little bits

Specifically, little bits of sharp stainless steel. You know that feeling you get when you've been machining 316 stainless on a high-speed lathe, and the little chips have been flying all over the place, like down the back of your neck? Small razor-edged, tempered, red-hot springs, rolling all over the workshop. You're picking them out of the carpet for days, wondering how the hell they got all the way in here from all the way out there.

Anyway, I just felt I needed to share this.

Ow, there's another one...

pca

...

I was going to ask how, or why, or what you were working on. But I think I might be better off not knowing... Perhaps a strong magnet (I thought I read "steel") might be your best friend for a little while...

Or an electromagnet.. more up PCA's alley.

Duct tape or packing tape can work too...

You're picking them out of the carpet for days,...Ow, there's another one...


or shoes?

Unfortunately, most stainless alloys aren't magnetic.

-Zeke

In reply to:

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You know that feeling you get when you've been machining 316 stainless on a high-speed lathe, and the little chips have been flying all over the place, like down the back of your neck?

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Is it anything like when you spill your tin of resistor clippings just after you've finished soldering a tuner kit?

I spent several hours making one of these out of some of this using this to allow me to use this on one of these.

It was completely successful, and I can report a maximum radial runout of 0.0015" at the tool tip, which is within the tolerance of the main bearings considering how old they are.

pca

I still have no idea what you were doing, but what the heck... will you marry me?

oooooh.... Patrick has the same lathe as my dad. Do I win a prize?

Yeah, but your prize might be a bag full little sharp bits of stainless steel...

Once pca's done picking them all out of his feet, that is...

I still have no idea what you were doing

Some time ago I bought a 1937 Van Norman model 12 Universal Mill from a machinery dealer in London. It's in very good condition (1800 pound lumps of high-quality cast iron covered in oil don't wear out very fast), but uses an ancient collet system know as the Hardinge 5V to hold the cutting tools. The collets it came with were all imperial, and I have all-metric tooling, and 5V collets aren't available any more in any case.

So, I had to machine up an adaptor (using my 1963 Colchester Student Mk1.5 lathe - like I said, large lumps of cast iron, etc) to allow me to fit a new metric collet chuck that uses a number 2 morse taper (at least as old as the 5V taper, if not older, but still widely used) to the spindle of the milling machine. The trick is that the internal and external tapers have to be concentric and parallel, to a very high degree of accuracy. I managed to make it so that any non-concentricity is less than a thousandth of an inch, which I'm please about. Strictly speaking the thing should have been made from carbon steel, hardened, then ground to final size, but this is difficult and expensive. I was quoted about £200 for the job, so I made one myself.

I've upgraded the mill with a digital readout system, so now all I need to do is add the very big stepper motors and the PC and I can CNC convert it.

Anyway, I'm pleased with the results. Nice and shiny.

, but what the heck... will you marry me?

No.

pca

A digital readout on a 1937 milling machine? Only in America. Uh, I mean Britain.

Only in America. Uh, I mean Britain.

Easy mistake to make, after all, one lying government looks much like another...

A digital readout on a 1937 milling machine?

Well, like I said, cast iron by the ton doesn't wear out all that fast. Extremely high precision in 1937 still works out to pretty good nowadays, and it's a damn sight cheaper than new. Plus the thing is remarkably versatile and solidly made, even by modern standards. The biggest problem was the wiring, which was downright terrifying.

pca

Dang. That's impressive.

You make me feel like my first year of university, when, after getting straight A's all through high school, I realized that I'm just a dumb schmuck.

sigh