2015 POTD Thread Archive

doogledee said:
but I will have to buy a mill so it will be an expensive tool rest.
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No you have that wrong.....we tool guys need to be very careful at how we frame these discussions.

The mill will be used for hundreds or even thousands of projects and the cost of it needs to be divided across all those projects.
In fact with a mill the scope of projects you can do will be drastically increased.
In fact I would conjecture that you'd be losing money if you did NOT buy the mill.

-brino

(btw, I'm planning a trip to my local tool vendor after my wife leaves for work..........shhhhhhh!)
 
Heh heh I see the point, I have been wanting a proper mill for a while and have settled on one, but with some basic tooling it is still a chunck of cash, which will have to be spent before the tool sharpening rest is done :) looking forward to it though


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Spent a few hours cutting out clearance openings on a bunch of striking wrenches. Sizes were metric from 30mm to 60mm. There were two 50mm sizes. One of them required the bottom removed to leave a 7/16" thick wrench with the same opening as the other 50mm wrench. This is the third group of these wrenches I've modified for a large local steel mill. And the wrenches are made of unbelievably harder than tool steel material, possibly forged in the fires of **ll ! Cermet inserts again ate it like chocolate without a scratch! (.100" doc., 200 rpm, 3 ipm.)
:devil:

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To lighten things up, I also made a stainless steel top fitting (to replace a missing one) on a large plumb bob.

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No pics but I just made a small hex adapter fitting with 1/4" x 18 tpi pipe at one end and the same thread but left hand at the other end. First one I'd ever seen. This was a rush job with customer watching. What a pain making a small boring bar. Took half an hour. Thread cutting was easy. Off to deliver parts and buy/order small internal boring bars to grind into thread form tools.
 
zmotorsports said:
In one of my videos I had shown using a piece of old telephone book page to position an end mill alongside an edge. I had a few people inquire about that so I thought I would show what I use. It is nothing but an outdate phone book that I cut into a couple of 1.5" strips keeing the binding intact. I then drilled a hole through it in order to use a piece of wire to hang it next to my mill. When I need a piece it is quick and easy to tear off one page section. Then just discard when completed with that piece.
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Using the piece of phone book to creep up to the side of the material. Once the end mill starts to pull the paper, I know I am approx. .003" from the edge. I then move over that dimension and zero my DRO for the cut.
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After drilling and tapping four holes to 3/8"-16 I moved on to cut the steps in the nuts.
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Machining processed completed, removed from the mill vise and ready to cut on the vertical bandsaw.
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T-nuts completed.
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Mill cleaned off, floors swept and closed up shop for the night.
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Mike.
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That newspaper tip was the my usually method of touching off. Once it grabbed better let go of it. I used 1/2" wide just because I had my 6" rule handy. Really appreciated a mill if a DRO, I usually ended up on a knee mill with micro-dials a few had bad clamping rings or loose fitting set screws.

Nice photos too
 
John -

Durn! Opening up those wrenches must weaken them a lot ... but of course, if that's what they want, that's what you do. Then again, it more or less guarantees you repeat business!

As for the dividing head - WOWSERS! all them thar parts shore do look clean and purty!!! Is that a repaint job, too?
 
hman said:
John -

Durn! Opening up those wrenches must weaken them a lot ... but of course, if that's what they want, that's what you do. Then again, it more or less guarantees you repeat business!

As for the dividing head - WOWSERS! all them thar parts shore do look clean and purty!!! Is that a repaint job, too?
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Hman, have you bought any lottery tickets lately? Can you pick 6 numbers for me and send them to me in a private conversation? You are right on all accounts. As stated, this is the 3rd set in two months. I don't think they're breaking because they order complete sets. They obviously would be very useful on large pipe/hose fittings where a standard wrench would slip on the rusted nuts. These provide extra grip. I do the work for a local tool supplier who sells to the steel mill. I don't offer any warranty, and I doubt the tool supplier does either since the wrenches were special ordered to these specs.

As for the dividing head, I posted pics of the unit when I acquired it on page-254, #post-344992. I disassembled, degreased, stripped, de-rusted, wire brushed, power and hand scotch brightened, masked all clear areas, three coats of fast dry primer/paint mix, and removed all vestiges of masking tape. Had to make brazing repairs to three cracks in both handles, and machine a brake replacement collar. Wheeeoooo. All that was easy, just time consuming grunt work with stereo cranking out tunes in the garage till the early morning hours on Friday and Saturday. Masking and painting over the last three days. Two parts to finish braze tonight if I can find time. Now I have to figure out what goes in each hole during assembly! Pictures give clues but what part is first???
 
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