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'Living with an old Synchro' and other tales from my shed.
ieezitin:
Good advice Dave.. add the helix angle too.. always overlooked... hard to do by hand tho..
Anthony.
DavidA:
Anthony,
Yes, helix angle is something one tends to ignore with ordinary threads. But it could become relevant with low number pitches.
Interestingly, Sparey, in his 'The Amateur's Lathe' book, suggests the theoretically correct radius can be ignored. This isn't strictly true as the radius at the tip will dictate the overall width of the thread cut at the top of the groove. And, as I have found out, insufficient radius makes for a thread groove that is too narrow and hence too tight.
Dave.
DavidA:
Why is nothing straight forward ?
Went into the heated outhouse today, first time for a week or so, with the intent of getting back into the mood for doing something useful. Enthusiasm has been in short supply recently.
Anyway, this involved the red lathe and clamping down something to it's rather nice and chunky slotted table.
There are four slots in this table, and I made up some 'T' slot nuts a while back but didn't need to use them; until now.
The nuts live in the slot nearest to the operator so I know where to find them.
I came to clamp the job using the second slot and found the nuts wouldn't fit. Odd, they fit ok in the first slot.
Further investigation revealed that they fit in slots one and three, but not in two and four.
Much measuring ensued. All four slot bottoms are the same width, and all four slot tops are the same. The heights are the same. so what is going on.
A coffee later it dawned on me. And more measuring confirmed it.
With the second and fourth slots, the centre line of the top part is out of line with the centre line of the bottom part. They are about half a millimeter offset. Enough to stop the nuts sliding in.
The quick and dirty fix is to mill a small amount of one side of a pair of nuts (top part) so they fit and reserve these two for the 'odd' slots.
The proper fix is to remove the table and mill the offending slots to match the good ones: that can wait.
Life is never easy.
Dave.
Pete.:
Ease the slots (or the nuts) with a file.
Tee slots and nuts don't really need to have such close tolerances as they aren't locating anything. A looser fit might be more preferable.
DavidA:
The thing we all dread.
As the weather has been cold I haven't been spending any time in my shed/workshop. But today I had to go in and get some rat poison. (Yes, they are still about) and when I unlocked the door the first thing I noticed was one of the lights was on. Now, I do this occasionally and thought 'there goes a few more pence'. Then I noticed a pile of apples on the floor by a bench. 'Oh no, not again'.
Last time I saw the apples they were at one end of the shed in a plastic bag.
A quick look confirmed that someone had indeed forced open a panel in the wall and managed to get in.
So, what is missing ? This has happened to me a few times. So I was prepared for the worst.
First thing I noticed was that a small three drawer tool cabinet was missing. No great loss as it was given to me and the only things in it were the a few tools that came with it.
I have hundreds of pounds worth of tools. A search found most of my power tools to be there. in fact I couldn't find anything else missing at first.
There are shelves on the wall at one end and I noticed that the contents of the shelves had been moved about. Most piled up on the bench in front. I then noticed a large gap on the top shelf. The case for my Ryobi cordless circular saw was missing.
I had bought this about six years ago, maybe more, and it was a combination set of a saw and drill. I never used the saw. Further scanning and I saw the drill from the set, along with the battery charger and both batteries had gone.
So the thief had taken the time to collect all the bits. No, it's not on Ebay; I looked.
What was odd was the only other things I can see that are missing is a lot of brass pipe fittings. I was going to melt them down to make small castings. The total value is probably less than a fiver.
Why take these bits of scrap and leave behind hundreds of pounds worth of power tools ? Very strange.
Oh yes, whilst looking around outside the shed I found a plastic case containing a set of kitchen knifes that had been left by one of my cars.
Anyway, I contacted the police and after waiting twenty minutes got though and was given a crime number. That's it. No visit or anything. Such are the times we live in.
I have spent the last four hour securing the place. lots of long screws and a few bolts. Also piled a load of timber against the offending area.
No doubt I will find that some other bits and pieces have also gone. But I won't know which until I need them and can't find them.
So now I'm knackered.
I'm just so glad I didn't lose all my tools. I have lost everything in past break ins, and for it to happen again at this stage of my life would have been devastating.
And why were the apples on the floor ? The thief probably needed a bag to carry away his swag and the apple bag was the only thing to hand.
I can be happy that it wasn't a machinist who did it. None of the machinist items were touched.
So, if anyone offers you a old style Ryobi combination saw/drill set and mentions the saw hasn't been used; drop me a line.
Dave
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