Another Wild Rose Project

[FWLR]

I don't really care if people view my threads Steve, has there is one member who is a pain in the backside to me. I won't go into details..

But on the viewing side of them, I do really care, because that's one of the ways I can learn from the very helpful replies from the far more experienced members on this brilliant forum, even if they are sometimes critical, thankfully they are few and far between.... But you can also learn just by viewing Steve and not having to say anything about them. I know that members do learn from one another just from viewing, because they will use your ideas in their own builds with some fantastic builds also.

keep on doing what your doing Steve, you do a great job and are an inspiration to me and other members too.

[dewintondave]

but the lathe and mill work seems so daunting

Go for it Keith! The majority of work is not on the lathe or mill. There are excellent books to learn about machining, like the Workshop series. A home built loco is much more rewarding than a bought one

[Keith S]

Well, my Dad bought me a book with some simple projects in it -one is the "Jenny Wren" little stationary steam engine. Might be a good thing to start with, but it's difficult to know HOW to start. I don't know anything about these tools. Someday I will take the leap though.

[-steves-]

Hi Steve,
I think you are doing a grand job so don't worry too much. I have just really picked up on this thread and will follow with interest. Just one little thing. You mention the grubscrew drilling on one crank slipping off centre. I do hope I am not preaching to the converted, apologies if I am. Do you know of a tool called a Slocombe centre drill? Its usual usage is for making deep running centres on bar stock for turning between centres in the lathe. However it makes a great spotting drill when having to drill for things like grubscrews on a curved surface. The trick is to set your work up in a vice with the location of the potential hole uppermost.

Then place a 6" steel rule across it, bring the quill of the drilling machine down onto it, trapping the rule between your work and the Slocombe. First time it will not set parallel with the bed of the machine (unless oyu are a lot luckier than me) so just move the work gently under the point until when trapped the rule is parallel with the vice jaws/table of machine and at right angles to the quill. Slip rule out and then just spot about the size of a centre punch mark (enough to start your standard jobber drill) and then just drill with your normal drill. It won't slip down the curved surface and will generally be on a perpendicular radius to the curved surface.

I rarely centre punch even flat surfaces now. I usually set out my drillings with a Slocombe centre drill on the mill using the offsets of the mill table. I can then drill at leisure if you see what I mean.

It takes longer to say it than to do it.

Thanks Ian, I appreciate the comments:)

I use Slocombe drills for starting centre holes in the tail stock on the lathe. I have those, spotting drills and jobber drills, however I confess I have no idea which I should use when or where as I am no engineer, not do I have access to an engineer to advise me on such things. I watch the odd youtube video and read the odd book and just work the rest out as I go along, in fact being totally honest, I had to Google what a Slocombe drill was to know I had some and use them as I had no idea of their proper name, as with most things unfortunately

Great advice on the how to drill on a radius without centre punching as I do now centre punch all my work before srilling, however, they either slipped a little or I centre punched them in the wrong place, not just the one, but I do this a number of times. I will confess I do need to wear my close up glasses when doing centre punches and trying to drill them afterwards and I will also admit I don't always have them on me so I forget and try to do it without them. I have only just started to wear glasses as I am getting older, so it's all a bit new to me. I will also confess I need more direct lighting under the drill and mill, I have an LED ring under the mill, but it's not all that and one segment has recently stopped working which doesn't help matters.

I have no idea what this means below? If you could elaborate that would be very helpful, however please remember I have no DRO on my mill on either the X or Y axis. (OK, I will also admit, I keep forgetting which one is the Y and which one is the X, I keep looking it up and keep forgetting, mainly because it doesn't seem to match how a lathe is done )

I usually set out my drillings with a Slocombe centre drill on the mill using the "offsets of the mill table".

[-steves-]

Well, my Dad bought me a book with some simple projects in it -one is the "Jenny Wren" little stationary steam engine. Might be a good thing to start with, but it's difficult to know HOW to start. I don't know anything about these tools. Someday I will take the leap though.

Just go for it, it's the only way, start small and work up, the first thing I ever made was a tail stock die holder and even that was too big to start with really, just find simple turning jobs, like diesel exhausts and tap them while they are in the lathe. It gets you used to machining to particular dimensions gives you something half useful afterwards. So many helpful people on here if you get stuck

[-steves-]

I don't really care if people view my threads Steve, has there is one member who is a pain in the backside to me. I won't go into details..

But on the viewing side of them, I do really care, because that's one of the ways I can learn from the very helpful replies from the far more experienced members on this brilliant forum, even if they are sometimes critical, thankfully they are few and far between.... But you can also learn just by viewing Steve and not having to say anything about them. I know that members do learn from one another just from viewing, because they will use your ideas in their own builds with some fantastic builds also.

keep on doing what your doing Steve, you do a great job and are an inspiration to me and other members too.

Like you say, I view lots of posts, I don't always comment on them, but usually take something very useful away from them.

