The machining and fabricating thread (mills/lathes and more here)

[Hachi_Tom]

Yeh i know what ya mean. and you are using HSS tools too, maybe im just a bit too used to using a cnc.
Also, do most of you do all your own welding too? MIG, TIG whatever.

edit: watched the vid again, just noticed how you have to undo your 4jaw chuck.

[Sam-Q]

only using HSS because it's aluminium. I have a nice seco tool-holder that I use for most other jobs. I could order a finishing grade tungsten tip but that would be more limiting and also I can sharpen or do light reshaping on my cutting tip without taking it out by
using my dimond file.

I own a nice single phase Esab Mig welder, I use it for almost everything I do.

They will teach you later in your apprenteship that a 3 jaw chuck is never truly accurate, because it relies upon all 3 jaws moving inwards at exactlt the same rate it will always hold the work slightly out of round. I use the 4 jaw with it's independant jaws to get it within 0.1mm or so within true with a dial indicator. It takes time at first but below is a video which I used to become reasonably quick. I am usually off and going within a few minutes.

[orange32]

Good to see this thread still going!

My internet is capped for another 10 days so I wont be able to watch the vids untill then .
I have a few pics I took on my phone of a couple of welding jobs that I've done lately that are sort of interesting. Net is too slow to upload them atm.

I just ordered a unimig procraft210 welder for a pretty good price, can't wait to start making things at home

[takai]

I need to machine up a basic dial indicator holder for my toolpost, that would save a bunch of time.

Thanks for the link too Sam, i was searching for 16mm rather than 5/8" so i wasnt getting the Stone Tools shop because they only list in imperial.

[Hachi_Tom]

Ye Sam, i was taught a bit about that and was taught a rule of thumb is the less times you remove the job from the chuck the more accurate it will be

Is there much of a benefit to making a holder for a DTI? i would have thought the magnetic base ones were good enough?

[takai]

They are pretty good, but my lathe has a front V rail and only a rear flat rail, which makes it a pain to access stuff, hence wanting to be able to use the toolpost for the DI

[Frak]

[takai]

Thats a pretty neat technique too, ill have to copy that as well.

[Sam-Q]

I have seen that before, I just use my tailstock but I guess that would be much more vesatile

[orange32]

I finally got around to putting up a few pics.

This is a job I had to make for tafe, it's an arbour press. Everything was made from scratch, from grinding my own HSS 60* tool for the threads to using a rotary table for the base. Tolerances were around the 0.1mm mark (which is great because at work I normally work to a 0.001" tolerance). Eevrything turned out spot on except for one of the cap screw threads which I tapped on the piss because i wasn't paying attention.





The other pics are of a large sleeve/bush thing (not really sure what it is) that had a fair bit of wear and needed to be welded up and machined back to size. It was about 15" diameter and the two positions that needed welding were about 5" long. It took about 1.5hours of straight weld for each position using our super old auto feed welder. Once i machined it back to size it had no pinholes or defects which I was pretty stoked with.