Inline FabricationLee PrecisionMidSouth Shooters SupplyRepackbox
RotoMetals2Reloading EverythingLoad DataPBcastco
Wideners Titan Reloading
Page 4 of 8 FirstFirst 12345678 LastLast
Results 61 to 80 of 146

Thread: Adventures in top punch making (Long)

  1. #61
    Boolit Buddy
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Norteast Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    270
    I REALLY like 12L14 for short-n-sweet projects. Yup. It rusts. <shrug> Blue it, oil it, keep it forever!

    I prefer drill rod of about any flavor, over crappy old 1018. 1018 is just misery, unless you got your lips held just right, and you guessed the right color chicken to bury under the oak tree, etc.
    Rifle barrel steel is formulated to be pretty decent to machine. Talk nice to your gun-plumber, and you might be able to scrounge some up. It already has a hole down the middle! (more or less)

    17-4PH steel is nice stuff. It's a stainless that hardens by being cooked in the oven (precipitation hardening, the PH in it's name) and, while it behaves a bit differently than mild steel, it turns to a smooth finish, really easily. Expensive if you are buying lots, but worth looking for in the offcuts bin at places that have the stuff, like Metals Supermarket.

    Carbide tooling is expensive, and the frustration factor can be really high when learning to use it, as the edges break really easy if bumped or mistreated. HSS tool blanks are cheap and easy to grind, and are pretty forgiving.

    Once you learn to grind a decent cutting tool, you will find that the HSS tools can be made to do just about anything you need them to, on a lathe.

    Cheers
    Trev

  2. #62
    Boolit Buddy oldtoolsniper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Iowa
    Posts
    449
    So now I am going into the black hole! I wish I was lazy then I would not get myself into things like this. I read every reply and learn more. I got the three jaw chuck put together in the right order. I have a magnetic base and dial indicator and managed to get a chunk of 1018 to run true. I have an old book that breaks down to potato head what the cutters are and how to grind them. I don’t know what kind of oil to use but other than that I am now a machinist! JUST KIDDING!

    Thank-you guys so much for the help so far!
    “Work hard! Millions on welfare depend on it!”

  3. #63
    Boolit Grand Master JIMinPHX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Moving back east now
    Posts
    5,089
    Quote Originally Posted by leftiye View Post
    L.S. Much as I'd like to think that I could ever qualify for the "Artiste" title, I can't make the leap from a die to M's "David." (Not to say also that there aren't much scarier thangs to cut out than dies) OT, just stay with it, it'll happen.
    From what I have read, he had a really interesting approach to chisel work. He would picture the statue that he wanted to make as being already inside the hunk of stone in it's finished form. He would then just remove the excess material around it.

    ...Talk about an understatement.
    “an armed society is a polite society.”
    Robert A. Heinlein

    "Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
    Publius Tacitus

  4. #64
    Boolit Grand Master JIMinPHX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Moving back east now
    Posts
    5,089
    Quote Originally Posted by oldtoolsniper View Post
    I don’t know what kind of oil to use but other than that I am now a machinist!
    The best cutting fluid varies with the job at hand. In general, anything is better than nothing.

    Your cutting fluid provides 2 benefits. It lubricates & it cools. Depending on what you are doing, either one can be more important than the other. There are all kinds of high tech cutting fluids out there today that make all kinds of fantastic claims. There are two basic types that comprise the bulk of what is used & then there are a bunch of others that are less common, but far from worthless. Cutting oils & water based mixtures are the common ones.

    As you might guess, the straight oils (like sulfur oil) provide some of the best lubrication. Plain old motor oil will usually get you by in most lubrication intensive operations. Keep a small cup or jar of it next to the lathe with a little brush in it. Big cans just get knocked over & spilled.

    The water based fluids generally provide better heat displacement. If you are doing something like tapping, then lubrication is more important & the oils are usually my first pick. If you are engaged in a process that creates a lot of heat & is famous for ruining tools by turning them blue, like drilling stainless, than cooling is more important. In fact, when preferred fluids were not readily at hand, I've had good luck drilling stainless in the field by running a garden hose on the area that I was drilling.

    Some materials, like many tool steels, need both good lubrication & good heat displacement. Some materials, like cast iron, sometimes have problems associated with lubrication, like it makes the powdery chips clump up & form sintered pieces that snap off taps. I sometimes tap that stuff dry.

