Adventures of a newbie

[extropic]

Minimize the projection of the cutting edge from the bar.
Pivot the bar to whatever is required for the hole size you're trying to bore.
Any angularity (or off center) of the cutter/bar/head adjustment is superfluous. The cutting edge will be rotating in as perfect a circle as the spindle bearings will allow.

 

[Ben17484]

As promised at the start of this thread, nothing mind blowing here A tap follower. The design is as simple as can be:

I made it 18mm straight shank so I can hold it in my mill (MT3) and lathe tailstock (MT2).

I’ve not milled a key way before and know when aiming for 6mm I should have used a 4mm or 5mm cutter and stepped over each side to make it 6mm. I ignored what I knew and just jumped straight to 6mm and it ended up not looking great. Next time I’ll take my time more.

The three projects I’ve made so far have ended up in the dividing head on the mill. For each of those projects I really could have used machinist jacks and more lighting. So those are my two next projects.


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[Ben17484]

I’ve had Covid for a week or so and have been feeling pretty sh*tty. I still wanted to get something done in the workshop though to make me feel like I’m making some progress.

A guy I bought some off cuts from was selling a machinist level as well. After reading through a thread on here about it, I was convinced I didn’t need one. For £30 though, I couldn’t pass it up. I decided to try getting the lathe a little more level today.

If I’m honest, I didn’t have enough energy to keep at it for too long, but with a little shimming under the rear, I got to 0.015mm (half a thou) over 60mm (2.3 inches). I’m sure this can be improved and many of you will have much better than this, but I can’t see me needing to be more precise than this for a while. If anyone reading this can tell me the deviation they get over that distance it would help me understand if I’m in the right ballpark.

The other thing I started was to try and fit the power feed to my mill:

Im fairly convinced im missing a piece though.

I have all of the items pictured, but the part circled in red I’m sure needs its opposite part to go over the keyed shaft at the end of the lead screw. With the kit that I received, there’s no way to drive the lead screw with it.

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[verbotenwhisky]

I’ve had Covid for a week or so and have been feeling pretty sh*tty. I still wanted to get something done in the workshop though to make me feel like I’m making some progress.

A guy I bought some off cuts from was selling a machinist level as well. After reading through a thread on here about it, I was convinced I didn’t need one. For £30 though, I couldn’t pass it up. I decided to try getting the lathe a little more level today.

If I’m honest, I didn’t have enough energy to keep at it for too long, but with a little shimming under the rear, I got to 0.015mm (half a thou) over 60mm (2.3 inches). I’m sure this can be improved and many of you will have much better than this, but I can’t see me needing to be more precise than this for a while. If anyone reading this can tell me the deviation they get over that distance it would help me understand if I’m in the right ballpark.

The other thing I started was to try and fit the power feed to my mill:

Im fairly convinced im missing a piece though.

I have all of the items pictured, but the part circled in red I’m sure needs its opposite part to go over the keyed shaft at the end of the lead screw. With the kit that I received, there’s no way to drive the lead screw with it.

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I know you know this but it is worth saying, leveling you lathe is more about removing any twist in the bed than it is about having the bed level from head stock to tail stock. It took be a while because the bed had got twisted while shipping and I am not bolting it to the floor where I could both push down and pull up at different feet on the base of the lathe. With a spacing between the head stock end and the tail stock end of 26" I am still out roughly .0003" out of level.

 

[Ben17484]

I know you know this but it is worth saying, leveling you lathe is more about removing any twist in the bed than it is about having the bed level from head stock to tail stock. It took be a while because the bed had got twisted while shipping and I am not bolting it to the floor where I could both push down and pull up at different feet on the base of the lathe. With a spacing between the head stock end and the tail stock end of 26" I am still out roughly .0003" out of level.

Absolutely. I don’t think there’s twist in the bed on mine as it reads as level if I lay a parallel between the ways all the way down. Before levelling today it was showing quite a lot of downward slope toward the tailstock end. Having said that and thinking about it now, if there’s zero degrees different across the ways, regardless of tilt between the tailstock and headstock it should cut true? Before my efforts it was 0.03mm out and after it was 0.015 though. So this makes me think I’ve done something right?


