach and foster younger folks entering the craft. Check out <a href="https://turnwrightmachineworks.com/" target="_blank">Keith's website</a> for more specific detail and rules for the toolbox giveaway.<br />
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As part of this years toolbox giveaway some of the YouTube machinists community have generously volunteered to actually make some handmade tools to contribute to this years TurnWright machine works toolbox giveaway. I think this is an incredible idea and allows many folks that support the trades and the toolbox giveaway idea to contribute something deeply personal like hand crafted tools.<br />
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Of course I volunteered to do a project as part of this years giveaway. I recently announced the fact on one of my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnFur3W5aqc&index=2&list=PLeIuq8LxgnrH9EofPnEzRw0YbZkxOaJZu" target="_blank">weekly Meatloaf episodes</a> . I let folks know that the project I intended to do was fully designed and ready for fabrication. I stopped short of actually telling what the project would be to the dismay of many viewers I'm sure.<br />
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My first problem was deciding what the project would be. There was no particular shortage of small projects offered up by the participants of this years event. The problem that I had was that most of the projects I have done at one point or another in my career. Sure I could do another one of these projects for the toolbox giveaway but I really wanted to do something unique that would be challenging and of high interest to the metalworking community. Also it needed to be small enough that any reasonably equipped shop could follow along and make their own with a little Yankee ingenuity. What follows is the description and plans for the 2015 toolbox giveaway project.<br />
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Who doesn't like a Wilton bullet machinist vise? I don't know too many folks that do not appreciate a high quality bench vise. Every shop should have at least one high quality bench vise in it. Until you have used one its hard to quantify the differences in performance and the sheer pleasure of using one.<br />
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Anybody that follows my work on YouTube, Instagram and now Facebook will know that I really love using and collecting tools. Bench vises are no different. I had the pleasure of using a good Wilton vise many years ago when I was learning the trades. Once you have gone Wilton you can never go back. Needless to say I have a minor collection in my shop. Here is a <a href="http://junkyardtools.com/tool_history/wilton" target="_blank">short history</a> of the Wilton vise company written by kc-Steve over on the <a href="http://www.garagejournal.com/" target="_blank">Garage Journal forum</a>. The Wilton vise company is a real American success story.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu5gsARPFodecq7mIDzPr1BQFE94hktOBVkRCpqHcMj-4IwPz4TeT6p1rpDtd8wEVOaD243BXZHiIe91XaqI9E0OlRh6gEieMpYRy-uKdM2pm9l0NQlKOL-I5rPuSLlNil-bw2mjFolxY/s1600/IMG_3813.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu5gsARPFodecq7mIDzPr1BQFE94hktOBVkRCpqHcMj-4IwPz4TeT6p1rpDtd8wEVOaD243BXZHiIe91XaqI9E0OlRh6gEieMpYRy-uKdM2pm9l0NQlKOL-I5rPuSLlNil-bw2mjFolxY/s640/IMG_3813.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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Here is a shot of part of the harem of Wilton vises in my shop. There are actually a couple more but getting them all into a single picture would have involved some disassembly. </div>
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This brings us to the subject of the actual project. We are going to fabricate a copy of the iconic Wilton Bullet vise from scratch. How the heck are we going to do that is the first thing that popped into many readers heads just now I'm sure. </div>
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Just to be clear this is a welding fabrication and machining project. Unfortunately for all the iron casting fans out there we won't be doing any iron casting this week. One of my criteria for the build was that folks with modest home shops could follow along with the build. The blog article is a simple way to communicate the plans to folks that want to build their own. The actual build will be videotaped and posted on YouTube at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/oxtoolco" target="_blank">Oxtoolco YouTube channel.</a> This video project series will accompany the blog article and document the techniques used and the entire build process.</div>
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Wilton vises were built in a huge variety of sizes and shapes. We will focus on the iconic "Bullet" vise design. This is the first and most successful configuration of Wilton vises ever made. Wilton offers a wide range of sizes. From the <a href="http://www.wiltontools.com/us/en/p/machinist-8-jaw-round-channel-vise-with-stationary-base/10116" target="_blank">monstrous eight inch</a> bullet vise with a twelve inch (300mm) jaw opening down to the smallest currently made bullet vise the <a href="http://www.wiltontools.com/us/en/p/machinist-3-jaw-round-channel-vise-with-swivel-base/10006" target="_blank">three inch wide jaw bullet</a>.</div>
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There is a particular model of Wilton bullet vise highly prized among Wilton vise aficionados. This particular vise was manufactured in the late fifties into the mid to late 1960's. Marketed to jewelry makers combined with another Wilton invention called the Power-arm. These tiny versions of the bullet design are fairly rare with vises in good condition selling for north of three hundred dollars at the writing of this article. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXw5cGabMYqnvuDqxaAq_-SVSciFcjxzaKNZcMHzi-TKhpu7VgB9WabnBK0oql4GMhAffwp65sh3XMO6bRN29MTFRqqPJDoWTSlYdKuRqNwrv4bnwhzfaPc-16h8qCJo5-TiWTOoa_Kqk/s1600/Baby+Bullet+hand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXw5cGabMYqnvuDqxaAq_-SVSciFcjxzaKNZcMHzi-TKhpu7VgB9WabnBK0oql4GMhAffwp65sh3XMO6bRN29MTFRqqPJDoWTSlYdKuRqNwrv4bnwhzfaPc-16h8qCJo5-TiWTOoa_Kqk/s640/Baby+Bullet+hand.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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I know you guys are not surprised to find out that I have one of these in my collection. You can get a good sense of size and scale in this picture. The jaws of the baby bullet are two inches (50mm) wide. It can open its tiny little mouth to just at two and a half inches (64mm). Just what every toolmaker needs right?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NKHvFcuiNfjavP-lSiZwxOf40ZzQP4jOzxMPXpXPgZHaPl3swbyfBA_mTUq0KQjDBZUdJO6j00xtX12KkI8d9ZfCG16ErCdJbd-ucmmOqydE884xzILm4wLNtS2l2mkKWfqko9TWaY0/s1600/IMG_3818.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NKHvFcuiNfjavP-lSiZwxOf40ZzQP4jOzxMPXpXPgZHaPl3swbyfBA_mTUq0KQjDBZUdJO6j00xtX12KkI8d9ZfCG16ErCdJbd-ucmmOqydE884xzILm4wLNtS2l2mkKWfqko9TWaY0/s640/IMG_3818.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Here is a baby bullet mounted on the omni directional Wilton power arm. This allows you to rotate and position the vise jaws at any angle for doing fine work ergonomically. This is also really handy for welding small parts as you can orient the part favorably for welding. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdjbDeWCEJNVoWNm6L6erDERGMnkjmEvSEdB_lHHCAfWe9_lA-EhQyLxl-bIwuDatjT4UShH4yNTotqqAzrcubhjE-bePWybNXx4wdXdDk5kh2YcHoRQ4bkAsRT-U8HNXR9ESJB3F5bbU/s1600/IMG_3816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdjbDeWCEJNVoWNm6L6erDERGMnkjmEvSEdB_lHHCAfWe9_lA-EhQyLxl-bIwuDatjT4UShH4yNTotqqAzrcubhjE-bePWybNXx4wdXdDk5kh2YcHoRQ4bkAsRT-U8HNXR9ESJB3F5bbU/s640/IMG_3816.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Here is the corner on my welding table. I call this setup the NOGA vise after the multi directional indicator arms sold by the NOGA company. This vise can be re-positioned in a huge variety of positions allows access to weld even oddball joint orientations. This vise is a 2-1/2 wide with solid copper jaws. The copper grounding plate can just be seen peeking out the rear of the vise at the base.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hiv089uRqPEOGoqD3SzV1zRgc-xZRGt9LUmiEga8ClQmWGwL_BSHUIwSHfM23iomDhSL0cVc8lmqDBAz9hJvohOn-GyQzH3au7MVMA8yf_84qcMsdF3OXKgcdUwSQ2JdWO8-YmLRY-M/s1600/IMG_3820.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hiv089uRqPEOGoqD3SzV1zRgc-xZRGt9LUmiEga8ClQmWGwL_BSHUIwSHfM23iomDhSL0cVc8lmqDBAz9hJvohOn-GyQzH3au7MVMA8yf_84qcMsdF3OXKgcdUwSQ2JdWO8-YmLRY-M/s640/IMG_3820.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Close up of the power arm showing the pivoting ball arrangement. The ball is clamped by shifting the black knob. This pushes a threaded seat up against the ball locking it the desired position. The vise can rotate as well as lay over past ninety degrees as the ball stem goes into the slot. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisH3OgQLIeSIqnofL5wfwqUYR7ZN7CE6FwTjilrn2KwxwkP41A7K5aryYEQho3KbFJHcFOyVFS5yE9ltrBZQ43ttfbhJ1mD7h3-NBItzxeSLyzR2nFdDicxvV57zjToWEtEvwqobOk51Q/s1600/Baby+Bullet+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisH3OgQLIeSIqnofL5wfwqUYR7ZN7CE6FwTjilrn2KwxwkP41A7K5aryYEQho3KbFJHcFOyVFS5yE9ltrBZQ43ttfbhJ1mD7h3-NBItzxeSLyzR2nFdDicxvV57zjToWEtEvwqobOk51Q/s640/Baby+Bullet+001.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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How the baby bullet project was conceived. Most projects in my shop start with what I call a chicken sketch. Named after the pattern that would be left if a chicken walked on the paper and left a design behind. Mentally I broke the vise down into all the different elements. Sometimes when a complex project is viewed as a whole it can be a little daunting. When you break it down like this into single parts each part magically becomes manageable.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdpEaW1ZUC2x5VFjz2VGmlTxJko5-u0rQmxvmxK3WaV4CY7-W9BBz1vEgOIuooDDF3BQroJSdK-nOLIsLzn0v0K7way3LUaurEEQ_HzPV3jyGvtiQoKjdOgAKzKlpZeAOxnWYB4tE2-4/s1600/Fabricated+Baby+Bullet+Assembly.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdpEaW1ZUC2x5VFjz2VGmlTxJko5-u0rQmxvmxK3WaV4CY7-W9BBz1vEgOIuooDDF3BQroJSdK-nOLIsLzn0v0K7way3LUaurEEQ_HzPV3jyGvtiQoKjdOgAKzKlpZeAOxnWYB4tE2-4/s640/Fabricated+Baby+Bullet+Assembly.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The next step was to fully disassemble and measure all the baby bullet components. This took a little while to measure and model the vise up in Solidworks. Measuring swoopy curved castings is not trivial with generally orthographic measuring tools. In this shot I have not added any blending radii to the vise jaws themselves. This is one of the tricky areas of the build. We want it to look like the original but since folks building their own may not have access to look at one first hand there will need to be some "Artistic License"allowed in this area.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoxt_uEk0Kt4DfMkx5RyFeq0CZnezNDmKZjhlfGUv2PtU53jM3S6Mt8z_W0CQzqnWXh7nOnJRL-y32kVGcR1OWWcvT-NkZpusIJRPVz2x5mSwVSajeuQNXL65R_O3L9VZ4f3qf6hSOB8/s1600/Fabricated+Baby+Bullet+Assembly+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoxt_uEk0Kt4DfMkx5RyFeq0CZnezNDmKZjhlfGUv2PtU53jM3S6Mt8z_W0CQzqnWXh7nOnJRL-y32kVGcR1OWWcvT-NkZpusIJRPVz2x5mSwVSajeuQNXL65R_O3L9VZ4f3qf6hSOB8/s640/Fabricated+Baby+Bullet+Assembly+4.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Here I have added some radii to the vise jaws. It really changes the look of the model adding a few radii. You can go crazy modeling radii sometimes so I will probably leave it like this for the build. Some of the sharp corners will be naturally filled when the various parts are welded together. The video documentation will answer some of these questions for folks that are following along building their own baby bullet.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSxP_xfJVEfi67RqZbUW5RpL-9MapMQI10sCMKng53FEJ9lqTsc15wRycDZELTabICACa1WIo1OS9UwWhBpjYOuFqyhhLN0vtySp0k4oPqS1Hu8lWoABcbzzq7RQSWr8maTwQXtfTLDwg/s1600/Fabricated+Baby+Bullet+Assembly+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSxP_xfJVEfi67RqZbUW5RpL-9MapMQI10sCMKng53FEJ9lqTsc15wRycDZELTabICACa1WIo1OS9UwWhBpjYOuFqyhhLN0vtySp0k4oPqS1Hu8lWoABcbzzq7RQSWr8maTwQXtfTLDwg/s640/Fabricated+Baby+Bullet+Assembly+3.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Here is a cross section shot showing the internal guts of the baby bullet project. I didn't model the threads on the clamping screw in case anybody was wondering. This is an accurate representation of the innards of a Wilton bullet vise regardless of its size.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipCS4CYSkHVA6dcXGEM0XawLp6naBJ9U9p4scCP_L4sv0Y0XPtYXzDOi_OgEPCjciNGEUR48hbp4ea9QbuA8jwuOZMbiStbqqU_ieykqSYK7o9uHNbAEHR9Jt1PD-sc5-ZgEJEyy92us8/s1600/IMG_3828.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipCS4CYSkHVA6dcXGEM0XawLp6naBJ9U9p4scCP_L4sv0Y0XPtYXzDOi_OgEPCjciNGEUR48hbp4ea9QbuA8jwuOZMbiStbqqU_ieykqSYK7o9uHNbAEHR9Jt1PD-sc5-ZgEJEyy92us8/s640/IMG_3828.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
All the materials for the project are readily available and common. I will list the McMaster part numbers for each of the pieces with the drawings so folks that want to follow along can easily source the needed bits and pieces.<br />
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Here is a link to a public dropbox file folder. You can download the PDF's of the parts of the baby bullet there. You do not need to sign up for dropbox unless you want to. It is a convenient way to get higher quality documents to the folks that want to build their own vise. Click on the link and select the file you want then at the upper right click on download. As feedback comes in during the build I will most likely add drawing revisions to the folder. These will be the normal drawing format of rev A, B, C etc. Hopefully I have captured most of what is needed to build the vise.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jrseymjxwww3hmg/AAAHnUWtuC0hBoHon91YHJLaa?dl=0" target="_blank">Baby Bullet Project PDF Drawing Link Click Here</a></span><br />
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I plan to build one of these vises complete on camera for the 2015 Keith Fenner toolbox giveaway. I have had a number of folks step forward and offer to volunteer their time and equipment to help with whatever project I finally decided on. Depending on the resources of the volunteers there may be an opportunity for many folks to participate in this really honorable cause and project.<br />
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I hope you follow along with the project and build your own vise for the pure fun of it. Please comment and test all the links for me.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom Lipton<br />
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<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-83634942609491090782014-04-11T22:49:00.000-07:002014-04-11T22:49:24.855-07:00Expensive espresso cupWell this is my first blog article in quite some time. I apologize for the long interval between posts. Lately I have been focusing on my Oxtoolco YouTube channel during the last few months building it up into a pretty good spot. So far so good. its taken off and surprised the heck out of me. If you like metalworking, tools and things mechanical then check it out.<br />
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This week I got to do a really fun job at work. Fun at work for me is a relative thing. Whatever it is it needs to be challenging and new and hopefully a little bit weird. The repair job I did for a materials researcher fits the bill to a teacup.<br />
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This is what I started with. Some sheet metal bits and a two different filler wires. What were looking at is a fairly large <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum" target="_blank">Platinum </a>crucible. The body is drawn from a single piece of platinum and ended up approx .030 (.75mm) thick. The circular disc that will make up the bottom is a little thicker at around a 1mm. The two coils of wire are the filler rod for welding the two together. Our materials group has the ability to recycle the material and make it into whatever form we require. Sheet, plate, rod and wire. Huge presses and wire drawing stands are right at their fingertips for just this kind of work.<br />
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I started by plannishing (smoothing by hammering) the body to round it up and prepare it for trimming. I'm using a soft faced hammer to lightly tap the ring without stretching it. A metal hammer against the metal mandrel would stretch the material and cause warpage and thinning. All I want to do is make it nice and smooth and round for the next step fitting the bottom.<br />
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The back story on the crucible is that it had been used to melt and fuse special glass compounds for research into energy efficient windows. The compounds being melted are hot enough to cause hot shorting in the platinum and failure in the original joint. Our materials department rolled a special higher temp alloy to use for the bottom of the crucible in the hope it will work better for this hot glass melting application.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUUpa9I4wBWzoFniApVTlsZG-JD_qMta0AGbB5alTkk6e1ACwQAiAQNTVNe5qgPdr-AKh318maKQ0zF5p702NHwku_bkMZyBStu1Xe0a71JazpdbuPY3O5PJLdS5RuLLgW2H_t6fEgV5U/s1600/IMG_3242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUUpa9I4wBWzoFniApVTlsZG-JD_qMta0AGbB5alTkk6e1ACwQAiAQNTVNe5qgPdr-AKh318maKQ0zF5p702NHwku_bkMZyBStu1Xe0a71JazpdbuPY3O5PJLdS5RuLLgW2H_t6fEgV5U/s1600/IMG_3242.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
Here you can see some cracking in the edge where the old bottom failed. Some of this is from me plannishing the material on the mandrel. I will be trimming it back to the lower blue line to make a nice clean edge for the new joint.<br />
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After I got the body nice and round the ends need to be made parallel. The side on the surface plate I just used some sandpaper to get it flat around the rim. I scribed a line at the correct length using sharpie as my layout dye. The rim was trimmed with the shears you see in the right side of the image. The band I trimmed off was probably worth a few hundred dollars. Incidentally the material behaves like soft copper. Not super plastic like but definitely soft.<br />
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The next part was a little tricky. The disc was irregular and not very round even though it looks pretty good in the picture. It was only marginally bigger than it needed to be with a couple divits that needed to be avoided. I taped the copper pad onto the surface to give me a place to scribe and place the divider point. Marking the platinum disc with scribe marks and a center punch was not on the menu.<br />
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Here is the circle cut out and fitted to the body. You can see I curved the body slightly inward to meet the disc. Better to have the fit in this direction that outward at all. This allows me to fit the corner and take out the curve as I go along tacking the the body to the disc and get a perfect fitup all the way around. Perfect fitup is the key to most welding problems.<br />
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Fitted up and ready for some tacking and welding. Later on I will even out the circumference and straighten the walls of the cylinder.<br />
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All welded up. The welding went pretty well. I used plain old TIG welding and DC current straight polarity to weld it. I did use filler in the joint because I planned on removing the weld buildup so the crucible would have a nice flat bottom.Yes I collected the filings when I removed the weld. All the scraps will be remelted and rolled into some other part later on. Incidentally Platinum does not oxidize at any temperature. You could almost weld this stuff without the Argon shielding gas. Notice the weld penetration shows zero signs of oxidation from lack of shielding gas.<br />
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Here is a view inside the crucible showing the weld penetration.<br />
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Here is the completed job. I missed a trick and should have made a cup of coffee to take a few sips out of as a joke. I ended up burnishing the outside to smooth small ripples in the wall and take out some of the curve near the bottom I mentioned earlier. Total weight of the finished crucible is just short of 90 grams. At the current spot price of Platinum that is about $4000 in material in the cup alone. </div>
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I sure had fun working on it. It filled the bill for a fun job. The guy who brought me the job said he has another job for me this time in Gold. They need some reaction vessel for some crazy thing. He asked me if I was interested in looking at the job. I'll give you three guesses what I said and the first two guesses don't count. Thanks for looking.</div>
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Tom Lipton</div>
Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-79455190075580802602013-11-01T19:25:00.002-07:002013-11-01T19:25:59.560-07:005C Spindexer Indexer A few weeks ago I proposed a follow along project on my YouTube channel oxtools. A viewer suggested an interesting problem involving indexing. His problem was how to accurately index 127 divisions for making a special gear. This might sound trivial at first glance but it quickly becomes difficult with standard tools and indexing devices.<br />
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The basic problem is 127 divisions is a prime number. To use standard circular dividing techniques requires compound indexing to achieve 127 divisions. Very few readily available and affordable dividing heads are equipped to do compound indexing without some modification. So what to do? The need for 127 divisions crops its head up when changing the gearing on a manual lathe to switch between inch and metric threading. As it turns out a factor of 127 happens to be 25.4 Starting to sound familiar now?<br />