Thanks for the kind comments, I take most of my inspirations from this site, so I feel I am putting something back into it if others can get inspiration from me

[-steves-]

but the lathe and mill work seems so daunting

Go for it Keith! The majority of work is not on the lathe or mill. There are excellent books to learn about machining, like the Workshop series. A home built loco is much more rewarding than a bought one

Absolutely, a lot of work is done with files and a hack saw, much more than I thought there would be.

As Dave says, there are lots of useful books, particularly the Workshop series, of which I own a few and is certainly where I started as the wife bought them for me when I said I wanted my first lathe.

[-steves-]

I did do a bit more today, but have no pictures to post up.

I have started one of the steam chests, only to find I have an aligment issue that I did not think about and may have to "bodge" to solve it. I will post some pictures up at some point of it, but the main issue arose because I could not get 10mm brass and thought 9.5mm would be close enough and when I made the wheels I didn't see an issue with making them marginally wider than the guidelines, now I know why everything was as it was as I have to try to fit the eccentric rods in and the don't line up, hopefully all is not lost

[-steves-]

Hi Steve,
Back again. Here are a couple of pics to show the "ruler" set up. I had a job set up in the mill so it was easy to load a centre drill and just show how easy it is. The table only was moved a very small amount to change the angle of the rule.
The other picture is of a "wiggler/wobbler/centre finder" set. I rarely use any of the attachments other than the one immediately to the left of the chuck/stock for edge finding. It is the disc which has a ground diameter accurately of 0.1" yep they are all imperial. I haven't found one which is metric yet. As regards my Starrett edge finder well I have known for a while that the resident gremlin in my workshop has hitched a ride on the removal van to this house last year and he has stolen or borrowed both of them. Whne I don't need it it will be returned to me. one day I will find out what he is making with my tools.
As you can see my mill is now a relatively simple WARCO bench mill with no DROs other than the standard one fitted to the quill. Useful but not essential. My lathe is also a bench lathe a 14" bed MINI Lathe. I had to downsize dramatically for both health and space reasons at the previous house. Yes I miss the big stuff as I had made such a lot of tooling for itall over the years to make life easy but am coming to terms and making bits and pieces of downsized tooling (e.g. the job you see is a saddle stop based on the colchester pattern but much smaller for this lathe). Just that htings have to happen at a much slower pace I can't just rattle off a big pile of swarf.

I have an "edge finder set" just like that "somewhere", but honestly, I don't have the foggiest what to do with it, I used it initially for centralising work in the lathe from the tail stock but soon worked out that a dial was the way to do it after watching a youtube video.

I did understand what you meant about the steel rule and I like that idea, next time I an trying to do something on a round surface I will put it to good use

Not sure if you have seen my set up? I have a Chinese 10" x 22" lathe with DRO's attached from the factory, I got this about a month ago, I had a 7 x 14 mini lathe before that. The mill I have had for a few years (got it the same time as the mini lathe but neither had all that much use) and is also Chinese and called an XJ12-300 I believe, also from Amadeal in London. I have added a digital remote scale to the Z axis? ( up and down), I only did this the other day as I needed a more accurate way of measuring the depth. It's not a "proper" DRO setup like on the lathe, but it does give me a zero setting so once I touch the work I know how far to go down through the work, which has been very useful. It also gives me an ABS and set button, but I have no idea what they are for or how they work. The intention when funds allow is to add another 2 remote readouts to the X and Y axis, but they will have to wait as they are £30 a throw and I can't justify that right now on such luxuries, there are more important things to get (according to the wife)

[-steves-]

I did do a bit more today, but have no pictures to post up.

I have started one of the steam chests, only to find I have an aligment issue that I did not think about and may have to "bodge" to solve it. I will post some pictures up at some point of it, but the main issue arose because I could not get 10mm brass and thought 9.5mm would be close enough and when I made the wheels I didn't see an issue with making them marginally wider than the guidelines, now I know why everything was as it was as I have to try to fit the eccentric rods in and the don't line up, hopefully all is not lost

Well, going back to my bodge. It appears things are not quite as bad as I first thought as I used the wrong material for the axle supports, don't ask me how, just an assumption and I got it wrong. Anyway, with that now fixed it appears things are much closer and I think I can get away with just adding a 1mm spacer into the mix underneath the steam chest, it might have a few issues sealing so I might have to use something to help it seal, we shall see if we ever get to the steaming up stage I managed to get the other steam chest milled out today and one of the spacers made, but gardening took over and I did not get chance to make the other spacer. Still a massive amount of work required and I can't believe just how accurate you need to be with a lot of this stuff, certainly not much leeway on 16mm loco's, maybe i should have started on a 3 1/2" gauge one instead so the tolerances were a bit bigger, lol

[GTB]

Ian didn't mention it, but in case you haven't picked up on it, the trick of using a 6" ruler to find the centre of a round surface can also be used to set the height of a lathe tool.