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[verbotenwhisky]

Absolutely. I don’t think there’s twist in the bed on mine as it reads as level if I lay a parallel between the ways all the way down. Before levelling today it was showing quite a lot of downward slope toward the tailstock end. Having said that and thinking about it now, if there’s zero degrees different across the ways, regardless of tilt between the tailstock and headstock it should cut true? Before my efforts it was 0.03mm out and after it was 0.015 though. So this makes me think I’ve done something right?


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Until I got the twist out of it mine would cut a taper. If it is cutting a taper now I do not have a fine enough instrument to read it.

 

[Ben17484]

Until I got the twist out of it mine would cut a taper. If it is cutting a taper now I do not have a fine enough instrument to read it.

I took this on board and went out tonight to re-measure things and did find some twist. So I decided just to do the ‘shim, measure, repeat’ method to remove the twist. I started the evening with a 0.015mm taper over 60mm and after an hour or so of playing ended up with….. 0.02mm taper. Damn. I gave up for tonight and will see if I have the energy to try and fix this further tomorrow. Realistically I should just be worrying about learning by making projects and this very small taper (in terms of what I want to do) will make absolutely no difference. Buuuut, this sort of thing could live in the back of my head until I’ve got it sorted. I’ll see what tomorrow brings.

The more important thing for me at the moment is figuring out how to fit the power feed on my mill. I think I need to make an adapter to make it fit.


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[extropic]

If you have to make a coupling half for your leadscrew, you might want to take a look at the linked thread.
At a glance one might think "3 lobes = 120° spacing", but not necessarily so.
The first half, or so, of the thread may be only an example of how not to solve the problem, but it's educational none the less.
In the end, a rational, and successful approach is well described.

Having problem milling 120 degree sections

Hello all I am a new member and just starting out in the hobby. I purchased a mill and a lathe to start both PM, mill 932V, lathe 1236 and I am trying to make, new, longer, handles for the mill. I turned down the stock to the correct size drilled the proper holes using the lathe and proceeded...

www.hobby-machinist.com

 

[Ben17484]

If you have to make a coupling half for your leadscrew, you might want to take a look at the linked thread.
At a glance one might think "3 lobes = 120° spacing", but not necessarily so.
The first half, or so, of the thread may be only an example of how not to solve the problem, but it's educational none the less.
In the end, a rational, and successful approach is well described.

Having problem milling 120 degree sections

Hello all I am a new member and just starting out in the hobby. I purchased a mill and a lathe to start both PM, mill 932V, lathe 1236 and I am trying to make, new, longer, handles for the mill. I turned down the stock to the correct size drilled the proper holes using the lathe and proceeded...

www.hobby-machinist.com

Thank you extropic. That link is very helpful. I’m looking forward to trying to make this part. It should be fun.


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[Ben17484]

I took this on board and went out tonight to re-measure things and did find some twist. So I decided just to do the ‘shim, measure, repeat’ method to remove the twist. I started the evening with a 0.015mm taper over 60mm and after an hour or so of playing ended up with….. 0.02mm taper. Damn. I gave up for tonight and will see if I have the energy to try and fix this further tomorrow. Realistically I should just be worrying about learning by making projects and this very small taper (in terms of what I want to do) will make absolutely no difference. Buuuut, this sort of thing could live in the back of my head until I’ve got it sorted. I’ll see what tomorrow brings.

The more important thing for me at the moment is figuring out how to fit the power feed on my mill. I think I need to make an adapter to make it fit.


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Before moving on and starting on the mill power feed, I thought I’d give one last try to removing the twist and taper:

Success! I repeated this three times to make sure I get a consistent result. I now can’t measure the taper over 60mm. That’s good enough for me. I’ll work on aligning the tailstock soon.

EDIT - I mis-wrote on the final line of my paper - it should read 41.925 on both sides.


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