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So now its actually an interesting project which is why were talking about it here. What I proposed in a video is to modify a standard cheap 5C collet indexer in a simple way to handle the 127 problem and make quick work out of typical spacing operations in the average shop.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9BhIzPaWZBGAb1ALRylBQJD4JPpgT5Sn8Q72LyD9grVYPVp4UyKz788kN6qWSEtfi0jLaHTJdDdX_4IpLlrmw2966MyWYdVbRBR3DN3ZqrSUtvWSrguxd6VozJAPHkTq1egrOwGP5cRs/s1600/5C+Spin+Index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9BhIzPaWZBGAb1ALRylBQJD4JPpgT5Sn8Q72LyD9grVYPVp4UyKz788kN6qWSEtfi0jLaHTJdDdX_4IpLlrmw2966MyWYdVbRBR3DN3ZqrSUtvWSrguxd6VozJAPHkTq1egrOwGP5cRs/s400/5C+Spin+Index.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
These 5C Spin indexers are readily available and cheap at around $50 plus shipping. Many folks already have one of these indexers for the very same reasons. The project involves making some additional parts that allow the indexer to quickly index common divisions much like the common but much more expensive super spacer.<br />
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These units can already index 360 divisions with the help of a one degree pin <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernier_scale" target="_blank">vernier</a>. Our modifications will make it quicker and simpler for small numbers of divisions while allowing us to directly index odd numbers like 127 and fractional angular indexes such as 7 or 11. Its limitation will be the ability to create the needed index plates and fit the desired number of hole on it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjG5RPQo8tF-OJ8KnWZDBdrqJrFdbBhtbjM2Tiy78mg333Ye7W9HfZaEvMz9_WDpnf7UkoyPLQqzHhK3vG9pxJY7uf-GdW_vHF-gg9IVPKS3EuZdZMt-qoBNsUdO5iSlPO2kItz0lsO5g/s1600/Index+hole+study1.bmp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjG5RPQo8tF-OJ8KnWZDBdrqJrFdbBhtbjM2Tiy78mg333Ye7W9HfZaEvMz9_WDpnf7UkoyPLQqzHhK3vG9pxJY7uf-GdW_vHF-gg9IVPKS3EuZdZMt-qoBNsUdO5iSlPO2kItz0lsO5g/s400/Index+hole+study1.bmp.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Here is an example of an index plate with several patterns of equally spaced holes in it. The outermost circle of small holes has 127 equally spaces holes in it of 1/8 inch (3.17mm) diameter with approximately the same amount between the holes. As you can see in the drawing the disc needed to contain all these holes is pretty large. So large in fact that the stock indexer will not sit on a milling machine table without elevating it with this disc mounted. The maximum diameter that the stock indexer will support without a riser is roughly 5.6 inches.<br />
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In this shot you can see the maximum sized disc that can be used on the standard spin indexer when it sits on the machine table. So how do we get the desired 127 holes in a disc that will fit on the indexer without raising it off the table?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1cDi5TvYBGh4gzGuO27OZRUctFLbmUUn5a4YrgPM-Qg-FpfPTpYycRv3IoWuHXJQrA2vGT24vKtB7jGZ2buRuB-wD_x9gCxEugOfUoXd06lBsGYB7lJ6GRJUgBnSskd2fhd4PVyQTpvE/s1600/Index+hole+study2.bmp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1cDi5TvYBGh4gzGuO27OZRUctFLbmUUn5a4YrgPM-Qg-FpfPTpYycRv3IoWuHXJQrA2vGT24vKtB7jGZ2buRuB-wD_x9gCxEugOfUoXd06lBsGYB7lJ6GRJUgBnSskd2fhd4PVyQTpvE/s320/Index+hole+study2.bmp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
This is how we do it. By changing the radius that some of the 127 holes are on we can now put additional circles of holes and reduce the diameter of the disc to something that fits. The trick is that the angular spacing between any adjacent holes is exactly 1/127 of 360 degrees. The radius of the circle that the index hole lies on makes no difference as long as it lies on a radial line from the center of rotation of 1/127 of 360.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0szA41mjcFjWdZIvBWtdJwlGyji7CE4HFkBXfy7cidXj0OQKJahQXw1ve4m2n8z4uBiUy37sKaQZ3ZpZQooWlB8roHOx-pIU1NrnkChaH2P2CHj8KHu35CP2txv6pb7m3YT2d5hR0Ssc/s1600/5C+Spindexer+Indexer+Assembly+Explode.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0szA41mjcFjWdZIvBWtdJwlGyji7CE4HFkBXfy7cidXj0OQKJahQXw1ve4m2n8z4uBiUy37sKaQZ3ZpZQooWlB8roHOx-pIU1NrnkChaH2P2CHj8KHu35CP2txv6pb7m3YT2d5hR0Ssc/s640/5C+Spindexer+Indexer+Assembly+Explode.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
Here we see the needed parts to convert the stock 5C spin indexer to a spindexer indexer. In this example we show the 127 hole plate which is a very special case. For most folks a couple of different plates with some common divisions 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 etc will make the most sense. The example of 127 holes is just to illustrate a method for making higher number or difficult number index plates of a small diameter. Obviously some of the common divisions can be indexed using the original plate and pin. The additional index plate speeds repetitive indexes and eliminated any possible errors of reading the angular scale.<br />
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The tapered arm is the index detent pin for plates with rows of holes on a single radius. It acts as a flat spring and engages the hole in the index plate with a tapered pin. To do higher order indexes with multiple index hole radii such as 127 holes it is necessary to use the half index block part number 16. This slotted block allows you to disengage the tapered pivoting arm and re-engage it in another set of index holes on a different radius. The half index block is accurately located on the spindle centerline to avoid any errors caused by angular shifting.<br />
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To create the index plates the array of holes is put it using ordinate positioning in X and Y instead of angular indexing. Following the established jig boring practice of locating circular patterns accurately with this method is well understood and documented in books such as<a href="http://www.mooretool.com/publications.html" target="_blank"> "Holes Contours and Surfaces"</a> by the Moore Special Tool company.<br />
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The ability of the average shop to position accurately in X and Y rectilinear coordinates is higher than the typical ability to discriminate small angles. A simple milling machine equipped with a digital readout can make short work of making any desired index plate.<br />
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What follows are the drawings of the parts needed to modify the stock indexer and make it a spindexer indexer. Builders are encouraged to modify the design to suit their available materials and abilities and desired levels of embellishment and artistic style.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom LiptonTom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com39tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-75499613401411363012013-10-13T21:57:00.002-07:002013-10-13T21:57:46.314-07:00Tiny DrillingFor all the time I've been in shops there has been a story floating around that gets repeated whenever somebody has to drill a tiny hole. The story changes depending on who tells it but basically has the same cast of characters. The story goes something like this.<br />
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An American company developed a new drill bit for drilling tiny holes. The story teller never has a specification on how small the drill other than its really small. Smaller than a hair is what I've heard told before. This amazing drill took years of development and the company, once again un-named other than its an American company, is rightfully proud of their achievement in toolmaking.<br />
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The second part of the story gets even fuzzier. I have heard it told that the un-named American company had a rival or partner Swiss or German company that somehow hears about the new tiny American drill achievement. They politely ask for a sample of the drill for testing on their application or machinery. The American company rightfully proud, quickly obliges and sends them a drill for evaluation.<br />
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Depending on who is telling the story the roles can be reversed. The story seems better if the Swiss or German company is showing off their achievement to the Yanks.<br />
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So after some interval of time passes a package arrives back at the drill manufacturers doorstep. They open the package and find the drill bit they sent out. They look it over and see nothing so they send it back again slightly confused. Another time interval passes and the package comes back again. No explanation, no note, just a package with the drill in it. This time they look at it closely. To their utter disbelief they look and see there is a hole drilled through the side of their tiny drill bit.<br />
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Recently I bought about thirty pounds of old magazines from a guy at the Alameda antiques fair. I found this article in a old Popular Mechanics from the 1950's. It has almost all the parts of the story except the competition between the Swiss or German toolmakers.<br />
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This is from the 1950's Imagine what we can do today. I work with a fellow that has tools as small as .0004 inches in diameter. Yes, ten microns. You cant even touch the tool with anything without breaking it. It takes a 60,000 rpm spindle to make it do anything. All I know is I would like to see the machinery that tool is made on.</div>
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Tom Lipton</div>
<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-79024341820186177412013-09-17T19:54:00.001-07:002013-09-17T19:54:07.498-07:00Monarch Lathe SurveyI had the opportunity to survey an interesting lathe recently. I appeared on our local Craigslist with a couple of sub-optimal camera phone pictures. Since it was local I sent the guy an email note inquiring about it to see if I could get a look at it. The machine is a 1964 Monarch Model 71 engine lathe. The lathe has a twenty inch swing (500mm) and is seventy eight inches (2000mm) between centers.This particular machine has a hydraulic tracer attachment along the back side of the bed.<br />
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The first thing I noticed was the tailstock. What caught my attention was how massive it was. On closer inspection it has some very cool features.<br />
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Starting on the left the quill has very nice graduations engraved into a groove milled into the surface. The diameter of the tailstock quill was like a huge slab of baloney and over four inches around. Surprisingly the internal taper was only a #3 Morse which looked oddly small for such a massively built tailstock. The second cool feature was its own independent oiling system. I even gave her a pump for old times sake. Looking lower below the oiler we see a really nice feature for large lathes. The curved arm headed downward is a hand crank pinion that engages the rack under the ways and allows you to crank the heavy tailstock into position.<br />
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In this photo we see a couple of neat things. The lever on top is to change gear ratios for the tailstock. It has three positions, High, Low and Neutral. The lever shifts perfectly even though nobody has moved it in at least fifteen years according to the owner. I must have shifted it a dozen times playing with it. The angled handwheel is much more ergonomic than the standard type at the end of the tailstock.<br />
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It doesn't show very well but the cap on the rear of the quill has a graduated dial that reads to .001 (25 Microns). It does not move in and out with the quill it only rotates with no through hole to the quill ID. The lock levers, yes two can just be seen below the handwheel.<br />
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Moving along the machine we see some of the apron and cross slide. She shows some signs of rough handling on the carriage. In this shot you can see the pipsqueak Morse taper hole in the tailstock quill.<br />
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Looking down from the top we see part of the tracer attachment and control feedback. This side of the machine must have been bumped with a forklift as the spinning handles on all the handwheels were broken. Thankfully the shafts were not bent. I was able to turn everything even with fifteen years of dirt and dust on it.<br />
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I always liked Monarchs dual feed lever setup. No funky shifting required and you can engage both at the same time if you dare. Nice large diameter wheel with fine straight serrations on the rims. In this shot you can also see the center bed support. It has dual chip pans and a center foot support that wraps around. The chip pans are heavy duty and looked to be massive cast bits.<br />
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Up near the headstock now. The ways look rusty but in reasonable shape. Unfortunate on the rust but not the end of the world. At least there were no gouges near the typically heavily used chuck area. I believe Monarchs had hardened ways on many of their machines. Cam-lock spindle nose. The though hole was pretty small which is typical of many American lathes.<br />
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Here is some of the controls at the headstock. You can see it had electric range shifting and could go from 20 to 2000 rpm. Speed was controlled with the small black knob at the lower left. There was a hole above that housed some kind of electrical gauge not sure what it displayed as there were speed and motor load indicators to the right.<br />
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The ball end lever directly below the motor load meter releases the quick change gearbox and it operated probably as good as it did when this machine left the factory in 1964. In fact all the headstock levers moved and detented perfectly. For me this is a mark of quality, smooth operation of all controls with positive detents and engagement. I think the forklift did its damage up here also. The control panel was pushed in a bit. With the exception of the gauge it looked easily repairable.<br />
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Another shot of the headstock control area. Here you can see the Monarch badge. Their fonts changed over the years. Looking at this font makes me think fifties or sixties.<br />
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Now for the scary part, the electrical enclosure. This machine had some advanced capabilities and features. The tracer is basically a servo system controlled by a template and follower. This requires some control logic in an age of relays and contactors.<br />
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In addition to the tracer this machine could deal with changes in surface speed. I would guess it translated the template diameter and controlled the spindle speed to keep a relatively constant cutting speed on the work piece. It is also equipped with some hydraulic system that uses electrically controlled valves to change speed ranges. And it has infinite variable speed control within the major ranges. For all that you need a big box of electrical equipment.<br />
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It was a pleasant surprise to see the electrical panel in great shape and pretty un-molested. Monarch in their infinite wisdom even put a copy of the electrical schematic on the inside of the cabinet door. Real class and professional engineering.<br />
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I sure had fun going over this machine. Its for sale in the San Francisco Bay area. The price is $.19/lb Yes that's right, nineteen cents a pound. This once proud example of American ingenuity can be had for basically scrap metal price.<br />
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The bones of the machine are there and look to be in good shape. It is most certainly not a project for the faint of heart. Just the machine retrieval will be a major expedition. But hey, without expeditions and people willing to go on them where would we be? Somebody with some guts and mechanical aptitude would find themselves with a lathe made by one of the finest American makers with several lifetimes more work in her.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom Lipton<br />
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<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-6365008527256719612013-08-19T20:52:00.000-07:002013-08-19T20:52:53.441-07:00Drill Press Vise Wrap UpI'm calling it done at this point. After cleaning and repairing the bonus Kurt vise I acquired with the Clausing drill press its ready for use. I built a special base and anti rotation arm to make quick work out of clamping the vise to the drill press table.<br />
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The vise base is a .50 thick phenolic plate. I had the material left over from another job and it made sense for this application. Its strong and durable and wont mark the table. It has the perfect amount of friction that allows the vise to move around but is not so slippery that the vise will move under heavy drilling. The vise mounts to the plate via a couple of Helicoiled tapped holes. The notch is for the steel anti-rotation arm. I just scribed around the base of the vise casting and band sawed the profile and notch to match. You can see my chicken sketching on the side of the flat bar arm.<br />
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I wanted the anti rotation arm to be one inch wide. All I had in stock was two inch wide material. Nothing is easy right? I band sawed the two inch lengthwise and then milled the edges. Something to note when you do this type of splitting of a rolled bar. The cut immediately opens up and the two pieces come out curved from the stress relieving cut. I have had this happen before so I allowed extra cleanup stock so I would finish one of the bars to one inch wide. The clamps are holding a strong back back bar to keep the narrow bar from vibrating while machining.<br />
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So in this shot we see the vise mounted to the base plate and the anti-rotation arm attached. I found a cheap swivel socket wrench at HF that seems to work as a decent replacement for the missing Kurt article.<br />
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My McMaster box arrived today so I was able to complete the anti-windmill arm clamp. I think we all have a horror story on the drill press that we could relate. Its nice to not have any roadblocks to doing the right thing with clamping on the drill press.<br />
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The clamp allows the arm to slide in and out and pivot when loosened. When the clamp lever is cinched down the vise is locked in place. It can be quickly and easily removed if you need the entire surface of the drill press table for a large part. The Kurt vise is pretty heavy so it makes for a solid drilling experience.<br />
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So my famous drill press story goes like this. I was making some special plastic starwheels for a bottle filling machine. These look like big sprockets with teeth the same shape as the bottle being filled. Their purpose is to time and guide the bottles into the filling machine. These particular wheels were made from PVC plastic plate. It takes two star wheels to make a set they are connected by a spacing hub and attached with flat head screws. I needed to countersink the mounting screws after drilling the holes in the plates. We used to make these in the pre-CNC days by carefully pasting a full scale drawing on the material and then band sawing the curves and arms of the star wheel. It took a few hours to do a nice job on these with the sawing, sanding and filing. The mounting holes were one of the last operations.<br />
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We did a lot of 316 stainless in that shop so my countersink was pretty hammered. I went and got a brand new countersink from the machinist tool crib to use on my nice new star wheels. I remember it well because it was 3/4 inch in diameter and sharp as a scalpel. I saved a trip on the way back by picking up a flat head screw from the bolt bins to gage the countersink diameter. The mill was being used so I decided to use the drill press in the welding shop to countersink the holes.<br />
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Here where it starts to get interesting. I remember saying to myself, "I'll just hold this down by hand to the table" See this is how it starts, one little dumb thing. The next thing I told myself was, "I don't need to set the depth stop, It takes so long to run the damn thing down so far" I chucked up the countersink and set the drill press speed fairly slow.<br />
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These things happen so fast it always surprises me. The millisecond the single lipped countersink touched the edge of the pilot hole it snagged and sucked my star wheel plate right off the table. I somehow managed to hold onto the plate but all that did was make the countersink actually drill through the plate. Instead of a countersink for a 1/4 flat head screw I now had a three quarter inch diameter round hole in its place. My butt tightening event was over in about 500 milliseconds. <br />
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Every time I need to countersink soft plastic from that point on I either have the part securely clamped, or the cutting tool is non powered. Fortunately for me PVC cements well so I was able to make a plug and glue it in and re-drill and countersink the hole and save the part. With that cement the countersinking lesson was permanently bonded to my hard drive.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
<br />
Tom Lipton<br />