    Cutting oils can generally be found at hardware stores. Water based fluids usually need to be purchased from industrial suppliers. The water based stuff usually comes in concentrated form & is quite expensive. Once you mix it with water at anywhere from 20:1 to 50:1 ratios, the cost starts to seem more reasonable. The water based stuff sometimes gets smelly crud growing in it if you leave it sit around mixed. Some types are more immune to that than others. My favorite is Blassocut 2000, but I have a hard time finding it. The stuff from Valinite seems to be more readily available from more places & is not too bad.

    There you have it. A (not so) simple answer to a simple question.
    “an armed society is a polite society.”
    Robert A. Heinlein

    "Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
    Publius Tacitus

  5. #65
    Perma - Banned


    Bret4207's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    St Lawrence Valley, NY
    Posts
    12,924
    Quote Originally Posted by lathesmith View Post
    >>>A die is just a cylindrical hunka steel with some holes in it. When you think of it that way it's not so bad. <<<<

    Yep, and Michaelangelo's "David" sculpture is just a hunk of marble with a few chunks knocked out of it....

    !!!!

    lathesmith
    Personally, I'm more partial to Norman Rockwell than that Eye-talian dude. My foray into the art world ended with my attempt to draw "Tippy the Turtle" in 1978. It's the worlds loss I suppose....

  6. #66
    Boolit Master

    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Central Massachusetts, U.S.A.
    Posts
    1,283
    Quote Originally Posted by JIMinPHX View Post
    .... The water based stuff sometimes gets smelly crud growing in it if you leave it sit around mixed. Some types are more immune to that than others....
    If you aerate water bsed coolants they wil not tend to do this.
    If you have a small coolant tank, an aquarium air pump will do the job.

    Jack

  7. #67
    Boolit Master
    lathesmith's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Springfield, Missouri
    Posts
    1,373
    LE, I'm not quite ready to compare my abilities with M, and yes, Bret, Mr. Rockwell could do an impressive thing or two with paint and paper. My point is simply that hidden in that raw material is a useful tool, and it's merely a matter of us figuring out how to get it out of that chunk of raw material. As OTS has so instructively discovered, it just takes some folks a bit longer to figure out how....and just remember, we all have to start somewhere.
    Jim, that is probably the best write-up of coolants and lubricants I have seen. I have learned to use both--plain oil and water-based flood coolant. On most of these machining boards, I don't bother mentioning this anymore, because I usually get flamed by some know-it-all who informs me that flood coolant can't possibly work in the home shop, they didn't use it in 1955 (or something) and we don't need it now. Whatever. All I can tell you is, I have learned to use it and contain it, and I can do in seconds what it would take several minutes to do without it, and virtually eliminate tool wear to boot. Especially if you have a bigger lathe, you won't be able to take advantage of a fraction of its capabilities until you learn to use both oil AND water soluable flood coolant . So, my advice would be to read and re-read what Jim wrote in post #64,and if you don't understand something, just ask about it.
    OTS, I gotta warn ya, this machining business is addicting. Once you learn to take a piece of steel and turn it into a useable tool, you want to keep doing it, again and again, until your projects get more complex and you do better work. Soon, you find yourself staring at machine catalogs and websites, admiring and lusting after those bigger machines with the fabulous capabilities. I ask you, how sick and twisted is that? Better quit while you are ahead, once you are hooked it's mighty hard to quit. You have been warned...
    lathesmith

  8. #68
    Boolit Buddy
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Norteast Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    270
    Fer the love of Peter and Paul, leave the engine oil in the engine it belongs in!

    Sulphurized cutting oil (the stinky stuff, available at hardware stores for threading pipe) is OK if you can live with the odor.

    Bacon grease, lard, or a mixture of those two and some olive oil or kerosene (smell again) will work far better than engine oil. Animal fats used to be a big part of cutting oils, they work pretty well!

    Kerosene or WD40 (mostly Stoddard Solvent) work really well on Aluminum.

    Soluble oils are my fave. I have a pint bottle of Esso Kutwell 45 that lives near my lathe. When I need some juice, I mix a bit up in a soup can, and apply it with a small paint brush. The drippings evaporate before they ever get a chance to get swampy.

    I use machines at work that have pumped coolant. The soluble oil mix there has to be watched, or it can get a little....wild. It can grow some pretty nasty stuff, if the oil gets a chance to accumulate and the anaerobic bacteria can get going. Regular use helps to keep it down.