I gave up using a centre punch a long while ago, as I could never place the centre pop accurately. I used centre drills for a while, but found they were wandering as well, as my machine tools are small and not overly rigid.

After making seven eccentrics for one loco to get four that were the same, a friend who used to make his living building little steam locos suggested I try NC spot drills. They have a smaller tip than centre drills and don't wander at all on the little mill/drill I use for drilling. I now use a spot drill to locate all holes, before drilling them with a jobber drill and had no troubles with the eccentrics for the current loco. I still use centre drills in the lathe though.

Using the X-Y table to position the workpiece when drilling gives much better results. I used to use the technique described by Ian, but I gave in and fitted a 3-axis DRO to the larger mill last year. As I get older my attention span is about the same as a preschooler and I found I was losing track when counting turns on the mill handwheels. The DRO gives me an absolute position relative to the reference point once set up, so I don't have to worry about backlash, keeping count of wheel turns and doing mental arithmetic on the fly.

Regards,
Graeme

[pandsrowe]

Despite the increasing popularity of spotting drills in the model engineering world they aren't that easy to obtain. I became a convert about 5 years ago and now use them almost exclusively to start a hole but I have only been able to get them from online suppliers for commercial engineering, with the attendant cost from these sort of outlets. If anyone one knows different I would be very glad to hear of suitable suppliers.
By the way, they also make very good countersinks as well.

[GTB]

Despite the increasing popularity of spotting drills in the model engineering world they aren't that easy to obtain.

Much the same here in post industrial Oz. The local industrial tool shop only stocks them down to 4mm dia. which is a bit big for most of my work, although cost is much the same as a similar size and quality jobber drill.

I bought some 2mm and 3mm spot drills from the Ebay shop of this UK supplier a while back, but they don't seem to stock the 2mm anymore. They have a new online shop, which seems a little cheaper than the Ebay shop and they still have 3mm and larger spot drills.

https://shop.gbrengineering.com

Graeme

[pandsrowe]

I see what you mean Phil. Tracy Tools don't stock them it seems and my next port of call for specialist items like that would be J & L Supplies in Wednesbury. Yes they have them but the price is enough to make your eyes water. I have not yet tried the other usual suspects like RDG Tools, Chronos

I've been down that route and none of those stock them. I can't honestly remember where I got mine from but it was as a result of an internet search and they were expensive, however I have been rewarded by far more satisfactory results by using them so I guess it's horses for courses.

[GTB]

Yes I was aware of the lathe tool "trick". Its a really useful trick.

Sorry Ian, I was sure you knew, but wasn't sure that Steve did.

I've never seen the need to spend A$150+ on a laser gadget to do the same thing as a A$10 wiggler. A wiggler doesn't break if you drop it and doesn't have batteries to go flat either.............

As you say, using small machinery just means it takes longer to remove the swarf to find the part hiding inside the metal.

Regards,
Graeme

[tom_tom_go]

Enjoying this thread guys thank you for all your input.

It is always worth explaining as much as possible as not everyone is as experienced as you think.

[Busted Bricks]

On CNC machines we mostly use NC spot drills which may explain why the traditional centre drills are not as commonly found anymore. That said, they are easily obtainable over here and don't cost much either - about £3.50 excl. VAT. I have a registered business so can buy from all the tool merchants.
https://ph-v.dk/shop/centrer-bor-48c1.html

EDIT: I see Axminster stock them at low prices. Not sure what the moaning is about

https://www.axminster.co.uk/centre-drills-bs-ax21647

[GTB]

EDIT: I see Axminster stock them at low prices. Not sure what the moaning is about

Both your links are for the traditional style of lathe centre drill (also known as a Slocombe drill). Been around for donkeys years and available cheaply in any decent toolshop. Most model engineers will have a few.

They are not NC spotting drills, which is what Phil and I are recommending for more accurate hole positioning.

This link shows an NC spotting drill and a simple description. They are short, single ended and have a tip geometry that minimises any tendency to wander when they touch the workpiece.

http://www.guhring.com/BrowseProducts/P ... pot-Drills

It is the NC spot drills that Ian is having trouble locating, not Slocombe drills.

Regards,
Graeme

[Busted Bricks]

Sorry, I misunderstood - I thought it was centre drills that were hard to obtain. Yes, NC spot drills are probably not easily obtained from model engineering suppliers. We buy them from big trade suppliers. Good thing about them is that they last a very long time, so unless you crash them, the initial cost is very small in the grand scheme of things. I pay app. £6.80 for a 3mm NC drill.

[dewintondave]

I don't have a problem using an appropriate sized centre drill in a centre punching to start drilled holes

From the marked out lines start the hole location with a light tap on the dot punch (60 deg) and progress to the centre punch (90 deg). The dot punch is more easily sighted than a centre punch

I posted this to encourage Keith

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