<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-2753924781990030502013-08-15T19:20:00.002-07:002013-08-15T21:10:24.888-07:00Kurt Vise Root CanalA few articles ago I wrote about a pleasant machinery surprise I found. The surprise was a nice four inch Kurt vise that came with my Clausing drill press for nothing. The vise was pretty hammered when I started working on it. Originally I thought it was an offshore knockoff and even considered trading it away for something else. Lucky for me I decided to give it a bath and take a closer look.<br />
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The vise was in pretty sad shape when I started in on it. The jaw mounting surfaces were whupped from clamping parts with no jaws. The handle is lost to who knows where and the replacement is welded in place no doubt to prevent its loss. A fine patina of sulfur based cutting oil residue rounds out the gruesome picture.<br />
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The moving nut has seen the business end of too many drill bits to count. One bonus here is the table of the drill press is relatively unmolested. Probably because the vise took the bullet for the team protecting the table. Look closely at the divits on the right side of the nut. They look a little wonky to me so I started picking at them with a awl. I was able to pop out a couple of loose fillings made of epoxy.<br />
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A few minutes in the dentist chair and now we have a clearer picture of the necessary dental work. I don't understand how somebody keeps drilling in a situation like this. The one hole at the top of the image goes halfway past the vise screw. I know now why the bozons patched the holes with JB weld or bondo. They had to keep the chips out of the screw or nothing would work.<br />
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Many of the edges of the vise were chowdered up like this. A trick a dutch toolmaker showed me a million years ago is instead of filing the raised burr off is to displace the material back into position. You will need a smooth flat faced hammer. Its important that the edges between the face and the side of the hammer are rounded so you don't get a bite mark if you hit off angle.<br />
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The trick is to hammer and direct the blows so the face hits flat. If your careful and work slowly generally you can push the material back into position pretty well. If you file it off its gone forever.<br />
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A little careful tapping and the corners are mostly back where they belong. Its going to take more than a little tapping with a hammer to get this vise looking good again.<br />
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The first step in fixing the Swiss cheesed vise nut was to make a copper mandrel to fit inside the threaded hole through the center. The purpose of the mandrel is so any weld metal doesn't get into the threads. The nut would be difficult to re-thread in the lathe because of its awkward shape and odd size and left hand to boot.<br />
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The copper mandrel fits in the threaded bore with a easy slip fit. I expect this to get a little stuck after the welding.<br />
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A short preheat and it will be ready for welding. Looking for something like three or four hundred degrees F or so. Hot enough to smoke the old cutting oil.<br />
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I'm TIG welding the holes with 1/8 diameter Ni-99 rod. Tungsten is 3/32 diameter Lanthanated DC straight polarity. A reader has been asking me what kind of current I'm running on some of these jobs so I set the camera up and took a picture.<br />
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I did it twice and the current was the same at 100 amps. The machine was set in the high range which is the upper scale on the right hand meter.<br />
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It took two filler rods to fill the cavities up to this point. If I was really a dentist this would be called a trans-cavity bridge filling.<br />
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While it was still hot It got wrapped in a fiberglass blanket and allowed to cool overnight. Next up will be the mandrel removal.<br />
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The next day I went to work on removing the copper mandrel. Driving into work I thought of a good way to drive it out by just inserting the lead screw and pushing it out. I was so happy I thought of an easy way to push it out I was thinking about it during the day.<br />
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It was a great idea for about half way. The mandrel stopped moving so I had go to plan B and get medieval on it. I ended up cutting if off short and drilling as big a hole as I dared in the now dead soft copper. If you haven't experienced dead soft copper and drill bits consider yourself warned. After drilling a pretty good sized hole through it still wouldn't come out so I used a jab hacksaw to split the copper tube that was left of the mandrel and collapse it into the hole. I didn't take any pictures of this process as I was annoyed and just wanted to get it done.<br />
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I did some sanding on the weld buildup to make it look more presentable. It least the holes are patched and no chips will get down into the screw and nut assembly.<br />
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The finished product. Not factory new but definitely better than usable. I made a set of steel jaws with a built it parallel step and vertical vee groove. Not a bad ending for a vise that was close to its expiration date. I called Kurt to ask if they had parts for this vise. I was told this vise is a very early model. The clues were the five inch width and the lack of a needle thrust bearing in the screw. This dates it to the dawn of Kurt history. A real relic.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom LiptonTom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-3643105838234600712013-08-12T18:11:00.000-07:002013-08-13T09:12:07.650-07:00Three Dimensional Imaging MicroscopeAs part of a development effort on a new high field magnet design we are currently fabricating various parts of a prototype magnet for testing. The magnet is a hybrid design and uses a unique configuration to cancel and or minimize the some of the large forces that want to rip the magnet apart. We call this unique design a canted cosine theta configuration or CCT for short. This is a hollow bore superconducting design that we hope will lead to magnetic fields in the 20T (Tesla) range. So far the results are promising and fun to work on.<br />
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In these shots you see the basic configuration of the magnet. These are parts produced by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_deposition_modeling" target="_blank">FDM</a> process and were used to test groove geometry and winding potential. The cable Jim is inserting is a flat multi strand cable of rectangular cross section approximately 1mm x 3mm.<br />
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As you can see in the images the Niobium Titanium cable is insulated with a thin glass sleeve or overwrap. The idea is this isolates the wire from the magnet structure electrically. Part of our development project is to determine the groove geometry that protects the wire and insulation during winding and holds the wire securely during operation. Ultimately these might be built using<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Niobium-tin (Nb<span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span>Sn) which will allow higher magnetic fields to be achieved. </span><br />
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Here is an aluminum test mandrel I machined on a 4th axis CNC machine. This particular sample was for winding and insulation testing for a high temperature superconductor (HTS). It is 1.50 inches (38mm) in diameter and the elliptical helical groove is a little over 1mm wide and 1mm deep with a round bottom. During winding tests the edge of the groove damaged the thin insulation so we tried a few quick shop fixes to try and soften the edge.<br />
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To help evaluate the changes in groove geometry we used a special digital microscope made by the <a href="http://www.keyence.com/products/microscope/digital-microscope/vhx-2000/index.jsp" target="_blank">Keyence company.</a> We have one of these wonderful tools that we can use to examine and measure small features like this groove.<br />
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The microscope itself was designed from the outset to be portable and stand alone. The idea was to put an advanced tool out on the shop floor to collect meaningful information with the parts in situ. The variety of lenses allow the user to capture and measure with high magnification and great depth of field. The computer is fully ruggedized and integrated and easily portable with the actual scope. The stage is motorized and allows the computer to control the focus and depth up measuring feature. We didn't use the tilting ability of the stage for what we did here but it has been handy to create three dimensional images or peer into something off axis.<br />
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On the mandrel one thing we tried in the shop to gently deburr and soften the edges of the wire groove was wire brushing with a soft bristle wire wheel. The thought was that the bristles would break down the edge and not disturb the groove much.<br />
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In this image you can see the effect of the wire brush on the groove. The surface has been roughened by the brush. Unfortunately I didn't get any images before we brushed the mandrel.<br />
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Drilling down further at higher magnification we see the edges and lizard skin surface in better detail.<br />
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The microscope has a variety of measuring tools for distance, diameter, area etc. One of the more amazing things it can do is three dimensional images. The Keyence VHX does this by taking a set of images depth up and combining them to produce a three dimensional image that can be rotated much like a solid model.<br />
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The groove surface and top are both in focus giving a depth of field in this case of around a millimeter at 50x magnification. Images can be stitched together to make a larger seamless mosaic.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhCdeoAh1ZBwJNkFwwa-xFuSpDThu7vH5GyDu0fS-SahHm0IYSXWeaMI1ux8Q11iN1MPow_C8S-ly0-79tXLWe4FkIbAR9W6pVzQNFqCVxQghHyAgw57jzxgDGs76kzMe4KBqsYq0jKGQ/s1600/After+Etch+11+Pole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhCdeoAh1ZBwJNkFwwa-xFuSpDThu7vH5GyDu0fS-SahHm0IYSXWeaMI1ux8Q11iN1MPow_C8S-ly0-79tXLWe4FkIbAR9W6pVzQNFqCVxQghHyAgw57jzxgDGs76kzMe4KBqsYq0jKGQ/s400/After+Etch+11+Pole.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
This is a three dimensional image of the curved pole section of the test mandrel.<br />
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The second thing we tested with this mandrel was a chemical etch to help soften the insulation scuffing corners. It consisted of an acid etch, much the same as a pre-anodizing treatment but without the caustic part of the anodizing process.<br />
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In this image you can see the overall improvement of the wire brushed surface in the earlier image.<br />
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Link to some <a href="http://www.keyence.com/products/microscope/digital-microscope/vhx-2000/applications/index.jsp" target="_blank">other images</a> taken with the VHX system.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom LiptonTom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-53094338968418499152013-08-08T21:31:00.001-07:002013-08-08T21:31:38.394-07:00 A pleasant surpriseFor the people that have been following my YouTube channel you already know I recently bought a Clausing drill press. It came from my favorite source, a Craigslist private sale. I have been halfheartedly looking for a variable speed drill press to add to the shop stable. I missed a couple and another one was just too far away for its potential. This one popped up and I happened to be in the mood for a look see. So me and my friend Marty loaded up his truck and headed out.<br />
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This one met all my drill press criteria and was still available. As you can see it is all there but dirty. Note the vise and XY slide on the table. It was a bonus with the machine and the subject of this article.<br />
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Like the rest of the machine the vise and cross slide unit were dirty and need some TLC. The vise handle was actually welded to the hex on the screw. This vise saw some real Bozon users in its history. So the first step in any refurbishment is to do a lot of cleaning and find all the secrets while you get to know the machine.<br />
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Initially I focused on the machine itself to get it in operable condition. This was mostly cleaning and new belts and lubrication of all the moving parts. I shot a series of three videos if your interested in some of the refurbishment details. So after it ran and was tested I started looking at the vise and cross slide that came with it. The vise was a mess. No jaws, drill damage to the nut etc. I consigned myself to just clean it up and set it up for use on the drill press without the cross slide.<br />
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Nice one! Not sure how I'm going to fix this one yet. For a week I walked by the vise and scraped for a few minutes then went and did something else. A few nights ago I started to clean in earnest and disassemble the vise. When I got the machine I saw the cross slide unit was a cheapco offshore model so I assumed the vise was from a similar supplier. As I cleaned the vise I saw some casting numbers in the various parts. I had a half thought this was a little weird for a cheap vise.<br />
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My next clue that something was strange was when I got a file out to take off some bumps on the center slot. It turns out this is heat treated and hard enough for the file to skate on the surface. By now I was intrigued and kept cleaning. The answer was revealed with the wire brush.<br />
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This made everything make sense. Here was my pleasant surprise. As part of the deal I got a four inch vise that costs more new today than I paid for the whole drill press deal. Its a little beat up but easily repairable and will make a good article. For readers out there that don't know<a href="http://www.kurtworkholding.com/" target="_blank"> Kurt vises</a>. They are the defacto standard machinist vise in the United States for job shops and tool rooms. This particular vise looks old to me for a Kurt. The shape of the coolant drain slots on the side look different than newer Kurt vises and there were no needle thrust bearings in the screw assembly.<br />
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You can bet I'll spend a little time getting my new friend back in proper working order.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom Lipton<br />
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<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-35657922798959802392013-07-26T17:41:00.001-07:002014-02-11T19:58:05.920-08:00Gloves in the machine shopWell somehow I have managed to post a little over one hundred articles on this blog. I just want to take a second to thank all the readers that follow the blog, and especially those who participate in it with their comments. The feedback and interaction is what stimulates me to carry on with the blog project. Thanks again for your support.<br />
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The subject of this post has the potential to be somewhat controversial. What I want to talk about is wearing gloves in the machine shop. Many of you out there may have noticed that in some of the blog pictures or on my YouTube videos I am wearing gloves while operating machinery. I have received several comments asking about this practice so I thought I would explain it in more detail.<br />
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When I was an apprentice I got yelled at a few times for wearing gloves in a situation where it probably wasn't a great idea. Those old loud codgers were just trying to protect me which I thank them for. The typical metalworking shop is loaded with machinery just waiting to bite the unwary. They were doing their job and protecting me like one of their kids.<br />
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Not that long ago I did a shop study. The subject of the study was injuries to my hands while working in the shop. I actually called them insults but that's beside the point. As many of you well know in the course of working in a machine or metal working shop you expect a certain number of minor hand insults and dings as part of the job. As part of my study I recorded anything that happened to my hands during the course of working in the shop.<br />
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After some time had elapsed logging entries I reviewed the specifics of each insult. The object was to filter them into several groups. The first group was injuries or insults that would have been prevented by wearing some kind of a hand protection. The second group was insults that would have been greatly minimized by wearing gloves. And the final group were injuries that gloves would have not made any difference.<br />
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I admit this was a limited study conducted by a minor klutz. I will tell you there were no insults that gloves would not have made a difference. In other words everything that happened to me during the study period would have been totally prevented or greatly minimized. Also during this period there were zero close calls because of wearing the gloves.<br />
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Now before you jump down my throat and say how dumb this sounds lets talk about it. I've been working in metalworking shops for forty years now. I can say that I've done some pretty good dings to my hands over the years but they still have all the fingers and everything works fine. Also things have changed in that forty years.<br />
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When I first started in metalworking there were not a huge variety of glove options readily available. Thanks to manufacturing technology we now have a huge number of choices for personal hand protection for a large cross section of specialized hazards. Hand injuries are quite common and some smart business people realized the huge potential market there was for hand PPE. In the old days you just used your leather gloves for everything unless it was cleaning the shop toilet. For that you shared a pair of somebodies hand me down dish washing gloves. There was a fifty fifty chance of a hole or leak in them to add to the fun.<br />
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So where I'm heading with all this is my opinion is the risks of wearing gloves around many types of machinery are very manageable. Just having the right gloves on in the shop has a huge potential in reducing hand injuries and insults in the metalworking industry.<br />
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I have been experimenting with some gloves in the machine shop for more than a year now. I don't always wear them but I try to do it regularly and note the situations where my spidey sense tells me its a bad idea (like the belt sander) as well as when I note a positive effect like my hands don't cramp as easily from pinching small parts while de-burring. The gloves I have zeroed in on have some gripping abilities that enhance your hand grip and allow you to use less pressure or apply more pressure when needed.<br />
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The gloves I like and have settled on for most work are the <a href="http://www.atg-glovesolutions.com/en/maxiflex-3/maxiflex-ultimate%E2%84%A2-8/34-874-34/" target="_blank">Maxiflex Ultimate</a>. These are a close fitting precision dry handling glove coated with nitrile foam. The dexterity is so good you can pick your scale off the bench or floor with them on. Some Airgas welding supply shops carry them and <a href="http://www.suppliesandsolutions.com/index.jsp?path=locations" target="_blank">S&S safety solutions</a> in Martinez CA stocks them.<br />
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The small injuries that occur most frequently are things like getting cut on a burr or chip, bumping a sharp tool bit or insert while handling a part in the machine, dumping scrap in the bin, unfolding a band saw blade etc. All preventable with gloves. As machinists and metalworkers we very rarely get cut from any rotating member on the machine. Those old guys yelling at us did their job well on that count. We get dinged by bumping into things, reaching for things, in other words all the other things besides the rotating machinery.<br />
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Nobody blinks an eye when a chainsaw operator puts on a pair of gloves. Why do we get so nervous when a machinist operates a milling machine with a gloves on? Neither person is touching the moving cutting edge right? There are dozens of industry examples of people wearing hand protection while in close proximity to rotating machine parts. The general shop rule is to never directly touch a moving surface, blade or machine member with your hand. Well if you adhere to this guideline when wearing gloves you will stay relatively safe.<br />