    Ask at the local shops if you can buy a quart of soluble concentrate off them, A quart should do you for about the next 40 years of hobby use, so maybe a smaller bottle. Get a big old hypodermic syringe from the vet or farm supply place, to draw out a measured amount when you need to mix some. Go with more oil than you think you need. It's cheap, more oil won't hurt. The stuff we use at work is mixed at 3 to 6 percent. I can get a couple long evenings out of about 4 ounces of mixed oil in a soup can...

    The downside of using a lube oil, is that it can sometimes (like when the cutter is not perfectly sharp) cause the cutter to skip over the surface, then when the pressure is increased, it digs in really deep. Makes life a little miserable when you are trying to get a dimension.

    Try the bacon fat/lard. The smell makes me hungry. I detest the smell of the sulphirized oil, but it's cheap and it works.

    Both motor oil and the suphurized stuff make a lot of smoke, too. Can be a domestic issue for some!


    Cheers
    Trev

  9. #69
    Boolit Grand Master JIMinPHX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Moving back east now
    Posts
    5,089
    Quote Originally Posted by jhrosier View Post
    If you aerate water bsed coolants they wil not tend to do this.
    If you have a small coolant tank, an aquarium air pump will do the job.

    Jack
    Yea, then there are skimmer disks to peel off the tramp oil & UV lights to kill the bacteria, etc., etc., etc. I was trying to keep my response under 2 pages.
    “an armed society is a polite society.”
    Robert A. Heinlein

    "Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
    Publius Tacitus

  10. #70
    Boolit Grand Master JIMinPHX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Moving back east now
    Posts
    5,089
    Quote Originally Posted by trevj View Post
    The downside of using a lube oil, is that it can sometimes (like when the cutter is not perfectly sharp) cause the cutter to skip over the surface, then when the pressure is increased, it digs in really deep.
    Cheers
    Trev
    ...That could also be a tool height problem.
    Either way, I'd rather fix my tool issues than go without lube.
    “an armed society is a polite society.”
    Robert A. Heinlein

    "Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
    Publius Tacitus

  11. #71
    Boolit Buddy
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Norteast Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    270
    To be perfectly clear, use a cutting oil, not a lube oil. Lube oils do what they were meant to, which is to stop the metal from making contact with other metal. You kinda want the contact between your work and the cutter.

    Sorry if I was not perfectly clear on that.

    Lube works counter to your needs. The cutting oils make the chip behave much differently.

    Cheers
    Trev

  12. #72
    Boolit Grand Master JIMinPHX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Moving back east now
    Posts
    5,089
    Quote Originally Posted by lathesmith View Post
    I have learned to use both--plain oil and water-based flood coolant. On most of these machining boards, I don't bother mentioning this anymore, because I usually get flamed by some know-it-all who informs me that flood coolant can't possibly work in the home shop,...
    lathesmith
    I find that for a home shop, a small bilge pump from a boat yard sunk into a 5-gallon pale makes a dandy little coolant pump. El-cheapo pumps can be had from Harbor Freight too. Just be aware that the centrifugal pumps hold up to chips better than most other types do. If you wrap a screen around the inlet of the pump to keep the big chips out & add a spin-on oil filter kit from the auto parts store down streem, that makes the rig much nicer as a recirculating unit. A short piece of soft copper tube seems to work best for me as a nozzle. You can choose between 1/4" & 1/8" depending on what you are doing. If you have the spin-on filter, then neither tube size should clog up with swarth.

    The bilge pump in the bucket also works as a tig torch cooler too if you just fill the bucket with plain water.
    “an armed society is a polite society.”
    Robert A. Heinlein

    "Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
    Publius Tacitus

  13. #73
    Boolit Grand Master JIMinPHX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Moving back east now
    Posts
    5,089
    Quote Originally Posted by trevj View Post
    To be perfectly clear, use a cutting oil, not a lube oil. Lube oils do what they were meant to, which is to stop the metal from making contact with other metal. You kinda want the contact between your work and the cutter.

    Sorry if I was not perfectly clear on that.

    Lube works counter to your needs. The cutting oils make the chip behave much differently.

    Cheers
    Trev
    What you say here is popular wisdom & well accepted as fact in many circles. I was first told that by a shop teacher over 20 years ago. I have been told the same thing by at least a dozen other people that were in a position to be knowledgeable on the subject, but I have found through experience, that motor oil works very well for things like tapping in most materials. It works well on drill bits in many applications. It also gives good results when turning a finish cut on a hard metal using cermets. It seems acceptable in most cutting operations that require lubricity & not a lot of heat dissipation. I am not saying that it is superior to, or even equal to genuine cutting oils for the purpose of a cutting lubricant. I am just saying that if you don't have genuine cutting lube handy & you do have motor oil around (even the used stuff), it is a whole lot better than nothing.

