What did you do today?

[The Metal Butcher]

Rebuilt the dresser for the feed wheel on a through feed centerless grinder. The operator had let it get all gummed up with the coolant and rust, so that wheel probably hadn't been dressed in 3 years. I am learning about centerless grinders, but I think it is setup wrong.

[challenger]

Made a new belt with gutted 550 paracord. 9 strand with solid strand sides.

[Dan Dubeau]

Playing around with another brand. This time the Wifes logo. I found a MUCH better way to cut these, and get the small detail required. This one was only about 15 minutes of cut time, and was WAY easier than the last one I did.


I also designed and printed another pattern this morning. I had to revive my green sand, but I have it molded up ready to pour. Was going to do it tonight, but i'm yawning pretty good right now and might just call it an early night and try in the morning. The couch has a pretty good hold on me right now, and I'm getting thirsty for a guinness.


TBH, the pattern sucks, and I didn't want to spend the time to fill and smooth it all out. I printed it too fast, and am trying to see just how much I can get away with to get a usable part quickly. I've got 30 minutes design time in it, and they printed in 1.5 hours. My foundry will heat a crucible ready to pour in about 45minutes to an hour, and I can mold it up while it's heating up. This is just a bracket for tts tool racks for the shop, but is also a time study part for me to better understand my costs involved.

I've got a couple other patterns printed over the last few weeks, so tomorrow will be a casting day.

[The Metal Butcher]

Rebuilt the dresser for the feed wheel on a through feed centerless grinder. The operator had let it get all gummed up with the coolant and rust, so that wheel probably hadn't been dressed in 3 years. I am learning about centerless grinders, but I think it is setup wrong.

Got it back running in spec. Went from a few thou taper to 50 millions on steel. I know commercial stock is better than that, but that's as good as I can do.

[Dan Dubeau]

Said screw it, and went out to pour it. Turned out "ok" ish. Not super thrilled with it, but I know my sand sucks (too wet, couldn't get it to bind very well), I had a lot of surface porosity, but I'm sure they'll get a bit better casting the next 11 I need as my molding skills improve a bit too (some blowouts in corners). I haven't cast anything in 2 years, so this was fun to get back into it. Already looking forward to the next one, and trying some new things to see if I can get some better results. If the results improve this one will go back in the melt. I think this might only be my 10th-15th casting too. I had to mold it 3 times lol, and said screw it as there was some edges that fell off and left some machining to do, but that's probably more due to the crappy patternwork not letting go of the sand very easily.




I might actually make another pattern tomorrow and print it with my usual settings (0.15mm vs this 0.3). I tried to get away with too much with this one, and am not very happy with the results, but it does show what you can get away with. There was ZERO prep work on that printed pattern. No sanding, or anything. Just pressed in the alignment dowels, and dusted it with some baby powder. All told there is about 3hrs of work from design start to cast part.

I REALLY need to get some better sand too. And make some more flasks...., and..... it never ends. But it's fun .

[Richard P Wilson]

Don't beat yourself up about that casting. I've seen far worse ones produced commercially.

[Cenedd]

Don't beat yourself up about that casting. I've seen far worse ones produced commercially.

You've seen my lathe and my mill then?! The surfaces you don't immediately see are FAR worse than Dan's.

[Dan Dubeau]

I've redesigned the pattern a bit (made the arm that sticks out wider) and am printing another one now. I'm going to print 2 patterns, as I can fit 2 in my flask and have enough volume in my crucible to pour 2. I'll actually sand/finish/paint them this time for better results.

I wanted to play around with both ends of the spectrum from good and slow to fast and cheap, and come up with a happy medium workflow that works for me. I hate putting the work in and getting crap results, but I hate doing extra work for diminishing returns even worse. I find great enjoyment in playing around with various ways to do things to find the most efficient way to get the most acceptable results for the task at hand without spending unnecessary time.

There are a lot of variables in casting which, to a newbie like me are sometimes difficult to control. The good news is mistakes can be remelted . I'm currently doing some research on degassing and will play around with that later with what I have on hand. I've got lots of accumulated scrap to melt down, so the little foundy will be running all day. Lot of melts to experiment with.