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Now there are lots and lots of things I would never do with gloves on in a million years. But after forty years experience I can spot these situations with an excellent success rate. Most of that comes from having made many of the mistakes that hurt and learning from them. So if you are a beginner then I suggest you proceed with caution. If something bit you before then pay attention.<br />
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<i>A funny side story about fingers. I had a welding student many years ago that came to class with one of his fingers swathed as only the medical industry can swathe something. When we asked him what happened his story sent shivers down my spine.</i><br />
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<i>This particular student worked in a structural steel shop as a helper of some sort. He was helping rig a large I beam for rolling over with the crane. I guess the sling was offset from the center of gravity so the beam would roll when they lifted it. Well he somehow managed to get his finger between the table and the beam. The thing that gives me the willies was how he described the damage to his finger.</i><br />
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<i>When he related the story to us I asked the question, Ouch, that sounds bad. What happened to your finger? He paused for a second thinking about it and said, "Well have you ever stepped on a hot dog?" Apparently the end of his finger burst out much like a stepped on hot dog. Youch! I can't eat a hot dog now without thinking of that story.</i><br />
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Now that is an example of an event that gloves would not have made any difference except getting less blood on the workbench.<br />
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The gloves I prefer for machine work I discovered by accident. We were in the process of moving and between my wife and myself must have 200 cubic feet of books that had to be moved. Now if you have moved you know not to load book boxes very heavy or else you kill yourself. What happened was my hands naturally dried out handling dozens of boxes. Take a look at the UPS drivers hands for a clue as to what happens when you handle cardboard boxes all day long.<br />
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After work one day we were loading a truckload of boxes to take over to the new place. I had a used pair of these gloves that I forgot to take out of my coat pocket. On a whim I put them on just to keep my hands from going UPS. I noticed the advantage immediately. The gripping force to hold the box securely dropped to roughly half. It was like spider man gloves for boxes. After having this dramatic example I started experimenting with the gloves for all kinds of things, like working in the metal working shop.<br />
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So here we are fast forward. My experience with wearing gloves in the shop has been manageable, positive and hand healthy. Here are some of the positive benefits I have seen from wearing gloves in the shop.<br />
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<ul>
<li>Lower gripping force required to hold items.</li>
<li>I can tighten the drill chuck significantly tighter by hand wearing these particular gloves.</li>
<li>I can carry more weight in each hand than I could before.</li>
<li>Hands stay warmer and cramp less without the sweating.</li>
<li>Hands stay cleaner in general. Nice when you have to run to the office and do something.</li>
<li>Cuts and nicks are reduced to near zero</li>
<li>Vibration isolation</li>
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The vibration isolation properties are well worth it. If I have any amount of jitterbugging to do my fingers end up feeling like their electrified for the rest of the day. Wearing gloves reduces this to nothing.<br />
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This article is just my opinion and observations from actual shop testing. Its okay if you disagree. I'm not forcing anybody to drink my flavor of Kool-aid. Gloves in the shop is not right for everybody. So in closing I suggest you conduct your own test and see if you find any similarities with my observations. Report back your own findings and opinions and please be careful when testing and don't do any of the following things,<br />
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Belt sand. Any converging gaps that the tip of the glove could get sucked into are bad. Plate rolls and moving chains and sprockets fall into this category.<br />
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Grind tiny tool bits on the bench grinder.<br />
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Don't polish on the lathe by gripping the paper directly to the work wearing gloves.<br />
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Don't stick your finger in a rotating bore to check the finish. In general don't touch anything rotating. But that's already a standing rule.<br />
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These gloves are completely useless for hot stuff.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom Lipton<br />
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<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com57tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-32373854835371973722013-07-09T20:59:00.002-07:002013-07-09T20:59:41.987-07:00Double Curved HandwheelsThere is something lacking in many modern mechanical components. The plain utilitarian aspect is partly driven by cost considerations and manufacturing optimization practices. Why do we fall in love with old machinery and equipment? Many old machines are visually pleasing as if the designers really cared that the visual impact of the machine was an attribute worth investing in. Sadly most of the demise of art in machinery is cost and profit driven. We can all appreciate nice looking machines but are voting is generally dictated by our checkbooks.<br />
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I was talking to an engineer friend of mine on this very subject and he had a pretty good line of reasoning worth sharing. Before the invention of automatic machine tools many machine parts were cast in steel or iron. All of these parts had to have foundry patterns made for them at some point. There is a big fundamental difference in the manufacture of something like a machine hand wheel that is cast and one that is machined. The hand wheel is just a simple example of the potential for adding some pleasing aesthetics to an otherwise mundane part.<br />
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When a part is cast the pattenmaker makes the pattern one time. This one time effort yields thousands of parts with all the features and embellishments the patternmaker puts in. The fundamental effort to produce the part is the same for all the parts cast from that pattern. Whatever the extra cost for the time the patternmaker spent to make the part beautiful is spread over the cost of the thousands of parts that follow.<br />
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The modernization of some of these manufacturing processes has eliminated most of this decorative aesthetic in machine parts. Modern generally means spartan, or clean crisp simplified lines. Is it better? I like the modern style when its well executed with thought behind it throughout the article or machine.<br />
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But what I wanted to talk about in this article is something that old time machinery buffs all over can agree on. Who doesn't like a nice old time cast iron hand wheel or pulley? In particular one with double curved spokes. There is something cool about the curved arms and legs of a simple article like a wheel that give it life at a basic level.<br />
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A simple valve handle with double curved spokes. It looks poised to turn all by itself. All the operator has to do is give it a little nudge.<br />
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These pulleys were at a recent flea market for $400 each when I passed them in the morning. When I walked by a couple of hours later they were both gone. Somebody made something cool out of them.<br />
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And we finally come to the actual subject of the article. This is a handwheel for a fine arts<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etching" target="_blank"> etching </a>press. The hand wheel is the signature part of a high end etching press. The large wheel diameter gives the operator fine control of the printing process with low human power input. Most presses have some kind of gear reduction to further reduce the force on the operator. A few presses have hand wheels in the five foot diameter range.<br />
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About six years ago I built a small etching press for my wife to print small etching plates with. It was really a stop gap for building her a larger press. Well the time has come to get moving on the big project for real. I have laid the groundwork for building the press in my home shop. A few items like the lathe were selected on their ability to produce the needed parts for the machine. A crane and forklift were added for good measure and spine health. I figured I might as well start with some of the more complicated bits of the machine. The hand wheel and drive system are first on the list.<br />
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I wrote a <a href="http://oxtool.blogspot.com/2012/10/wabble-drive-proof-of-principle.html" target="_blank">blog article and posted a YouTube video</a> of the heart of the system. The press I'm currently working on will be larger than the French American Tool press in the picture above with a much more interesting handwheel. The current design projections put the final weight around 3500 lbs to put the project in perspective.<br />
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Here is the layout of the handwheel in Solidworks. My goal was to try to duplicate the graceful tapering curves like we see in old cast iron handwheels. I set the Solidworks sketch up and drove some of the proportions with equations to allow me to create handwheels of almost any diameter by changing one number. The layout is interesting in how the arc tangencies are created. If folks are interested I will do a separate article describing how to do it. Post a comment if this is something you would like to see.<br />
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Here is the Solidworks model of the handwheel sub assembly and Wabble drive for the press. You can see the motif of the press is the curved spokes. The arms of the Wabble output follow the same layout.<br />
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Here is the beginnings of the handwheel for the Ox tool etching press from the layout above. Looks kinda dinky right?<br />
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For those of you that have been following the steady rest built on YouTube you can get a sense of scale now. The handwheel is four feet in diameter and and inch and a half thick. The spokes are five eighths thick. When I had the handwheel sections burned out by Nowell Steel in Antioch. I threw in the steady rest profile while they were cutting inch and a half plate. I need the steady rest to machine the large solid rolls for the press. The steady rest that came with the lathe can only handle seven point eight inches in diameter so I had to build a larger one.<br />
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I was worried about the open C shape moving around when they oxy fuel burned the profile so I had it cut larger to allow me to machine the profile accurately. I don't want the rim to run out much so it will have to be carefully put together. Here I am preparing the blank for machining. I weld it to a backing bar that is then clamped in the vise allowing me full access around the profile with a tool.<br />
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Even in steel not much weld is required. You just have to get it in the right place and not cut it away!<br />
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Here is one segment after profiling. I used a one inch diameter high speed cobalt fine pitch roughing end mill made by YG tools that I cant say enough good things about. Two passes three quarters deep and approximately a quarter inch on the periphery. Three hundred fifty rpm at six inches per minute feedrate. One tool removed maybe forty pounds of material and is still fresh as a daisy.<br />
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Here is the finish left by the end mill. I have cut off the backing bar and smoothed the welds. Eventually the rim will be rounded off so it feels better in the hand. These joints will be weld prepped and then blended for an invisible seam.<br />
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In this shot you see the wood sample I gave the "customer" for approval of grip size and rounding. I have some serious grinding in my not too distant future.<br />
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All five segments sitting together on the weld table. It measures right on the forty eight inches. There will be notches cut at the rim joints to insert the spokes to make a rabbet joint. Next will be an assembly fixture to make sure the segments are aligned in as good a circle as they can be for welding.<br />
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Eyeballing the center hub material for the handwheel at one of my favorite scrap yards Bataeff Salvage in Santa Rosa.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-39580338294849692582013-07-02T18:36:00.002-07:002013-07-02T18:36:51.145-07:00Tour of the Dial IndicatorAfter thirty years I think I have my dial indicators finally dialed in so to speak. Its not that it took that long but rather a slow series of optimizations and additions that make it feel right, at least until something better comes along. I have quite a collection of dial and test indicators in my tool collection. The very first indicator I bought was a Starrett one inch travel dial indicator. I remember well that it was expensive. To add insult to that you can currently buy a pretty good "Tecklock" or "Aerospace" for less than twenty dollars and it will probably come with its own magnetic base to boot. How these can be made for this price and shipped here is beyond me. A life lesson is don't compete making commodity items. Stick to unique and innovative devices and technologies. There is always somebody out there willing to work cheaper than you.<br />
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Well I still have that Starrett indicator, and because I paid in a painful to my pocket way it gets treated with the respect commensurate with its price. As a counterpoint I have probably broken or damaged more than one of the offshore brands during the same time period partly because I didn't need to be careful because of the price.<br />
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The use of this indicator has morphed over the years I've owned it. In the olden days I used to use this one and a twin brother with two inches of travel a fair amount on the lathe to keep track of Z positions. Now it gets used mostly to monitor weldment movement or perhaps the true X component of the compound rest when threading with the rest set at thirty degrees. The other place it sees some use is when I need to use the tailstock with fine depth control for some reason. With the mighty magnet I can snap it on the side of the tailstock and add a kantwist clamp to the tailstock quill as a rest for the tip. Presto instant tailstock ARO. (Analog Read out)<br />
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The next indicator I bought way back when was the classic test indicator. For many years I used this Starrett last word as my primary test indicator everywhere in the shop.<br />
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If this is the only test indicator you know then fine. Its a decent well priced test indicator with a large and long following. I didn't realize how much better a test indicator could be for a long time. My first inkling was when I had occasion to borrow a workmates test indicator for some long forgotten reason. Sorry to say that my last word is now relegated to certain lathe jobs where small is right. I keep it on a small pot magnet so I can snap it on to the Aloris tool post quickly. Other than that It doesn't see much use.<br />
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The small pot magnet makes it really quick to get in the machine. Also the last word is one of the more rugged test indicators. It will take the vibration from tapping a part into alignment with a hammer without complaining.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDPPiWlhaCtJjQqKEn4MqxLIS9LBCB0Rz-YLtS009PT1pBn0LQYueBOOwf6AoD_J7dJgfoj2GkfkqdHnXs-qRXGJ3HEBzF9g6v9Yn991vIDir7UrWDmi4I9oll0KyXjkbKetGYhdzkY6A/s1600/IMG_7221.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDPPiWlhaCtJjQqKEn4MqxLIS9LBCB0Rz-YLtS009PT1pBn0LQYueBOOwf6AoD_J7dJgfoj2GkfkqdHnXs-qRXGJ3HEBzF9g6v9Yn991vIDir7UrWDmi4I9oll0KyXjkbKetGYhdzkY6A/s400/IMG_7221.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
The difference in the action of test indicators is marked. Visually the Alina and the last word are virtual copies of one another. I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg but the Swiss interpretation is superior. I quickly added an Alina to my growing stable of test clocks. The one in the picture above stays setup for quick insertion into the height gage. One advantage to having more than a handful of indicators around is the savings in time locating and connecting all the diabolical jointed accessories needed to adapt the indicators to each specialized use.<br />
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I sometimes get the feeling that all the indicator manufacturers didn't talk to each other very much. At least the AGD stepped up and (American Gage Division) set some useful standards for dial indicators. I leave a few indicators setup for each of the most common applications in the shop. Over the course of a year that might be a significant amount of changeover time saved. At least that's my excuse when I see another one I want.<br />
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Another indicator I have been using more lately since the four jaw chuck was mounted for a long period of time is the old standard issue back plunger type. The upper indicator is a Starrett button back, but Lufkin, and Mitutoyo also make a nice one. I like it because it has a no messing around contact spring in it and .200 (5mm) travel. The large diameter button contact point doesn't see every little imperfection in rough stock like a fine tipped test indicator. It rules the roost for tramming the milling machine head as the button glides over the tee slots like they aren't even there.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivkWz8IbA_EecGjweQQSaedKE91lalsyOcFGWzJbANDTh4Rbxm8bMEd3YiIPOMYQ-EP2Nmgc_bUBjDm8s8BERN65xRhtEEFeu_j0SJRWtWB6ugDYZNl99B052i6-y2C2yKU5lLE9773UU/s1600/IMG_7225.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivkWz8IbA_EecGjweQQSaedKE91lalsyOcFGWzJbANDTh4Rbxm8bMEd3YiIPOMYQ-EP2Nmgc_bUBjDm8s8BERN65xRhtEEFeu_j0SJRWtWB6ugDYZNl99B052i6-y2C2yKU5lLE9773UU/s400/IMG_7225.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Once I discovered Alina test indicators I was keen to try some other models from the same maker. This K-24 became my defacto go to test indicator for many years. It has a crisp action and never seems to get sluggish or gummy. It has the added advantage of the small dovetail along two surfaces on the body so you can use a variety of clamping options. I still use the heck out of this one. In particular when I have the chuck in the mill and a small feature to probe. The ball joint is snug and it stays put when I twist the bezel to zero the dial.<br />
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Now we come to the nirvana of test indicators. If you haven't test driven one of these then you shouldn't unless you feel like spending $200+. The Interapid has some distinct advantages over some of the other indicators that I have shown. Two of the best features are the long range of movement, .060 (1.5mm) and no shift lever to go from one direction to the other. The action is like polished glass and as smooth as silk. About the only thing I can find fault with is the placement of the alternate mounting dovetails. For most of the time I leave this indicator set up in an Indicol holder. The holder allows me to sweep something in the mill without removing the tool. It also happens to fit on top of the Aloris toolpost as an alert You Tuber noticed the other day.<br />
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A simple trick I learned from a workmate not that many years ago was a simple way to position the indicator using the Indicol holder in the milling machine that saves time and headaches.<br />
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For maybe a thousand years I would just throw the Indicol holder and indicator on the spindle and indicate away. The only problem is when you sweep around the back you are bobbing and weaving to see the dial face that's hidden from view.<br />
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I've seen some guys use a mirror for this situation. I was too lazy to grab a mirror so I just did the bob and weave. Well one day I walk up to talk to this particular guy (Manny) and causally look at his setup. I mutter under my breath, crap. Manny asked me what was wrong? Oh nothing I replied, I just realized how lame I am. Crap I had even bought a vertical model of the Interapid indicator to "help" solve my problem. Now don't laugh too hard at me at least I can still learn a new trick once in a while. This is why I always say, keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.<br />
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Okay its pretty obvious when you see it right. The dial is facing up for the entire sweep,. I felt like a dunce for not figuring it out on my own.<br />
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The only other thing I think is worth mentioning is about magnetic bases. For many years I have used a Starrett double jointed rod type mag base. It has two knobs that have to be secured to lock the indicator in the desired position. Once again if this is all you know then everything is fine. The solid rod type is better than the ball jointed snake like holder that uses an internal cable to stiffen the ball segments. Great idea, but not quite superb execution.<br />