    I was not trying to put down what you said. I found your post to be informative. I'm sorry if I was unclear in what I wrote before.

    Regards,
    Jim
    “an armed society is a polite society.”
    Robert A. Heinlein

    "Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
    Publius Tacitus

  14. #74
    Super Moderator




    Buckshot's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    So. California
    Posts
    11,833
    .............I just wanted to say that having now been at this for about 5 years, I haven't made a mistake yet. However, I also have a large box full of spare parts for things that haven't been invented yet

    ................Buckshot
    Father Grand Caster watches over you my brother. Go now and pour yourself a hot one. May the Sacred Silver Stream be with you always

    Proud former Shooters.Com Cast Bullet alumnus and plank owner.

    "The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."

    Shrink the State End the Fed Balance the budget Make a profit Leave an inheritance

  15. #75
    Boolit Master
    lathesmith's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Springfield, Missouri
    Posts
    1,373
    The water-soluable stuff is my favorite for drilling and boring bigger stuff. I have also come to rely on it for parting off, another one of those handy "lathe arts" that needs to be mastered. You can really spend some giga$$$ for a flood coolant setup, but that $40 HF unit works great for me. For lighter and smaller drilling, as well as tapping, motor oil don't do too bad. I'm sure there is better stuff for this purpose, but since I have several quarts of the stuff hanging around that's what gets used most of the time.
    And like Buckshot, I have very few actual goof-ups, just some extra prototypes and recyclables hanging around.
    lathesmith

  16. #76
    Boolit Master

    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    NW Ohio, almost as N and W as you can be :-)
    Posts
    2,915
    Coolant is a good thing if you can make it work on your machine.

    However the practice of brushing some oil on a part being turned in the lathe is completely wrong. I have seen it many times, all it does is make billowing clouds of smoke.

    If the rpm is low enough such as when threading or when your not cutting (like knurling) the oil will stay on the part and you can maintain a consistent oil film, however if you are turning at higher rpm the oil film is not consistent.

    Process's like drilling MAY benefit from some cutting oil, but in my experience a spray bottle full of mixed water soluble oil coolant and water works just as good, this indicates that cooling is the primary benefit not lubrication. The primary benefit of adding the water soluble oil is to prevent rust on the machine from using it.

    I prefer to turn dry, I'm never in a huge hurry about what I'm doing.

    Used motor oil does contain some sulfur. it is better than nothing if you need to tap a hole and have no cutting oil.

    Bill
    Both ends WHAT a player

  17. #77
    Moderator Emeritus


    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    SW Montana
    Posts
    12,435
    Can we please "Sticky" this?
    [The Montana Gianni] Front sight and squeeze

  18. #78
    Boolit Buddy oldtoolsniper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Iowa
    Posts
    449
    ummm, does that mean I should figure out the TRICO double spout coolant pump thing that I got when I purchased the lathes?

    Some people can say this ain’t rocket science, they only say that because they are not behind the lathe.
    “Work hard! Millions on welfare depend on it!”

  19. #79
    Boolit Grand Master leftiye's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Sagebrush flats, Utah
    Posts
    5,543
    OT, Point taken. Let's see them make something that has a gazillion operations needed, when if you skroo one operation up it becomes scrap. Not rocket science, but no rockets without machinists (not much else either).

    I've got a cute little (not expensive either) spray doodad that vaporizes diesel (don't tell big brother) and sprays it on my milling machine tools. Hand sprayer with the d-word for the lathe. Makes the shop smell like a mechanic's been there.
    We need somebody/something to keep the government (cops and bureaucrats too) HONEST (by non government oversight).

    Every "freedom" (latitude) given to government is a loophole in the rule of law. Every loophole in the rule of law is another hole in our freedom. When they even obey the law that is. Too often government seems to feel itself above the law.

    We forgot to take out the trash in 2012, but 2016 was a charm! YESSS!

  20. #80
    Boolit Master xr650's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Wyldoming
    Posts
    513
    Quote Originally Posted by jhrosier View Post
    If you aerate water bsed coolants they wil not tend to do this.
    If you have a small coolant tank, an aquarium air pump will do the job.

    Jack
    A manifold made out of small stainless or copper tubing works for larger tanks. You may need a double pumper for increased air flow though.

Page 4 of 8 FirstFirst 12345678 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check