[J Tiers]

Don't beat yourself up about that casting. I've seen far worse ones produced commercially.

They look pretty decent to me. MANY castings are much rougher.

[JohnMartin]

Finished machining a clone cutter head for a size I did not have, could not find, and could not afford if I did stumble into it. This 9/16" cutter head is for a Stanley 77 dowel cutter. The internal threads were a challenge since it was my first time cutting away from the head on the back side. That technique seemed desirable because of the few threads being cut. The bolt that holds the cutter head is an antique size that McMaster Carr happened to have a tap for, 12-24 and they got it to southern Indiana in less than 24 hours! Wow! Yes, pricey. I was practicing "precision" games and am pleased with the outcome. It cuts beautifully and is a good workout.
DanK

Nice job on that. I’ve been thinking about making those in 9/16 and 11/16 sizes myself. Hasn’t been a high priority, especially as once you get over 1/2 dowels to 16th sizes don’t seem that critical. But I do want them.

I have a 3/16 cutter with mine, which I have never seen another of. Stanley never offered one, but I think they made this - or at least supplied an un-bored casting. The size is stamped rather than raised. Doesn’t work very well, though, as it is as likely to twist the wood off as cut it.

Did you form the cutter, grind it from a thick solid, or find one somewhere?

John

[ChazzC]

Picked up some thin-wall PVC pipe and dug into my stock of empty plotter paper roll tubes and re- (re-re-?) organized the long bar stock, threaded rod, etc. on my 3' wide HD shelving:



Now I can find things more readily, plus have space fo more!

[mattthemuppet]

that's pretty tidy!

Love the castings Dan, that's something I'd like to get into one day

[Cenedd]

ChazC I'm so going to have to pinch that idea! Already got things (roughly) grouped by material and the smaller items in post tubes. Might have to make the final jump to joining the dots!

Finally got the G3/8 BSPP tap delivered that I'd been waiting for to adapt the neck to pneumatic fittings. Sawed the top of the valve off, machined it flat and bored the hole out to 15.25mm (metric equivalent of tapping drill for G3/8). It was already 15mm, hence the choice of G3/8. That and that I could buy a brass G3/8 to G1/4 convertor and not be tempted to buy a big chunk of brass to make the whole thing from scratch



Assembled with 3 turns of PTFE. May switch to Loctite once I'm happy everything is going to stay as it is but I wanted to be able to change my mind without the clean-up. Also wanted to test it before the Loctite would have cured!



Worked nicely checking and topping up two sets of car tyres. Need to get the bikes back on the road tomorrow so we'll see how many totally flat tyres you get out of a charge! Beats trying to lug the compressor through the house or getting grief for running hose through - probably cheaper than that length of hose too!



Just need a ball valve in my male-to-male connector that fills it - disconnection's a bit loud otherwise!

[Tillie's in a bottle]

Got some practice/ first attempt at tig brazing. I'm slightly more used to brazing with O/A. I'm all out of acetylene and wont get another chance to get to the local welding supplier until next Saturday. Would have gone today but the truck wouldn't start. I'm pretty sure it needs a new battery but that's a whole 'nother story...
Anyway I'm seeing what my options are and I know Metal Butcher uses tig-brazing with good results. The goal is to machine off a damaged section of threads on a bronze shaft, build up bronze over that and then turn threads to meet the undamaged section. So far, I'm making some progress. The picture is a 1/2 brass rod I brazed on and turned on the lathe to see that my work will hold up to machining. I don't know what to do about the black soot that gets all over the adjacent area when brazing. I'm wirebrushing it off between passes. A weld rotator would be nice...

[Cenedd]

Need to get the bikes back on the road tomorrow so we'll see how many totally flat tyres you get out of a charge!

Well that just absolutely takes the mickey! Got everything charged and set up this morning. Got the bikes out: one of them has Schrader valves....and perfectly inflated tyres (clearly my first every tube and tyre change went well last year!) and the other two that are flat as a pancake....are Presta valves So back to the foot pump it was. At least I'm not quite as unfit as I feared!