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When you have gotten used to riding a Honda for many years everything is hunky dory. Well when you hear a Ducati in the parking lot you always look. And one day you finally walk over for a closer look. Well now you have to have one.<br />
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Somebody let me try their Noga indicator stand. Immediately you feel the advantage. Its silky smooth and locks in any contorted position with a single knob which is just what you want with an indicator. I bought one straight away. In fact I like it so much I recently splurged and bought the little brother to my original. These holders can handle 3/8 (9.5mm) shanks and the test indicator dovetails without any loose adapters!<br />
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Here is the last indicator I want to show you. I saw this at a flea market and had to have it just for the USSR on the dial. I don't use it much since its metric. This thing is built like a Russian T-34 tank. I often think about machine tools and instruments from the former Soviet Union. They had a high level of technical prowess and manufacturing ability. Where are all the machines and equipment? I guess Russian machine tools and hardware is more readily available in Europe. We rarely see anything here in the United states. That was part of the appeal of this indicator. I tell people it came from a T-34 tank factory in the Ural mountains. I don't think its true but it sure makes a better story.</div>
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Thanks for looking.</div>
Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-85853798543223227142013-06-25T21:53:00.002-07:002013-06-25T21:53:56.778-07:00Machining Small Angles with the Tilt TableLast year we were faced with a tricky angle machining problem. The job was to machine some very small angles into an existing part used for precision alignment. Some background is in order to explain why we needed to machine such small angles.<br />
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Recently we built a linear particle accelerator to shoot lithium ions into a metal foil target to study warm dense matter as part of fusion energy research. In the heart of the accelerator are a series of high field pulsed solenoid magnets spaced apart along the length of the accelerator. These magnets are used to shape and kick the beam as it moves along the machine. For the function of the machine these magnets (27) all had to be very accurately aligned to one another and to the machine as a whole.<br />
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To compound the difficulty of aligning these solenoids they are inside an atmospheric pressure chamber buried deep inside a high vacuum chamber. Alignment, or even adjustment of the magnets after the machine was assembled would be impossible. The only choice was to align the magnets accurately prior to sealing them up inside the machine.<br />
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To start the process we built a special machine to measure the exact center of the magnetic field of each of the magnets before we sealed them up inside the machine forever. During winding and epoxy potting of the magnets small tolerances stack up to make each magnet somewhat unique. Each of the magnets was installed in its own special housing that also had small differences adding to a system error or offset. The magnet measuring machine uses a stretched wire that passes through the solenoid opening. The magnet is pulsed during testing which caused the wire to vibrated with a waveform we can analyze. The wire can be moved in space until the exact magnetic center is found nulling the vibrations. The basic problem is the magnetic center is not necessarily at the same position as the mechanical center of the physical magnet.<br />
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Now here is the trick part. Because we know where the wire is precisely, determined by using a laser diodes and micrometers to sense the wire. We can now transfer those measurements to the physical part of the support structure that houses the magnets and align the magnet accurately to the structure. Over forty feet our alignment target was a cylindrical tube shaped tolerance zone one millimeter in diameter. When I describe the problem to non technical folks I ask them to imagine aligning 30 individual pencil in space in almost all spatial orientations X, Y, Z pitch, yaw with a foot between each pencil and have them place a dot on a piece of paper within a circle one millimeter in diameter.<br />
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Each magnet had to be aligned to a angular tolerance of ten milliradians or less in tilt and less than 30 microns in X and Y. To provide alignment adjustment there is a system of flexures that are used to align the magnets for tilt and XY displacement. All this is pretty straightforward until you find out there are large magnetic forces axially along the solenoid axis when each magnet pulses. This force was calculated to be around 900 lbs.<br />
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Here is where our machining problem comes in. We needed end spacers to trap the magnet axially in its cavity to prevent it from moving. The spacers needed to be accurate in thickness and have a very specific angle machined into them to match the tilt error of each solenoid and housing. To make it even more interesting the spacers were round to fit the end of the solenoid magnets. What this added to the mix was a radial orientation that had to match.<br />
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To do this job we used a special tilt table that I built many years ago. Angle setups are among the most difficult and demanding jobs that most machinists encounter. If your angular setup is not perfect the results will be sub-optimal. I personally use the sine bar for many of my angular setups because they are easy to use and very accurate. In the case of these special spacers the angles were very small, on the order of one tenth of a degree. The sine bar can easily handle small angles like this but the work holding part of the job made it a better job for the tilt table. One problem with sine bars is the limited options for mounting parts directly to them for machining. Somebody out there invent a Kurt vise that has sine rolls built into the bottom and a good way to lock it to the table for real machine work.</div>
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The scientist taking the measurements gave us the angular data as a dimension over a distance with a radial clocking reference. So we might get numbers like .015 inches over the diameter of the spacer which was 8.5 inches. Saying it another way is .015/8.5 which describes the angle enough for machining. Using the tilt table its a simple matter to set this angle using a dial indicator and a parallel.<br />
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The angle is set by traversing along the parallel a fixed distance (in this case 8.5) and noting the indicator displacement. The angle is adjusted by turning rest screws that bear against the top of the vise.<br />
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In this shot you can see how the tilt table works. A steel rod is attached to the table working surface and clamped in the vise. The table can pivot on this rod to angles up to around fifty degrees from the horizontal. Obviously the rest screws will not touch at those high angles. There are a several ways to set an angle using the tilt table. In addition to the method above using an indicator to measure along a fixed distance angle blocks and electronic levels can be used depending on accuracy needs.<br />
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In this shot a fixed angle block is being used to set the tilt table angle. The angle plate can be substituted for a small sine bar.<br />
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The underside of the tilt table showing the clamp and pivot rod attachment to the plate.<br />
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Setting a quick angle with an electronic level. This particular level has the ability to re-set the origin on any reference surface.<br />
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Because the top surface of the tilt table is festooned with tapped holes I can use it with the mini pallet strap clamps for a variety of workholding options. I find it most useful for longer low angle work such as doctor blades or single bevel cutting edges. The table is most stable when set to a low angle and its long clamping surface provides lots of holding options for the work.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-87924429838539432862013-06-02T19:41:00.002-07:002013-06-02T19:41:29.597-07:00Heavy duty lathe steady restRecently I started a large (secret) project for my wife that will take the better part of a year to complete. Right away I realized there were some missing infrastructure items that would be required that would be hard to built right in the middle of the larger project. The first tooling deficiency I ran into was my lathe steady rest.<br />
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The large Yam lathe I bought last year came with a significant amount of tooling. A three point steady rest was one of the tooling pieces. Initially everything looked pretty sweet. My large secret project has need of several long large diameter shafts which is one reason I chose this particular lathe. I figured get the big Conan lathe first and hold out for the sweetheart deal on a really nice smaller lathe when it appears in my machinery shopping sights.<br />
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During the secret project design phase I made a decision that was connected to the lathe acquisition. Since it is so long I decided to increase the basic size of the project considerably. Hey, if you're going to go to the trouble and expense to build your own secret project then go for the gold medal. Who the heck wants a bronze anyway?<br />
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So it turns out the steady rest that came with my lathe is way too small. It can pass 7.85 through the frame and I need to pass at least eight inches through. So this is how a tooling project is born. A steady rest is a pretty straightforward project in a machine shop. There is nothing too fancy or critical to the proper functioning of a steady rest so if your lathe is missing one I encourage you to go ahead and make one.<br />
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First order of business was to take some measurements of the stock Yam steady rest. The only semi important number is the center height off the ways. From these measurements its easy to develop the larger size I need.<br />
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For the new steady rest I wanted anti friction roller tips instead of the bronze tips that the stock Yam unit has. I figured if I was going to build one I'd make it slightly different and better just for good measure. Roller tips mark the work less but have a nasty habit of sucking chips between the roller and the work. Non rotating tips generally don't allow chip between the work and the rip but at the the expense of marking the work more and with higher friction. Its a common and simple enough matter to make a thin plastic shield to keeps chips from finding the roller tips.<br />
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Measuring the vee way depth on the stock steady rest. I got lucky that it was a ninety degree angle instead of some oddball thing.<br />
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The large steady profile was cut from the electronic layout you see above. Material used is one and a half inch thick steel plate. I added some extra material in the center and at the bottom so I could cut the profile in half and still clean up the machined surfaces and end up with a proper circular opening.<br />
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Check out the awesome oxy fuel cutting provided by <a href="http://www.nowellsteel.com/" target="_blank">Nowell Steel </a>in Antioch. These guys do all my heavy steel cutting. Talk to Ted or Chris if you need some steel cut.<br />
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I scribed the base block directly off the stock steady rest. This was just for the roughing of the vee groove. Once I was close I started taking measurements for precision depth.<br />
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When the groove was shallow I had to use my multi-anvil micrometer because the pin was above the surface. These handy versatile micrometers have the ability to measure from a flat surface up as well as a multitude of other measurements. Once the gage pin was below the surface of the block the normal depth micrometer could be used with more stability.<br />
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I used the trusty Doall vertical band saw to split the profile. It took about ten minutes to make the split I left material between for machining the ears to thickness after the saw cut. I still have to make the latch and hinge for the two halves. All the time I was sawing the profile I was wondering which way it would spring. This is one good reason to cut a profile as a closed shape. In particular if you use a heat producing process. If I would have waterjet cut this I most likely would have cut them as halves with a small amount of material for machining. On this thickness of material the oxy fuel process is faster and cheaper. My time is free in my shop.<br />
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This is the clamp plate that secures the steady rest to the underside of the lathe. The bolt will pass through the bottom of the steady rest and be tightened from topside.<br />
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This last weekend I worked on the roller guides. There was quite a bit of work in these puppies. Early on I thought I wanted a single side support with a stud type cam follower. I was looking at one of the lathes in the main shop the other day and it had a very nice roller setup on its steady rest. The lathe was a Cazeneuve. Once I decided to make the support double sided it doubled the amount of work in these parts. My milling machine looks like a steel sliver bomb went off near it.<br />
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The axels for the cam followers are made from the hardened shanks of shoulder bolts. The shaft is clamped in the roller support tightly for minimum vibration.<br />
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I have been documenting the build with video. Check out the<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/oxtoolco" target="_blank"> Oxtoolco YouTube </a>channel if you want to see some live machine shop action on this project.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-30502586138600414502013-05-19T16:08:00.003-07:002013-05-19T16:08:46.212-07:00Simulated Dovetail Knurling Tool<div style="text-align: left;">
One of my blog readers suggested a subject regarding knurling in the lathe. He had watched one of my YouTube video's where I ask viewers to submit their metalworking problems. If I think the problem is of general interest to the community and will make a good presentation I'm all for it.</div>
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The first problem I ran into on this request was I don't actually have a knurling tool holder. I have never bothered to buy one because their expensive and don't get used that much. Typically I will put a gripping surface on a knob or handle with a different method, partly because I don't have a knurling tool. Your classic catch 22 self fulfilling prophecy.</div>
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What I was able to do to move forward on this project was to borrow a smaller knurling tool holder and make a new quick draw simulated dovetail tool block that fits my large Aloris tool post.</div>
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Here is the knurling holder I was able to borrow. It fits an baby AXA sized tool post and my lathe uses the Conan arm breaking CXA size. Aloris in their wisdom at least made the knurling head separable from the tool block probably so they can do the same thing I was planning on doing. </div>
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After dissecting the holder you can see how it was attached to the AXA tool block with two cap screws and a pair of locating dowels. Now all I need to do is make a CXA sized block that has the same bolt pattern in it. </div>
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Scrounging around the steel bin I found some likely accomplices for the tool block. The larger round bar is for the height adjustment knob that rides on the stud in your typical Aloris tool holder.</div>
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A few months ago I wrote an article about this Skeleton tool holder concept. I made this one to hold my button indicator in the lathe so I didn't take up a valuable tool block to keep an indicator set up all the time. This is when I had the four jaw mounted on the lathe for a long period of time. The rods that interface to the Aloris toolpost are .500 diameter. When spaced correctly with my handy dandy rod spacer they form a facsimile of the dove tail cut in a normal tool block. My reasoning for doing it this way is one, I have some smaller material I can use right now to make a block, and two cutting large dovetails like on a CXA tool block takes a long time. I figure for a tool that I won't use that often it will be just fine.</div>
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I had to add some to the front face of the new block so the dowel pins would have some meat around them. Welding was a quick way to widen the face instead of the alternative which was start with a much larger piece and hog off most of it. I didn't have larger piece so this is it.</div>
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Here is the block all welded up with the simulated dovetail rods. Time for some knob action.</div>
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So here is the catch 22 part. I don't have a knurling tool so I added some circular cutouts to provide a gripping surface to the knob. I suppose I could have waited and knurled the adjustment knob as the first test part. The stock Aloris tool posts use a 7/16 stud of all things. I only had 3/8-16 studs in stock. I like to use long set screws for fixed studs like this. They are easy to bottom out in a tapped hole and get tight with the internal hex drive. The ID of the knob is tapped to fit the stud to provide the height adjustment. Incidentally the knob is 1.38 in diameter. I held it down with a single 10-32 screw in the center to do the fluting. I mention it because most machinists would probably prefer a larger screw. When torqued down a little 10-32 can give over a thousand pounds of clamping force. The fluting cuts were done with a 1/4 inch end mill. </div>
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So here is the finished product. Now I can set up to do the knurling video demonstration. Sometimes its easy to find the long way around. I like to think of it as a nice walk in the woods before you get to your destination.</div>
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Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-22017028273162571242013-05-13T19:09:00.003-07:002013-06-03T17:13:35.800-07:00What are friends for?The planets finally aligned for a friend of mine recently. While scanning Craigslist for interesting items I found something that caught my interest. The price was a little steep but it looked like a nice specimen. The listing didn't have a phone number so I sent the seller an email inquiring about the item. I always include my phone number in the hope that the seller will respond likewise and include theirs. To my surprise the seller called me. We spoke for a while on the phone about the machine I had written about. After talking for a while he mentioned some other equipment he wanted to sell. I quizzed him on the other machines and struck pay dirt. Well almost pay dirt. A friend of mine has been looking for a 2 axis CNC <a href="http://www.southwesternindustries.com/index.php/products/category/trak_knee_mills" target="_blank">Prototrak milling machine</a>. This guys wanted to sell one. As soon as I got off the phone I called Marty and gave him Kent's contact information. This was the best situation you could ask for. It was not actually on the market yet so there was not a line of competitors going around the corner. I threw the whole thing over the fence to Marty and let him run the touchdown for the score.<br />
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A couple of days later I get a call, "So what are you doing this weekend? Want to help me move a milling machine?" Heck yes I do was my instant reply. Tell me where and when. Marty made the deal and now we are on the hook to get this large milling machine out of a little rats nest of a shop No offense to Kent but his busy shop is loaded with tools, equipment and materials and not much air space. In fact it took a week of prep work on his end just so we could access the machine that Marty bought. Sounds like an adventure to me. Mentally I started my list of tools and equipment that I would bring to the party.<br />
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The day started with an excited friend pulling a trailer arriving. I had my pile of gear ready to go but Marty convinced me a lot of it wasn't needed. A little voice in my head was telling me to just go ahead and load it anyway. But the lazy guy won out. At least the <a href="http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?P65=&tool=all&item_ID=647534&group_ID=682341&store=snapon-store&dir=catalog" target="_blank">adjustable head prybar</a> made it on the truck.<br />
