Lew Bishop's Latest

Here's Lew's latest:

My old mahogany box salvaged from an old model flying buddy - in this case with some of the current crop of pens. Of note are the two on the right that are made from a 10 mm blank of fairly soft aluminum. Since the bodies are without the center band, a much more gentle shape can be turned. The finish is still eluding me and will require a lot more study and practice.

My current set up with the drawer box to hold the tools and act as a stand. The new additions are the longer dead center with more travel along with a new lever with softer edges and a cute knob on the end - borrowed from my b-in-law's parts drawer. The knob is also on the new tailstock lock lever as well as the new tool post lock.

The tool post is a refurb of the original tool post received with the purchase of the lathe many years ago. The hole was not clean so a new .25 hole was hogged out with a new shoulder recess to fit the new lock as well as new threads for larger hold down bolts for the tool. The anchor for the post is a machined 1/4 -20 bolt with the head milled and slots cut for the "t" to hold the bolt straight. Additional threads were required on the bolt to allow for proper clamping force. It works pretty well and loads into the slot very easily. I need to do a new post with the different anchor to test the process and to put the tool at the correct height without shimming. Later on the old post will be a guinea pig for an adjustable height device or something.

The latest pen turned from one of the rifle blank scraps that I cut last month. The grain of the walnut is just beautiful and is great to work with.

posted at cartertools.com as well.

Latest on the Power Feed Retrofit Kit

Taig Says:

"The K1016 is going to be $119.00 each. Should have them ready by next week. We are just waiting for the paper work to be printed."

Ron Kiely's Latest Light

Ron says: "I have just made this off road mountain bike light at the request of a total stranger who lives in Portugal. Made from 45mm Aluminium bar it was quite a challenge for the rear mounted cut-off tool, these lights get very hot so require 7.5mm deep grooves in order to keep them cool, I almost run out of lead screw trying to get the cut-off tool that far back. Also lots of very deep boring for the electronics compartment but the taig coped very well."






Finning...

Boring.

Posted on cartertools.com as well.

Powerfeed is ready...

[EDIT: Taig just emailed me that they forgot to include the cost of the new carriage extrusion in the power feed upgrade kit...so they're on hold until they get pricing figured out...Orders that have gone into them get the $80.00 price but everyone else should hold off for now...]

Taig says the Power Feed and Power Feed retrofit kits are ready:

The power feed lathe is # L1015.
The lathe includes the power feed, pulley set and mounting board. It is $305.00 retail.

The power feed retrofit parts kit is # K1016. It is XXXX retail.

Details of the retrofit are up at Taig's Taigmachines site

As always I'll give 10% off plus S&H.
I haven't had a chance to try the retrofit kit myself yet.

Taig also does not yet have individual part#'s for those wanting to mess around with the new useful parts. I'll let you know when I know.

Some more power feed details

Taig has some more details about the power feed up:
http://www.taigmachines.com/Boss_s_Corner.php http://www.taigmachines.com/Whats_New.html

They say it's available but I haven't received pricing, etc yet.

The 2035ER Taig Boring Head

Taig sent me their 2035ER Boring Head to test out. The boring head is now for sale: 2035ER Boring Head $45.00

The boring head comes with two import carbide tipped boring bars.

This is a simple boring head. The large cap screw adjusts and locks the dovetail. The small setscrew front and back are used to adjust the position of the boring head. There is no graduated dial. You just adjust it close, and tweak the front and back setscrews to get it close, measure after cutting and adjust a little more. You can of course place an indicator against it to measure travel and I don't think it will be long before someone clever modifies it to have a typical screw feed. The boring head is made of aluminum and has a 3/8" shank.

As you can see it is a simple design.

Opening up a 3/8" hole.

As you can see I got a tiny bit of chatter. This is the biggest problem with boring on small mills. You need to take the time to experiment when boring with different feedrates and depths of cut. Generally you want to bore at the slowest spindle speed you can.

A large diameter hole (yup, same hole, I like to test things thoroughly). Again you can see the smallest amount of chatter.

Boring out a steel bushing. I did this at 1000 rpm just to see whether those with the 1/4hp mill motor could use the boring head. Again I got a small amount of chatter but overall the hole is round.

This is the largest circle the bar will bore with the boring bar in one of the holes, about .4"

Unfortunately this is the smallest hole the bar will bore in the next hole, about 5.5"You can get around this problem by rotating the bar 180 degrees (put a flat on it!) then you get a range in between the large and small range.

This is the largest hole, about 1.25" so the range of adjustment is about .7"

Some Projects from Stephen Ellacott

Stephen Ellacott sent in pictures of his latest projects.

"I finally got your indexing plate mounted with a simple indent pin arrangement on the top of the tailstock - works great! Thanks! I made a simple jig to help remove the headstock pulley - 6 1/2" of 5/16" steel rod with a counter bore in one end to fit the point of the gear puller and turned down to 1/4" for a length of 1" at the other end. It is inserted through the headstock with the 3 jaw chuck mounted and the jaws tightened on the reduced part of the rod. The gear puller can't push the shaft through the 3 jaw because of the lip of the cut. I also made a simple spindle threaded 1/4-20 at one end and used it and a washer to hold the pulley on top of the vise while I drilled and tapped the three holes. The plate spins very well without any wobble at all.The indent pin is 5/32" in diameter and tapered to ensure it centers every hole in the indexing plate. It doesn't go all the way through the plate and has a slightly rough finish to stop it from dropping out. It is stored in the top right of the indent pin plate when not in use (see the second picture of Dean's center).In the first picture you can also see a small steel plate I use as a magnetic mount point for my test indicator on top of the headstock and the most amazing piece of brass swarf! After a year of dodging sharp little brass needles I finally found the recipe for turning brass! Zero top rake, 7 degree front/side rake and a 20 thou deep cut at 2100 RPM for a 1/4" rod. I was enjoying turning down the brass pin so much I had to scrap the first one!"

"A modification to Keith's excellent sharpening jig (well worth the effort to make!) which allows you to use it on a drill press without a vise by clamping through the center hole or slots on the table. Much easier to reposition! I also use a hard felt wheel and honing compound in the chuck with the jig to get a "scary sharp" edge on my cutters."

"Taig vise clamped to the drill press using a couple of vise clamps. The basic clamp design is on the Little Machine Shop web site, I just scaled it down for this vise."

"A modification to Dean's headstock center using a coupling nut tapered to fit the pulley. This gives you a self-centering rig which cuts down on vibration quite a bit."

Front view.

"3/4-16 spindle for the Taig chucks made from a 2" 3/4-16 bolt. The trick is screwing the bolt into the front of the four jaw chuck (without jaws) or the machinist's plate then parting off the head and turning the shaft down to 3/8 or 1/2". This ensures concentricity between the threads and the newly turned shaft. The nut is split and used to hold the machined spindle in the mill to cut the Weldon flat without damaging the threads."

Posted on cartertools.com as well.