What did you do today?

[Tim The Grim]

I took some 1/4 Lexan and cut 2 big washers. Then I treppaned a groove equally in each that fit one of those headlight halo rings, with a groove for the wire cut in one. I painted the top one black and put aluminum tape on the joining face. Assembled it with 4 self tapping screws and then fixed a bracket to mount in the indicator boss. Right now it’s wrapped in black electrical tape as I decide on a final finish. It’s powered by an old Epson 12 volt printer power supply.

[J Tiers]

Cleaned up stuff in the shop that has been sitting around being a mess. "Stuff" that does not really have a home, tools that do not really have a home, etc.

Found homes for quite a bit of it, but there is more. Now I probably will not be able to find it if/when I want it... But at least it is "organized".

[Tungsten dipper]

I took some 1/4 Lexan and cut 2 big washers. Then I treppaned a groove equally in each that fit one of those headlight halo rings, with a groove for the wire cut in one. I painted the top one black and put aluminum tape on the joining face. Assembled it with 4 self tapping screws and then fixed a bracket to mount in the indicator boss. Right now it’s wrapped in black electrical tape as I decide on a final finish. It’s powered by an old Epson 12 volt printer power supply.

Outstanding job!

[mattthemuppet]

nice work Tim! If you make the bit surrounding the light (covered with black tape) reflective on the inside, you'll get a bit more light out too.

Quick Q - I'm very interested in your vise stop, I've never seen one that uses a sliding element captured on the top of the fixed jaw. I like the look of that. Any chance you have a pic of the other side, particularly how the 2nd sliding element is captured by the one on the fixed jaw?

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

Quick Q - I'm very interested in your vise stop, I've never seen one that uses a sliding element captured on the top of the fixed jaw. I like the look of that. Any chance you have a pic of the other side, particularly how the 2nd sliding element is captured by the one on the fixed jaw?

That is intriguing. If you don't want to drill/tap holes in the stationary jaw, you could probably use one or more neodymium bar magnets to affix the adjustable bar to the vise. That should easily give you 5-10lbs of hold or more which I expect would be enough for a non-heavy duty stop.

Edit: Brain fart... That would also be a horrible swarf collector being so close to the action.

[Tim The Grim]

Thanks for the comments...

The vice stop slide and pivot use flange nuts to hold things in place. The bolt on the pivot is threaded in tight so I can just loosen the 3 flange nuts to move things. The pin is harder than the shcs so I don’t get divits from that if I have to move it.



Light from the new quill ring helped in these pics.

[CCWKen]

Nice looking light but unless there's oil dripping off of it, your spindle bearings are dry. I keep a coffee can lid under my spindle to catch the drips.

[mattthemuppet]

very neat, thanks Tim. Beautifully illuminated too

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

Nice looking light but unless there's oil dripping off of it, your spindle bearings are dry. I keep a coffee can lid under my spindle to catch the drips.

Do you keep anything else under the head to prevent it from crashing into the table again? I think those are tears dripping from your spindle, not oil

[Cenedd]

Well, changing the subject slightly. Today I rediscovered what colour my chip tray is and found out that my chuck guard is actually see-through! Who'd'a thunk it?!

Also changed the control board in my Sieg SC4 lathe so that now the e-stop produces realistic stopping action! Seems like the relay that should have been doing that wasn't - even though you could hear it click.

Whilst putting it back together, I brought my stubborn bloody-mindedness to bear and got the change-gear cover re-signed so that the through-hole is actually in-line with the spindle. A mill to trim back ABS covers, a Dremel with carbide burr to elongate a slot in-situ and a dash of colourful language and now you can see all the way through!
While I had stuff apart, I also discovered the headstock oil nipple was about as effective as a chocolate fireguard so I oiled the bone-dry gears and shafts. I fully expect this to add at least 5 HP and reduce my tolerances to mere microns

[DennisCA]

Today? No more like the last week, been struggling with the tapered gib on my Deckel, it was stuck so incredibly hard in place I wasn't sure I was gonna get it out. But after a week of trying and having probably put tons worth of force on it via a screw jig, as well as hammering on it and drenching the table in penetrating oil, it came out. Big relief! I had gotten lots of help on the PM Deckel section fortunately.

The gib shows signs of galling:









Now the next step is to get the table off and inspect the ways as well as repairing the gib. It has been suggested I might replace it though I am not that enthusiastic about doing that, since it would probably be hundreds of euros, I don't have any money to spare at this point so...

[Mark Rand]

It might be worth making a replacement out of cast iron bar. You can clean up the existing gib enough to function to allow you to make the replacement if you don't have additional milling capacity. After that, you can scrape the table and new gib to fit.

If you have additional milling/grinding capacity, a good way to replicate the taper on the existing gib is to use it as a shim under the material when machining the new one. That's how I made the replacement carriage gib for my hardinge HLV.

[DennisCA]

This gib is steel however but yes I might consider making my own gib.

The selection steel as material for the gib appears to be to preserve the cast iron surfaces longer, as the gib will wear instead of the cast iron (lapping principle in action, felt counter intuitive to me as well at first).

[J Tiers]

You need to scrape the gib to fit.

Steel is "not my favorite material" fo scraping.... the translation there is that it sucks.

CI would be much nicer to work with, and the difference in your use is likely to be unmeasurable, or nearly so.

[DennisCA]

I am going to borrow a friends straight edge and scraping tools this weekend, then I will fill in the low spots in the galled area with epoxy so it doesn't accumulate dirt.

The plus side is that the steel gib can for instance be tig welded to build up a new retatining edge.