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As we pulled up to Kents shop my riggers eye was surveying the slanted driveway and low garage door opening. Kent's shop is located in his one and a half car garage and extends into the basement and crawlspace of the three story house. I hopped out of the truck to guide Marty into the garage and noted a drainage swale and asphalt rim right at the entrance to the garage. <br />
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Ok I don't know about you but what kind of architect designs a driveway sloping into the garage without proper provision for runoff? This seems like house design 101 to me. Water has to go somewhere and its usually down hill. The pipsqueak swale the architect specified apparently is easily overwhelmed during a good rain. Kent did what he had to do to defend his shop from flooding by adding the asphalt rim to the undersize swale to protect his garage from flooding. All this is just complaining on my part because we had to deal with the drainage swale and rim while trying to move a 3200 lb machine. <br />
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You know the job is starting out on the wrong foot when the owner tells you, "Oh by the way we need to move this lathe out of the way first" On top of that we cant disconnect the power from it either. Ok, lets move the lathe first. <br />
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I didn't get as many pictures as I normally would like. I gave the camera to one of Kent's buddies to shoot progress pictures while we worked. I guess he is from the film camera era where you only get 24 shots per roll. He came up a little light on quantity but I'm glad he did what he did. <br />
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Moving the Tuda lathe wasn't too bad. They already had it most of the way up when we got there. All we had to do is lift it a little higher and get the <a href="http://www.hilmanrollers.com/" target="_blank">Hilman rollers </a>Kent had under the machine. We barred it as far out of the way as the electrical would let us to give us room to work on the mill.<br />
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The general idea was to raise the machine enough to get a pallet jack under the mill. We used a bar and my wood wedges to slowly elevate the machine. I'm doing the bar work and Marty is slipping the wedges under the machine. The wood wedges are great because they are infinitely adjustable unlike a pile of wood scraps. The angle of the wedges is low enough that there is no slippage under load. These are just doug fir four by fours cut at an angle. Hardwood might be better but I like to see the machine bite into the wood a little.<br />
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Once we had the machine raised enough for the pallet jack we sucked about ten years worth of chips and cat litter out from under the machine. Once the mill is on the pallet jack you can move it around quite easily and safely. This particular mill is quite heavy. Its a 10 x 50 with box ways and a 40 taper spindle. Bridgeports are like drill presses compared to this machine. It really is a two person show to move one of these.<br />
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It took a couple of tries with the pallet jack to get the right center of gravity. This oversize mill is heavier on the front side because of the massive knee casting. Once we found the spot where the machine was stable one person could push it around easily. We danced around the garage for a while trying to get the machine lined up with the trailer. There was a lot of backing and filling to orient it for the tug into the drop bed trailer.<br />
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My empire for a come along right about now. I really wanted to just gently winch the machine into the trailer with a controlled simple setup. When Marty picked me up in the morning I had everything we would need all laid out. When we started talking he had some of the rigging equipment already and had spoken to the seller, Kent who had a bunch of stuff also. Red warning beacons should have been going off in my head.<br />
<br />
OK, here is my wisdom for all eternity. Take everything you will possibly need to do the job with you when you leave. Pretend your going to the moon and there will be nothing available to use except moon dust. Marty convinced me to break my rule and we suffered because of it. Kent didn't have a come along of any kind. What he did have was a <a href="http://www.harborfreight.com/2000-lb-electric-atvutv-winch-with-automatic-load-holding-brake-68146-8041.html" target="_blank">Harbor Fright 12VDC cheapco winch.</a> The winch was attached to a section of thin wall pipe with U bolts. To operate the winch we had to attach a battery charger to the leads for the 12V supply. Definitely a jury rig.<br />
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Well what are you supposed to do? You cant stand around and whine about it. Just start and get cracking. We strapped the winch to the front of the trailer with some motorcycle straps to reinforce the weeny winch assembly. There was a up slope going into the trailer because of the driveway. We managed to span the swale after a dozen tries backing the trailer into the garage. Marty's truck is a diesel so that operation probably took a few years off my lifespan.<br />
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To my surprise the cheapco winch actually pulled the machine up into the trailer. It was a bit herky jerky with the battery charger as the power supply but not bad compared to my expectations.<br />
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So I know Marty is feeling better about now. The machine is safely in the trailer and fully under control. We took it off Kent's pallet jack. Here is where it would have been great to leave it on the pallet jack and block and strap it down. It would have saved us two machine lifts if we would have brought my pallet jack. This is where the adjustable head pry bar earned its price tag. With all the trailer structure around you couldn't use any kind of a long bar. It really saved the day.<br />
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Thanks to the machinery gods the road trip was very un-eventful. Just the way you want it when your hauling iron like this at sixty miles per hour. Now for the exhausting part.<br />
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Marty's garage is west facing so it gets the full brunt of the afternoon sun. The weather was nice and warm in the eighties for this next part.We must have lost a few pounds of water weight unloading the mill.<br />
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Everything was a tight fit at this end of the job. I think Marty had an inch or two to back and fill between the telephone pole and the garage. He looked tired when I asked him to move the trailer over a few inches to the left in this picture.<br />
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Finally back on the ground. All we need to do now is get my wedges out from under the machine. Once we got it down you should have seen the look on Marty's face when I said, uh-ohh. The head was looking mighty close to the garage door.<br />
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I call that close but no cigar for Murphy. It clears by a whole inch and a half. Good thing this is not a drawbar machine.<br />
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You cant tell from this picture but this is one happy guy. All the hard work is worth it when you get to this point. It was almost as good as getting a new machine myself. Well not quite that good. That's what friends are for, to share some fun and enjoy a job well done.<br />
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I learned my lesson,<br />
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I hereby promise to take every bar, chain, strap, jack, wedge and scrap of lumber necessary to complete the job from this day forward.<br />
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Thanks for looking.Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-3961539018560076972013-05-03T18:29:00.001-07:002013-05-03T18:29:36.540-07:00What makes a Journeyman?Every now and then somebody asks me what I think the definition of a journeyman is. For such a simple question I find it can be a difficult concept to explain to people outside the trades. There are many aspects of the relationship between the apprentice and the journeyman, and the journeyman and the master craftsman that people cannot easily relate to. There are some close professional parallels, but the differences are enough that full appreciation is not an easy concept for me to explain.<br />
<br />
If you could wrap up the definition of a journeyman in a tidy bow, it might read that its a certain number of years
of experience at a given occupation or that the person has a particular
set of skills in a their chosen trade.This is the simplified explanation that I give when asked to explain what a journeyman is to curious people.<br />
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What is typically accepted as minimum requirements for journeyman status is 10,000 hours of direct work experience in a particular trade. That time is spent working with established journeymen and master craftsmen with roughly ten percent of that total time in an actual classroom setting such as college courses or accredited vocational training. <br />
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Here in the United States for many trades there are no established standards as to what makes a journeyman. Peer review and demonstrated knowledge of the trade is generally accepted for many occupations. Another rough rule of thumb to attain journeyman status is a minimum of four years combined with four different jobs. In the building trades written testing and state licensing are used to establish accepted journeyman status.<br />
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One of the key distinctions of a journeyman is that their broad work experience and practical skills allow them to teach and train others in their chosen trade. This giving back of knowledge is one of the most important contributions we as journeymen give our trade. We all stand on the shoulders of the people that have gone before us, so part of the requirement of the title is to help the less experienced.<br />
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A true journeymen will have enough trade knowledge and experience to work unsupervised. They have the earned the trust and autonomy to decide how the work will be handled and processed. This trade knowledge has been gained through more than a single work assignment. A single organization with average turnover does not provide the necessary critical mass of new ideas and the deep cross section of problems to create true journey level experience. The true journeyman has absorbed the experience through hours of training and work that now enable him or her to function maturely and independently on a wide variety of problems and situations. <br />
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Through years of work and observing others in our trades journeymen will continue to learn and can adapt their skills to the changing methods, materials and economic trends of the world around them. In the "olden days" the journeyman actually traveled around the country honing their craft and expanding their trade knowledge working for, and being vetted by several master craftsmen.<br />
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For me it has a much deeper, and emotional meaning. It is much more than a checklist of accomplishments completed. It is an attitude and ethic as well as a deep commitment to the craft, not just a simple toolkit of skills and a pile of time cards related to a given trade. <br />
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In the martial arts the relative ranking of the students is highly visible from the color of their belts. Talk to any black belt and you will be surprised to hear that the black belt is really just the beginning instead of the more popular belief that it is the highest achievement. The black belt in the martial arts and the journeyman trades person share that same starting point.<br />
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Just like the martial arts, the trades demand a similar level of humility and respect for the craft. You start at the bottom for a reason. This right of passage teaches the key ingredients in a way that bonds the person to the trade and the more experienced crafts people by common shared experience. Without the humble beginnings of every journeyman's career one cannot fully share and appreciate the journey. True journeymen are bonded together through the work and mutual respect of their achievements. The ability to cope with crappy work assignments, obnoxious co-workers and dismal working conditions is part of the tempering process that the apprentice goes through on the road to being a journeyman.<br />
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The title of journeyman must not be handed out casually. It reflects badly on all the people who's shoulders we are standing on to allow an apprentice to be awarded journeyman status, or a journeyman to be deemed a master craftsman without the proper depth and breadth of experience required for the title.<br />
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Early promotion and relaxed skill requirements handed out by the uninitiated diminishes every craftsman's gift of knowledge to the trade. The promotion without jury or real peer review does a tremendous disservice to the trade when its allowed to happen. Just as we would not want an unlicensed and untrained doctor performing surgery, or an airplane pilot with limited flight experience in the captains seat we don't want to promote inexperienced trades people just to placate a lack of patience and appreciation for the path our fellow craftspeople have left for us to follow.<br />
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Chop wood, carry water, clean the shop for a few years. And if you don't complain, we might let you pick up a tool and lend a hand. So if you really want to be a journeyman and a master craftsman follow these simple rules. <br />
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Suck it up.Work really hard. Learn to love your work. Be proud to let it define you .You wont be sorry.<br />
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Thanks for looking<br />
<br />
Tom Lipton<br />
<br />
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<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-47657834719775165702013-04-21T18:52:00.001-07:002013-04-21T18:52:24.731-07:00Pot Metal ProstheticOne of my neighbors dropped off a small part with my wife to see if it could be welded. Scott is a metalworker artist that lives down the street. He really doesn't have much of a shop and ends up building most of his sculptures out in the alley with his MIG welding machine. He builds metal animals and furniture with found objects, typically metal and aged wood. For this reason he is always on the lookout for metal objects for his work. I think the word is out to all his friends too because his pile seems to grow when any of them stops by or has some metal bit they don't want any more.<br />
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One of his recent acquisitions was a wood cutting vertical band saw. I didn't hear the story about where it came from but somehow it was damaged. If you have been following the blog then you know I have a soft spot for machinery repair. Add this onto the fact that Scott is a cool cat and fellow metalworker and you have the makings of a good project.<br />
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Looking at the part it appears the saw was tipped over and fell on the band wheel side of the machine. The part that he brought over is the bracket that does the upper wheel tensioning and blade tracking. Obviously this is a pretty important part. Scott was thinking it would be an easy welding job for TIG so he gave it to my wife to see if it could be welded. My wife is an extremely talented welder and immediately noticed it wasn't aluminum but non other than the dreaded pot metal.<br />
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Most welders have a couple of stories in their inventory about trying to weld pot metal. Nobody can really tell you what it is other than pot metal 101. The alloy contains all the most difficult to join materials all rolled into one alloy. Zincalumagleadalloy would be as accurate a description as pot metal as any. It is the scourge of the welding community. To a person it is hated everywhere. <br />
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The density is always the give away for me. Many of these materials that are collectively called pot metal contain high levels of zinc in them which is fairly dense. This is a common permanent mold casting material and was never intended to be repaired by any welding process or mere mortal. You can see in the picture the large chewy coarse texture of the break. My wife smartly tossed the job over the fence to me to see if I had any special tricks up my sleeve.<br />
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I took a look at the part and came to the same conclusion as my wife. Welding was not the way to repair this part. My second instinct was to see if you could easily buy one. Zinc is used for a reason, its very inexpensive to produce. If spare parts are available for this saw then I would guess this is a sub $10 piece. But where's the fun in that? I do this stuff because I like to. Its pretty cool when you hand back a job and the customer is totally blown away by something you had fun doing. For this reason I decided to make a completely new part from scratch. I shot a bunch of video so check out the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/oxtoolco" target="_blank">oxtoolco YouTube </a>channel in a couple of days to see live action.<br />
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The first step was to take some measurements of the original part and make a shop sketch. I find this light marinating helps me form the plan of attack for the work sequence as I measure and examine a piece like this.<br />
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The first step was to rough out a rectangle the same size as the exterior of the sample part. I started with 1-1/4 thick 6061 plate. Band sawed then milled on all six sides. In general with a part like this with some curves and steps you try to keep it square and blocky as long as you can so its easy to pick features up and hold on to the part. I poked all the holes in it when I had it in the mill. The original part had a shaft pinned in place in the .590 hole. I bored this hole so the pin is a press fit. The reason for this is the roll pin was put in willy nilly and would be a pain to locate and re-use. With a press fit and maybe a setscrew as a chicken bolt the shaft is not going anywhere.<br />
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I decided to do the .940 bosses first. I made a quick holding spud to fit the large hole in the part accurately. This spud will be used to turn the bosses on either side of the part.<br />
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The spud is tapped to take a 1/2-13 bolt. The length is a whisker shorter than the length through the part so when the bolt and washer come up against the part it is clamped securely. The boss will be an interrupted cut so I used a large fastener to hold it to the fixture.<br />
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In this picture you can see the washer and bolt holding the part to the spud. I just tapped the washer into alignment so it didn't run out so much and get cut by the tool as I turned the boss to the correct diameter.<br />
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The next operation was to cut the small round bosses on the end of the part. I decided to do this in the four jaw chuck. I suppose I could have done it in the mill but I was in the mood for lathe work.<br />
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I had already put the small holes in so I had something to indicate on. With two chuck keys and a good indicator its easy to align something in the four jaw. I used to hesitate to use the four jaw chuck, but since getting my chuck changing setup down pat and having a second jaw key its really not a serious roadblock anymore.<br />
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This is after the four jaw work. The part is starting to look like something. Next step is cutting the radius on the outside of the part. For this I'm going to use an old time toolmaker technique to step the radius with a ball nose end mill. I have heard several names for this technique but the one I like the best is "Kellering".Keller machines generally followed templates or models but they made their cuts as a series of stepovers that look very much like this method.<br />
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Here is a screen shot of the layout for 5 degree steps with a 1/8 ball end mill. I plotted the coordinates in AutoCAD for the Y and Z positions on the left and the X positions on the right. Because of the boss I need to stop the tool short as I come into contact with the curve of the boss. All the coordinates are off the centerline so I can use the same numbers for the opposite mirrored half. Its a lot a numbers to keep track of but you can do some cool stuff with manual machines using this technique.<br />
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Here we are partway through the process. Its the same technique that modern day CAM software calculates the toolpaths for three dimensional milling.<br />
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Here is my cheat sheet. You see I marked off each set of coordinates as I used them. If I didn't do that then I would be lost after a few passes.<br />
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Here is the part right off the machine.<br />
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The X positions bumped into the boss by a small amount. At first I was puzzled why that happened. It turns out it was the small difference in the radius in the sample part. My Z touch off was on the smaller diameter when it should have been on the slightly larger size. For this part its not a big deal but it easily could have mattered. I like to go back and understand what went wrong so hopefully I don't do it next time.<br />
