Machining wi' Sladey

[hot66]

I think every DT ( metal work) dept / teacher in every school has an office desk draw that contains a bag containing hair with a bit of scalp attached .... Used every year to show in coming students what might happen

[911hillclimber]

My 1st year apprentice training room had a small evil head instructor, Harold.
His description of injuries was vivid to 30 16 year olds and he had 2 fingers missing just to prove the point, so he was a real machinist of the era.
Real workshop mugs have an oiled exterior and a mighty thick tanning layer inside and could just be alive.
Very happy days, but Harrold nicked the mini pillar drill I hand made at the end of my year.
old git.

[neilbardsley]

Takes me back to my O Level in engineering. I enjoyed working on the lathe.

[Bruce M]

Was working last night on paperwork and had "this old tony" on in the background, making a "boring head". Very entertaining

[911hillclimber]

I hope the intent is to share our Machining Experiences here.

1949 AMAC carb off my latest restoration. Knackered piston, no spares, so restore it!



Tricky bit of turning here, hardest part was to get the drive from the chuck to the workpiece. Turned it down and soldered a brass sleeve over it restoring concentricity and fit.



Done and very satisfying.

[sladey]

Nice work

[Nige]

Good stuff Mark.

I still have my plumb bob and screwdriver I made for GCSE CDT (that's O-level in old money ). We also did plastics such as vac forming and mold making.

I love a bit of knurling.

[PeterK]

In awe of This Old Tony

I did an accelerated 6 year German apprenticeship in Germany in 6 months as part of a work semester almost 40 years ago, and within that 6 weeks in the machine shop on basic hand tools, mills and lathes. As proof of basic competence in the machine shop, we had to produce two pieces, that are still sitting on the side next to me ...


The first was milling the anvil, hand filling the anvil tongs and hammer and even wood shaping for the stand.


The second was basic turning, thread cutting and knurling.

Looks like the hairspray used to stop surface rusting is due a refresh !

Not sure that I would even know where to start now - even had to resort to Google to remember how to knurl Did own a treadle lathe (covered with 1/4HP electric motor) a couple of years ago when first restoring the Lotus, but only turned down diameters really - no knurling or thread cutting there !

Peter

[911hillclimber]

They look great, even better to still have them.
I made many tools in my first year and still use all of them today, nearly 50 years on.
Nothing to beat actually using your hands to do these things.

[mycar]

Good stuff Mark.

I still have my plumb bob and screwdriver I made for GCSE CDT (that's O-level in old money ). We also did plastics such as vac forming and mold making.

I love a bit of knurling.

Me too, although a nutcracker rather than plumb bob.

I presume you still have them on the mantlepiece as testament to early triumphs.

Me too.

Edit, Great to read about your turning exploits Mark, it's something that's always fascinated me. As manufacturing processes go it's a pretty quick method of producing all manner of useful and beautiful stuff and can be very rewarding. I purposely don't have a lathe in the workshop as I know I'd just spend hours just messing around making stuff.

Maybe I should get a lathe again.

[smallspeed]

I have a CL500M too and its great! mine needs a little tlc so I will prob rebuild it some time soon - the autofeed isn't working because one of the pieces has disintegrated, and there's quite a bit of backlash everywhere. great machine though!
I also have an old lathe which belonged to my grandfather (unsure the make off the top of my head but its 50+yr old). Again needs a little TLC but will probably sell that rather than use it as its in the way and I don't really have the time to sort it out

[sladey]

Nice Knurling Peter

Mike - my wife thought when I bought a metal lathe I was going to make metal eggs (after seeing so much wooden lathe fuckwhittery in craft shops etc)

Smallspeed - Yes the Clarke is not a bad lathe and actually having it's limitations (mainly on the milling side) is making me appreciate the forces involved and try to take them into account. I bought a collet chuck for the milling attachment which holds the pieces more securely than a 3-jaw. However the locks to lock the mill in place are rubbish

[911hillclimber]

Before I bought my old Drummond, I looked at the lathes new in Machine Mart.
I thought some details were lacking for a new machine, but also I feel the new ones are poorer quality than the older ones as everyone works harder to find a greater margin at a lower retail cost.
One I looked at had really poor backlash, even over 1.5 turns of the slides which I think said a lot of the whole tool.
Of late, a lot of what I've bought from them is poorer quality than 5 years ago imho.

My 70 year old Drummond has 1/2 turn of backlash to its controls, but the slides are now too tapered by wear to restore using the wear strips, so at the extrems of slide travel the slide goes tight and is slightly slack mid way where all the use has been.
Needs a pro grind on the wear faces.

[mycar]

Mike - my wife thought when I bought a metal lathe I was going to make metal eggs (after seeing so much wooden lathe fuckwhittery in craft shops etc)

I can imagine her disappointment, I know the ladies love those metal eggs.

I know exactly what you mean about the craftshop fuckwhittery though, here's some dildos I turned earlier.

Let me know your requirements.

[Darren C]

Some great work there guy’s

Reminded me of my apprenticeships….
Started as a YTS Coachbuilder on the old English wheel making car, truck and crane bodies, then joined the Navy as an engineer.

What followed was 3 years solid 60 hour weeks learning the old skool skills of a Fitter, a Turner, a Sheetmetalworker, a Coppersmith, coded welding and a Shipwright. Basically how to be really anally retentive in the ways of engineering (nice link from the Dildo’s)

Anyway after a quick rummage in my attic, here’s some of my 30+ year old trade tests.
The first picture is about 2 years worth of hacksawing & filing to a tolerance of <3 Thou !!
The only power tool involved here was a pillar drill for a few holes. The rest was 2 years of weeping blisters.



Suffice to say each part had to fit all ways. So the cross in the block for example had to fit 4 ways from each side, that’s 8 combinations without a 3 thou feeler gauge fitting in any gap. All with a file hacksaw and scraper.

Once we’d either mastered it, been discharged from the Navy for failing the 3 thou feeler gauge or gone completely mad, we were allowed on a lathe.



This time again all by hand on the lathe (certainly NO CNC) but with a reduced tolerance to 2 thou and only 2 chances (bugger it up and you only get 1 more metal lump to have a go with).
Each test piece was made from exacting engineering drawings and had cunning stumbling blocks such as twin start square left hand threads, fitted hex or squares (which was done by hacksaw & file) taper fits, Reamed PCD fitted bolt holes with 4 combination assembly etc etc. We spent a few months first learning to be tool makers as all this stuff was made using HSS tools that we had to grind ourselves beforehand, including all the thread tools, not just side and face tools! Certainly no pre made or tipped tools for us.



Again you had to make these against the clock and your time and accuracy was recorded and marked accordingly. You could get a perfect size & fit, but fail the test and be kicked out the apprenticeship if you were too slow or visa-versa!
Kids today don’t know they're born…..Those good olde engineering days eh?

Once we passed fitting & turning we moved on to the next trade, wish I still had my coppersmith job...we had to make a perfect sphere from a flat sheet of copper...and I mean perfect shaped sphere...
Still have a few sheet metal development test pieces somewhere though.