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| ddkhalaji:
Hi Guys, So after setting up, then taking down, reinforcing my work bench, and re-setting my lathe. Here's my little beast, I'm pretty happy with my Proxxon PD400. It was the best lathe that I could afford at the time (which is now haha :borg:). I've attempted to start my first lathe project, which is a mini surface gauge from the book titled Lathework a Complete Course by Harold Hall. The gauge is made from mild steel, before I had the book I did a few practice cuts in delrin. Anyways, I had to cut the 38mm mild steel rod by hand, I'm not going to lie, it was a mentally painful. I lost my patience a few times and rushed it. Yep, the rushing definitely made it wonky :hammer: Okay, so I loaded up my material in the chuck, jaws were reversed so I squared it up as detailed in the booked to ensure it turned as concentric as possible. I center drilled it successfully and had then held the work safely between chuck and dead center. I started to face the end of my work. I am using the HSS tools I bought with the lathe from Proxxon. I noticed that facing left a lot of little V-grooved rings, and it wasn't smooth to touch. I had the lathe running at 330 rpm. I set it to 660rpm and tried again, same thing, just with a little smoke off the work. As I was taking more passes, I kind of feed it too much in, as the end is cut a little wonky one end really stuck into the cutter and stopped the lathe. After I inspected the cutter, there were these chips in the end. You may notice a small radius on the edge, I did that after on an oilstone trying to get the chips out of the cutter. After 30mins on honing, it was already past midnight so I went to bed. My question is, are the grooves left in the material from facing because the tool went to a very sharp corner? After I get the chips out of the cutter, and have a small radius on the corner, would it face a smoother? I will post up pictures of what the material looks like in a few hours, as I don't have them with me right now. |
| lordedmond:
first question what is the steel you are using you should be using EN1A cuts like butter by the look of your comments you have some GGQ ( Good General Quality ) which the rouge dealer sell as EN1A if you can get EN1Apb then get that its a leads steel and as you will not be welding it it will be OK and very easy to machine on a lathe of your size Stuart |
| Meldonmech:
Hi, When sawing, try to use the whole length of the saw blade. From the looks of your blade you are only using 60%, so the effort and sawing time are 40% more. When sawing let the top half of your body do the work, swing from your hips keeping your elbow firmly against your waist. These sawing principles will make your sawing much quicker and easier. When setting your lathe tool against a chuck jaw for squareness, add another couple of degrees to angle your tool to the left. Start facing your bar from the center, using a light cut, and a constant fine feed. This should give you a good finish with your rounded tool. Good Luck David |
| Anzaniste:
--- Quote from: Meldonmech on July 18, 2013, 04:19:36 AM ---Hi, When sawing, try to use the whole length of the saw blade. From the looks of your blade you are only using 60%, so the effort and sawing time are 40% more. When sawing let the top half of your body do the work, swing from your hips keeping your elbow firmly against your waist. These sawing principles will make your sawing much quicker and easier. When setting your lathe tool against a chuck jaw for squareness, add another couple of degrees to angle your tool to the left. Start facing your bar from the center, using a light cut, and a constant fine feed. This should give you a good finish with your rounded tool. Good Luck David --- End quote --- I would add to the sawing advice ; - Don't go at it like a rabbit on the job and don't press down too much. Nice steady full length strokes aiming more to keep it straight rather than to "get through". Don't be impatient and take a rest if you need to. |
| mattinker:
You paid for all of the teeth on the blade! Use them. As said above go slowly, it will actually cut quicker! Regards, Matthew |
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