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Here is the completed part. I re-used the shaft out of the original part and pressed it into the new bracket with a couple of grand of interference. I heated the part with a propane torch to expand the diameter and make the assembly easier.<br />
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The curve was cut on the band saw and hand draw filed until it matched the original. I added the chicken set screw just in case. Here is one of the video's I shot that shows the fitting of the shaft into the new part.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/-wLn-3xCm1c?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
Be sure to check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/oxtoolco" target="_blank">all the video's in this series.</a> I had a some fun making the part and Scott is jazzed to get his saw going again. Its a win win dealeo.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-92191524104595302242013-04-11T19:58:00.001-07:002013-04-12T10:02:27.541-07:00Manual Helical Mill TurnWe had an interesting job come through the shop the other day. We have been working with a physicist who is taking magnetic measurements of the magnetic field quality of one of our large superconducting dipole magnets. He measures and maps the field generated by the magnet when the magnet is operational.<br />
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This entails that his magnetic measuring probe must move up and down through the bore of the magnet that is cooled to 4.2 Kelvin. He uses an interesting anti cryostat device inserted down the bore of the large magnet. And inside this his probe rotates, and is moved up and down axially through the bore of the magnet to map the magnetic field. The purpose of the anti cryostat is to keep the measuring probe at room temperature when it is inserted in the super cold bore of the magnet.<br />
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The problem we were asked to solve was a failure of a plastic part at the end of the magnetic measuring probe that couples to the rotational motor. During the test run this part somehow got warm, and the small set screws holding the coupling to the probe collapsed the probe end. There are very small instrumentation wires that pass through the center of the coupling and the probe end that really don 't like to get twisted around. <br />
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The part that had failed had some semi-complex geometry so the way they were manufactured was by the 3D printer or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_deposition_modeling" target="_blank">FDM process.</a> This was fine for previous tests and the parts performed well. On this particular test there was a heating problem that caused the FDM parts to soften and fail. The first step was to make the probe end out of something a little more durable. We had a good sample and a drawing so I gave the job to one of the new technicians to fabricate. We chose PEEK for the probe end material. This is a tough strong high performance plastic that has a wide operational temperature and excellent machinability.<br />
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While the probe end was being fabricated I had another discussion with the scientist and we decided that the failure was most likely from eddy current heating of the metal bearing spacer that happens to ride on the probe end. With this realization we decided to try to eliminate as much metal from this particular area as possible.<br />
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One of the parts that needed to be made of some non metallic material was a small <a href="http://heli-cal.com/cm/Products/Flexible-Couplings/Home.html" target="_blank">helical shaft coupling</a>. This type of coupling is used because of its zero backlash ability. The magnetic measurements are correlated to the probes position inside the magnet with rotary and linear encoders so a map of the field can be determined for that particular magnet configuration.<br />
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Our task was to duplicate this coupling in PEEK as quickly as we could, with stuff we had around the shop. There is limited measuring time and the cost per hour of the large magnet test is quite high so speed was important. I scrounged some tooling together and formed a plan of attack.<br />
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This is just the kind of job many machinists love to do. A tricky job with a minimum of detailed constraints, and the freedom to do the job anyway you can. The only thing that machinists generally don't like is the time constraint. When I was learning this stuff I would have liked to sink my teeth into a job like this every day of the week. In fact, I have never done this type of operation before. Sure, I've cut lots of helices and all manner of threads, but I never had to make a coupling like this. Honestly I really wanted to do this one myself but now its more important for me to allow other folks to have the experience and successes in the trade.<br />
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Part of the tooling we needed was a special holder to fit in the toolpost of the lathe. I made a quick hand sketch and gave the job to the other new technician I'm looking after. If this was going to work we would do it as a team. The tool block was needed to hold the hand piece of a <a href="http://www.foredom.net/" target="_blank">Foredom tool</a>. <br />
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The general plan of attack was to use a thin saw blade mounted on the tool post to cut the helical groove in the coupling. I had a couple of small saws with arbors that would fit in the Foredom tool.<br />
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The blade width with was pretty close to the cuts on the sample. Definitely close enough for this operation. So both technicians, Matt and Nick were busy prepping the tooling and coupling blanks at this point. <br />
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There was a little more to the setup than mounting the slitting saw in the lathe. We wanted to match the pitch and number of flexures on the sample coupling as closely as we could with the tooling we put together. A quick calculation gave the helix angle of the "thread" we were going to cut. The pitch on the coupling was 12.5 TPI which is a bit of an oddball. We went with 12 TPI because this would thicken the flexure membrane a little and the Monarch could do this pitch.</div>
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From this calculation we get the helix angle of the thread which we use to set the compound rest and the tool holder.</div>
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We also had to pitch the toolholder at the same angle since the tool we were using extended below the machine center line. If you look at the picture above showing the hand piece clamp you will see a set screw in the tongue of the holder. This was used to tip the tool in the Aloris holder to the helix angle. </div>
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The idea was to use the lathe as a synchronization and holding tool as opposed to a machine tool. This little Monarch 10EE has a nice DRO so we could control the Z axis position well. We set the threading levers to our pitch (12 TPI) and engaged the half nut. We then ran the saw up to the face of the part by hand with the threading lever engaged and picked off the Z position.</div>
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The saw was set on centerline because I couldn't think of a reason why is should be anywhere else.<br />
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The first pass was to see how things went. PEEK is easy to get hot so we had the koolmist setup going. The saw blade would be passing through quite a bit of material so I was worried about overheating the material.<br />
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Here Nick has done a few passes along the helix. We used the DRO to reference the start and stop positions of the groove. When the end was reached he backed out the compound that was set at the helix angle and then just hand reversed the spindle by hand to get into position for the next pass. There was a fair amount of backlash in the system but with the DRO it was easy to get back to the start. Nick and Matt cut the helix on their own. I had to go to a meeting right around the time they were cutting the helix. There was enough time for me to try my hand at one pass. So I did get to actually try it. Thanks Nick and Matt for giving me a go at it.<br />
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The results speak for themselves. Not bad for throwing some stuff together in a few hours. So with some Yankee ingenuity and some curious and willing teammates you can get a tricky job done and have some fun too. I know I still feel satisfied and proud even when I didn't turn the cranks myself. It would have taken me three times as long if I had to do all of the work myself. This is an excellent example of how team work can pay off. <br />
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We shot some video of the operation which I will put up on my YouTube channel in the next couple of days.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-77448301657705307402013-04-03T17:54:00.001-07:002013-04-04T16:34:49.465-07:00Squareness Comparator Gage Finale, finallyI finally felt bad enough to go ahead and really finish the <a href="http://oxtool.blogspot.com/2012/11/squareness-comparator-part-1.html" target="_blank">squareness comparator</a> I started a few months ago. Part of the reason is I'm close to heat treating a couple of 8620 cylindrical squares that will be used with the comparator to check squareness in the shop to very close limits. There will be a separate article on the cylindrical square fabrication. It all needs to be done to make a nice article about it.<br />
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The first step toward completion was to break down and buy a few carbide balls for the wear surfaces on the bottom of the gage. These are standard McMaster Carr items. In fact everything on the gage was sourced from our friends in yellow and green. These ball were then pressed into holes in the bottom plate and then ground flat into a good size bearing spot.<br />
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The carbide balls are .375 diameter and the press fit was about .002 on the diameter. With a ball you have very little diameter in contact with the hole so they can use more interference and still be pressed together easily without having to bore the holes to a .0002 tolerance. If the rest pads were cylindrical I would have only used .0002 interference for the amount of axial engagement.<br />
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The Bridgeport quill and a good chuck make a great precision arbor press. If I need to remove them for some reason I can drill from the other side and punch them out. There is plenty of meat left on the balls for several lifetimes of re-surfacing for even the fussiest toolmaker.<br />
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I started to grind the balls flat on the surface grinder but it was taking too long with all the traversing across the part. I took the base out and roughed them on the carbide tool grinder until I was happy with the spot size then came back and finish ground the flats all smooth and coplanar. They don't need to be ground for function specifically but its nicer on the surface plate with larger flats.<br />
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The finished base plate of the comparator gage.<br />
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Close up of the wear feet and spot size.<br />
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Finally finished. It took a couple of months of walking by the thing every day to make me finish it.<br />
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I did make one modification that is not on the drawings I posted on the blog. I was using it one day for a squaring job and I realized that the indicator wouldn't go low enough for the part I was checking. I looked at the indicator bracket and saw a simple solution to allow the indicator mount to drop another inch lower.<br />
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By flipping the indicator mount over the offset goes down lowering the indicator stylus. The only thing I needed to do was cut a relief into the mount for the back cap of the indicator. It was literally a five minute job. Depending on the indicator you use it may not need this relief cut.<br />
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So that concludes the squareness comparator gage. Sorry it took so long to get to the end.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-25436710824078120222013-03-27T17:26:00.001-07:002013-03-27T17:26:20.001-07:00Caltech Instrument Shop TourA few weeks ago you may have read a couple of my blog posts about a road trip down to Pasadena. We were working on the Caltech campus doing an installation of a telescope enclosure on top of the isotope handling building. I took a weeks vacation to help my good friend Don out with the work and have some fun.<br />
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While we were there I took a couple of "Breaks" and did a little recon around the campus on my own. It was surprisingly open and recon-able. I did my usual thing of acting like I belonged where ever I happened to be. In one corridor I stopped to read some articles on a bulletin board and an article about one of the campus machine shops caught my eye. Next to eating a good shop tour is one of my favorite activities.<br />
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The project manager of the telescope project came out one morning to check out the progress we were making on the enclosure. I had nothing to lose so I asked if he could make an introduction and get us a tour of the <a href="http://www.its.caltech.edu/~tishop/" target="_blank">instrument shop.</a> He readily agreed this should be easy. His only question was which shop? Apparently there are at least seven machine shops on campus. I blurted out, "the biggest one". <br />
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While we were waiting for our introduction we took a walk to the student store to pick up some Caltech swag. I work at Berkeley Lab, so wearing a Caltech shirt to work is something about as inflammatory as wearing a Giants jersey to a Dodgers game but with scientists. On the way to the student store my finely tuned machine shop nose smelled cutting oil in the air. I peeked through an open door where and was greeted by the familiar smell of way lube and soluble oil. Nobody was around so I left with a mental note to come back and snoop it out.<br />
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On the last day we finally made the connection to the person that runs the instrument shop. Now all we had to do is find it. The shop I smelled when we were walking around campus belongs to the aeronautics department and was not the shop we had an invite to. We found that out by sticking our heads in the door and asking for our tour guide. It turns out the instrument shop is in the basement four floors down in the physics building.<br />
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We went in and headed down the stairs. Two floors down we saw what looked like a shop entrance and poke our heads in. It turns out it was a researchers semi private play shop and not the one we were looking for. The nice scientist that spoke with us directed us to the very bottom of the building for the instrument shop.<br />
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Here is a shot of the entrance to the Lauritsen physics building. In all our walking around I was impressed by the architecture and the peacefulness of the courtyards and campus in general. Pools ponds and courtyards with old trees and nice ironwork all around.<br />
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We finally made it to the shop where we were supposed to meet our host. Merih Eken the shop supervisor greeted us and gave us a nice tour of his well equipped machine shop. The instrument shop has a good mix of manual and CNC equipment to service the varied needs of their customers. The one limitation seems to be their location. Actually it may not be a limitation at all. Because the shop is in the basement it limits the size of the equipment that can be moved from the ground floor. The freight elevator has a limited size and load capacity. This ultimately limits the equipment size and the size of the jobs they can do. Not necessarily a negative situation. Given a choice most machinist would love to work on Bridgeport and Hardinge sized machining jobs. So if you want to work on small parts on friendly sized machines put your shop in the attic or the basement.<br />
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Lots of tool grinders around. If its anything like our shop the grinders outnumber the operators almost two to one. In the olden days we had to grind all our own tool bits. I bet there is a drawer in this shop somewhere with two hundred pounds of high speed steel lathe toolbits.<br />
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I really like the two headed drill press. This is a pretty cool setup in a drill press. Many times drill press operations are at least two tools. If you have a setup like this you can drill and ream, or drill and tap with a quick easy to setup machine.<br />
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Check out the ropes on the power breakers. In our shop we have to maintain three feet in front of all of our electrical panels. If you have a few panels this translates into a bunch of square footage that is lost and unusable for real work. Having your breakers above the floor like this reclaims the panel clearance floor space.<br />
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Merih told us this lathe is reserved for students only. This is secret code for all the staff machinists hate this lathe so lets give it to the students to learn on.<br />
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I'm betting the students don't get to use this lathe much. If you cant do good work on a Hardinge HLV-H then you should think of something else you might want to do. They wont peel a quarter inch on a side in stainless but they will hit tenths all day long. If you have never threaded on a Hardinge then you have something to look forward to.<br />
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This is one of the larger CNC mills in the shop. Apparently they had to take the thing partway apart to get it in elevator. These Haas tool room mills have a nice open configuration that's easy on the back to load vises and parts. <br />
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Check out the cool little clamp rack in the background. I hate clamps thrown in a drawer and its a pain if you have to loosen each clamp to release it from its storage rack. This slick setup is a real grab and go arrangement.<br />
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One of the larger Columbian vises I have ever seen. Funny I didn't see any soft jaw covers for this one. That handle and how high the vise is could make a dentist rich.<br />
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I really have a soft spot for radial drills. This is a real nice Fosdick that's not too big and not too small. Unfortunately these don't see much work in the average shop anymore. Betcha there are some big drills in that cabinet next to the drill. <br />
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This area had a monorail hoist servicing it. Not sure how they use it. My guess is it was set up for some other shop configuration that is lost to time. About the only thing it could service at all is the Fosdick radial drill. <br />
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For those of you that know this is a really nice surface grinder. Power feeds on all the axis and solid Okamoto accuracy. I got the feeling they don't do much grinding in this shop. Outsourcing professional grinding services is pretty easy so its not surprising to see this fine machine not used very often.<br />
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This shot could be a student shop on any campus, in any town. I have a similar room in our building. The cross section of materials and shapes defies any organizational methods or tracking systems. I'd be willing to be they ten kinds of bronze and six or eight ceramic grades in amongst your pedestrian steel and aluminum alloys. <br />
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Almost all the CNC machines were humming when we toured. They program the machines with MasterCam and model with Solidworks.One thing I've noticed in southern California shops are KDK tool posts. In the San Francisco Bay area we see mostly Aloris tool posts. I don't know if its my imagination or there is something to my north south tool post observation.<br />
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Too bad I ran out of time. Nothing like being on vacation and finding yourself smack in the middle of people doing the things you like to do. I'm hoping the telescope enclosure needs some more work so I can continue exploring the shops on the Caltech campus.<br />
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A special thanks to Merih for talking time away from his work to show a couple of complete strangers around. If your ever up in the Bay area I will return the favor.<br />
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Thanks for looking.Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-23182976659101788522013-03-18T20:19:00.000-07:002013-03-18T20:19:50.382-07:00Jig Bore Worm Gear RepairWell folks I'm going for full web immersion. I have been shooting video of some of the small projects that normally I would be writing about. I'll tell you that a video certainly has more traction on the web than the measly written word. Don't worry, I'm not giving up on the writing, but If the response to a few amateur video's on broken metal parts is any indicator then it will definitely become part of my bag of tricks.<br />
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So the project now is the last broken major part on the Kearney and Trecker Autometric jig bore. The bracket that the worm shaft rotates in was broken during the tip over festival by the previous renter. I shot a video series of the repair so the written description will be shorter. The written blog article is a good format to show some of the more subtle closeups and higher resolution images.<br />
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<span id="goog_294848270"></span><span id="goog_294848271"></span> The first step was to remove the WWII vintage machinery green paint from the weld area. I was impressed to see that the Autometric company took the time to prime as well as paint a mundane worm gear bracket buried inside a machine. The paint is more than sixty years old but it was as good as the day it went on. Probably loaded with a bunch of good stuff like lead and toluene.<br />
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The crack fit back together really well. Its almost like a puzzle piece how nice it snaps back where it belongs. I tapped it into tight alignment and clamped it for welding.<br />
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Here its ready to be gouged for the weld prep. I used a die grinder with a carbide ball burr to root out the crack for welding. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the gouging but I did shoot some video.<br />
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Fast forward a bit. There was a slight misalignment of the two journals that was discovered during assembly that needed to be corrected. I blued and scraped the high spots with a triangular scraper until I had the journal fit the way it should be. For reference I'm using Ni-99 TIG welding rod for cast iron for this repair.<br />
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The backside of the bracket. You cant see it but I did weld all the way around the crack. The worm and thrust collar are held to the shaft with small tapered pins.<br />
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This is where the bracket lives. It has two positions, engaged so the worm is in mesh with the gear allowing angular indexing of the rotary table, and disengaged so that the main motor is free to rotate the rotary table/faceplate for lathe type operations. I thought it was interesting that when the worm is engaged it rotates the entire drive system. So when the handle is cranked you are actually turning the motor and all the belts you see in the picture.<br />
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As you can see in the pictures above this is not a real fine pitch worm and gear. Its something like 40:1 ratio I would guess. Not quite what you would expect for a precision rotary table.<br />
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The fellow I got the machine from dropped off the second spindle a few days after I got the machine. I'll be taking a look at that pretty soon. For now the focus is the electrical system. I want to get it running so I can test it out on something.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe94sJNuaJI" target="_blank">Check out the video series on the repair part 1.</a><br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
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Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-36194832982419236762013-03-15T23:07:00.002-07:002013-03-15T23:07:59.158-07:00Jig Bore Handwheel RepairA few weeks ago I told the story of how I ended up with a damaged Kearney and Trecker Autometric jig bore. As the machine sits in the shop I'm starting to get very curious how I might use this machine. Having a horizontal spindle is a very useful item in any machine shop. The question is how can I use this machine and is it worth the floor space it will take up. Regardless of all that I need to fix some of the damage from the previous owner and get it in running condition so I can play with it or trade it for something else.<br />
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Fortunately the damage to the machine was minimal. The nice cast iron handlwheels absorbed most of the energy from the tip over. The shafts that the handwheels were on were not bent so I was glad to discover that. I thought about just buying some similar sized commercial handwheels, but on closer inspection I had all the broken pieces of the cool old school cast wheels. This makes for a interesting repair job.<br />
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The wheels are around eight inches in diameter. I thought it was weird that they weren't the same diameter. Maybe this in one of the reasons they went out of business? Just looking at them they looked the same but when I measured the OD with calipers there was around three eighths difference in the OD. At least the center shaft size was the same at five eighths. What was needed here was a fixture to help me align the broken parts and keep everything concentric. Its important that the handwheel run reasonably true and in plane.<br />
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A simple plywood fixture was created to hold everything together. I started with the smaller OD wheel so I could re-cut the fixture for the larger wheel if it all worked. I just cut in from the side for the part with the hole. This allows me to squeeze the gap closed to actually clamp the part a little. All that I needed now was the center alignment shaft.<br />
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Got lucky that I had some five eighths steel rod around. I turned the end down because I didn't have a five eighths diameter Forstener bit. Forstener bits are the cats meow for accurate holes in wood. I'll pick up a five eighths Forstener this weekend. I hate to be held up by tooling issues. <br />
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The handwheel in the assembly fixture. You can see I closed the gap up and shot a couple of screws into the ears to clamp the wheel tight.<br />
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I used a mini grinder with a <a href="http://www.walter.com/Walter/en-us/abrasives/cutting-wheels/angle-grinders-steel-stainless/zip-one" target="_blank">Walter abrasives Zip cut </a>disc to gouge the cracks for welding. The areas I couldn't reach with the grinder I ended up with a carbide burr on a die grinder. The goal here was to get this securely tacked up and do the welding out of my combustible fixture.<br />
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The welding rod I used is Ni-99 TIG welding rod. Its basically pure nickel rod. It works great for small cast iron repair jobs like this.<br />
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Once the wheel was securely tacked I could get it out of the fixture. The sequence was gouge and tack until I had all the cracks prepped for the welding. By this time the wheel was pretty warm which is just what I wanted. No need for a preheat on these other than from the tack welding. I don't have any temp sticks but my calibrated bare hand told me the wheel was around 150F when I got to the main welding. Not hot but not cold either.<br />
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As you can see the welding came out pretty good. I managed to save a piece of history. Later on I'll grind and finish the surfaces where your hands contact the wheel. Other than that I don't think I'll fill and blend all the welds.<br />
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I did do some experimental video shooting on this job. My still camera shoots OK video so I figured I'd try it out. Please comment and let me know if you like the written stuff better than video or vise versa.<br />
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There are more video's in this series on my YouTube channel oxtoolco. Check them out. I still have some to upload. <br />
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Thanks for looking.Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-17344889467216639942013-03-14T20:37:00.001-07:002013-03-14T20:37:01.936-07:00Hamburgers and Telescopes Part 2We discovered a <a href="http://pienburger.com/" target="_blank">great little lunch spot</a> right down the street from where we installed the Aqawan at Caltech. My first vacation lunch there consisted of a tuna melt with homemade macaroni salad, lemonade, a strawberry milkshake, and a piece of banana meringue pie. I have never seen banana meringue pie anywhere before. Needless to say I was stuffed and useless the rest of the day. But hey, I was on vacation anyway.<br />
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I getting hungry again looking at this picture. The installation of the roof panels went off without a hitch. There were quite a few mechanical details to take care of before we could actuate the roof clamshells.<br />
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In this picture you can see the roof opening and closing mechanism better. A common shaft is driven by two separate gear motors into a chain directly connected to the roof sections at each end. The black tubes house a steel counterweight that keeps the slack side of the chain tensioned. The gearmotors are 24V DC with 100:1 gear reducers. You can also see the vee groove track wheels that run on an inverted angle welded to the top of the frame in this shot.<br />
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A closer shot of the chain connection to the roof clamshell. The chain is driven by a sprocket keyed to the shaft. The upper and lower sprockets are just chain guides.<br />
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This is one of my favorite things. Since we didn't have the electrical control panel yet we had to operate the gearmotors someohow. Don is always thinking and came up with this field expedient tool to open and close the roof. You don't get too many actuations off a battery charge but you can open and close them.<br />
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We added sheetmetal to the ends and painted the whole thing. The painting was the worst part. The reflection in the hot sun combined with two coats of bright white paint made for some blinded painters. I managed to not get any paint on my shirt until the very last panel.<br />
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After all the hard work there was a little time to snoop around the Caltech campus. I'm telling you these kids have a great place to go to school. Just the architecture is impressive. All the lighting fixtures and door hardware are top of the line hand made artisan stuff. The walls between the stalls in the one restroom we were using were solid marble panels.<br />
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Looking toward the Millikan pond.<br />
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This beast caught my eye. Rock Island Arsenal Model 1890 on a 1900 mount.<br />
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Underneath was a cool differential square thread elevation adjuster.<br />
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A sample of some of the building facades. This is the<a href="http://www.rmi.org/CaltechLindeRobinsonLaboratoryLEEDPlatinum" target="_blank"> building</a> with the coelostat on the roof. <br />
As we were walking around I noticed an open door to one of the machine shops. When we got back to the Aqawan I spoke to the project manager and asked If he might make an introduction for me to get a short tour. He was more than happy to help out. Apparently there are quite a few machine shops on campus so there was some confusion as to which one to go see. I told him whichever was the largest one.<br />
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It turns out the largest machine shop on campus is in the basement of the physics building. Stay tuned for an article on my adventure in the basement.<br />
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Thanks for looking.<br />
<br />Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5191127048494995487.post-79892963473389219192013-03-10T22:19:00.002-07:002013-03-10T22:19:32.002-07:00Hamburgers and Telescopes Part 1For most people their idea of a vacation is to travel to a different
place with friends, relax and take in some sights, and eat a few good meals. If
that is the definition of a vacation then I guess this week long trip to southern California qualifies. <br />
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I have a good friend named Don who asked me to help him with an installation job in southern California. Don is one of those friends that is always there when you need him. I could call him right now and say I really needed his help and he would drop what he was doing and load up and be here in a few hours. He is one of those friends that you cant let down. He would never hold it against you if you couldn't make it but you better be almost dead if you wimp out or you will never hear the end of it.<br />
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A couple of months ago Don helped me <a href="http://oxtool.blogspot.com/2012/11/yam-farming-adventure.html" target="_blank">move the engine lathe</a> I bought using his heavy duty truck and trailer. The scales had definitely tipped in his favor so I was really on the owing side of the fence.When he asked for my help with this project I jumped at the chance to help out. Actually I would have helped him regardless. The installation was interesting to me technically and a great opportunity get out of town for a while with some friends.<br />
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Don has been building telescope enclosures for the :<a href="http://lcogt.net/" target="_blank">Las Cumbres Observatory telescope network</a>. He built one of the first prototype clam shell Aqawan enclosures three years ago and has building them for LCOGT ever since. Ultimately the non profit company wants to link an array of telescopes positioned all over the world and allow professional astronomers and citizen scientists to schedule time on the instruments. Most of the intended locations are remote and require the instruments to be protected from the weather by a remote controlled enclosure like the one below. Pretty nerdy stuff for a guy that is normally a cow puncher.<br />
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The Aqawan's have a tubular steel frame and two interlocking clam shell roof sections. The roof sections are driven by two 24v gear motors. Connections to the roof sections is by roller chain. Interestingly they are not counterbalanced at all other than to keep the chain tensioned. The corner of the enclosure that runs on the top edge of the wall rolls on a vee groove track roller.<br />
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My part in the story was volunteering to assist my friend Don with an installation on the top of a building in southern California. A group of <a href="http://www.caltech.edu/" target="_blank">Caltech</a> planet hunting astronomers are developing the next generation of detection instruments to find earth size planets by measuring tiny wobbles in distant stars. Ultimately the enclosure we installed at Caltech will be moved to a mountaintop in Arizona.<br />
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This adventure all started on a Sunday morning with loading the trailers with all the various Aqawan parts and tools. But first there were a couple of machining details to clear up.<br />
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This is Don's milling machine. Its actually an old Atlantic jig borer. He bought it from my old toolmaker friend Charlie that I have mentioned here on the blog. Its actually a nice little machine. My first task was to make some shackle plates for the trailer. This was more of a self preservation move on my part. After my last go around with these worn out heavily used trailers I jumped at the chance to save some road side repairs.<br />
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I just used a square scribed the hole centers and drilled them. Not very exciting as far as the machining world goes. I couldn't find a single scriber in the shop so I improvised and sharpened a drywall screw. I found a bunch of horseshoe nails but they aren't very hard.<br />
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It actually worked pretty well. These screws are pretty hard so it easily scratched steel. I'm sure it will be on the welding table the next time I visit.<br />
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The next assignment was to modify a couple of Aqawan parts to accept retaining roll pins. These are stops that are spring loaded that the enclosures halves close on. Normally I would never put an end mill in a nice Albrecht drill chuck but what the heck I'm on vacation why fight it. I'm going with the flow on this adventure.<br />
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We were ready to load the wall and clam shells sections onto the trailers. Don fired up the farm "forklift" and we rigged the sections up for lifting.<br />
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One of the wall sections of the Aqawan being moved out of the barn, I mean shop. We wanted the wall sections to stay vertical during transport to make the erection and unloading easier at the job site.<br />
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We managed to get everything loaded before dark. There were a few details to take care of in the morning before we shoved off the dock.<br />
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One of the important details was to install the new shackle plates I made the day before. The old ones were so worn the holes looked like slots.<br />
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After changing the plates we were off. I takes an hour to get from the remote site of the shop to the freeway. With trailers we were limited to less than sixty miles per hour. Its a long drive to LA at fifty five or sixty.<br />
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Its an even longer drive if you have to stop to repair the trailer along the way. I was in the truck following the creaky trailer and noticed some tire smoke off the right side when the trailer hit a big bump. We pulled off the road to make a few field expedient modifications.<br />
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This little block of wood saved the day. It lifted the spring just enough with the load on the trailer so the tire didn't rub on the trailer frame. It managed to stay in the whole trip down and back. <br />
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The remainder of the road trip was unremarkable other than some crappy fast food. We were able to drop the trailers at the installation site on the Caltech campus late the same night. The observatory dome on top of the <a href="http://www.rmi.org/CaltechLindeRobinsonLaboratoryLEEDPlatinum" target="_blank">building</a> you see in the background is not a telescope but a solar light director called a coelostat . The dome follows the sun all day long and pipes the sunlight throughout the building with fiber optics augmenting the buildings electric lighting. <br />
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This is the big installation day. We have a crane coming this morining to hoist the clamshells and wall sections into position on the building.<br />
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Most of this building is below ground. Only about three feet of the building is above grade. It is the isotope handling building where they do some work with radioactive materials. Don had poured the small slab and telescope footings you see in this picture on a previous trip. <br />
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The crane showed up right on time. We jumped right into it rigging up the first set of shells and walls. The trailers are parked behind the trees you see on the sides of the crane. The radius was only about thirty feet but the height we needed to clear the trees was pretty good.<br />
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<a href="http://www.shamrockcrane.com/Equipment.html#anchor_144" target="_blank">Shamrock crane</a> sent a neat little five ton rig built on a Ford F-750 chassis. Mike the operator told us he can pick a thousand pounds sixty feet straight out which is fairly impressive. The clamshells and wall sections are fairly light but the crane access was pretty limited.<br />
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One of the long wall coming over the pesky tree. We needed to set the walls first and then re-rig the clamshells to install them on the walls.<br />
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In this shot were squaring and leveling the walls of the Aqawan. Mike the crane guy is waiting for us to get everything ready for the next lift.<br />
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With the walls squared up and level it was easy work to land the walls in place and connect the pivot links. I would hate to think about trying to do this without the crane. I would have been tempted to rent the thing myself it Don hadn't already done it.<br />
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Second side. We were able to rig the sections level by adjusting the heavy duty ratchet straps. The pick points were threaded holes with eye bolts.<br />
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It only took about three hours from start to finish to get to this point. The boss let us get some lunch after the crane left. The crane was on the clock so we wanted to be done with it as quickly as possible.<br />
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We ended up finding a great lunch spot right down the street. How can you go too far wrong with a place called <a href="c:\Documents%20and%20Settings\tmlipton\My%20Documents\My%20Pictures\2-27-13\IMG_5554.JPG" target="_blank">Pie 'n Burger</a>. <br />
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Stay tuned for part 2. Thanks for looking.Tom Liptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17404609905921515079noreply@blogger.com1