Buckshot
09-16-2010, 03:46 AM
.............Some years back after having so much fun with a golf ball cannon, I decided I needed a beer/pop can morter. I bought a 14" long hunk of 1045 steel of 4.5" OD. The steady rest for my 11" Logan lathe only goes to 3.5". I knew that and figured whipping out a larger steady (in my mind) would be an afternoons work. You now how it goes, the years just seem to race past :-)
In that time I picked up a 12" x 12" piece of good ole A36 structural steel 3/4" thick for the new steady rest. It leaned against the front of my workbench for some considerable time, ageing to perfection. Actually it was a matter of knowing I'd have to fit it's setup and machining time into my schedule, and knew it'd tie up the milling machine for some unforeseen time. I hate to simply dwell on one particular thing, with so much other stuff that needs to be done.
I finally got tired of that flat piece of steel laying out there and decided one day to get started. I felt so good about finally getting it started :-)
http://www.fototime.com/B049102B1BC2E02/standard.jpg
You can believe this or not, but I've had this 10" Phase II rotary table and the Baker center finder for almost 5 years and have never used either. A lot of the stuff for the mill had been bought 2-3 years before I'd ever aquired the milling machine. I just knew I'd eventually get one. And so now I was getting to use a couple of the things. I got to finally use the Blake co-ax indicator to set up the rotary table on center, and getting to use the rotab.
Not too shortly after that, things did NOT go swimmingly. Chinglish is bad enough but when the instructions are written in passable English, why can't they be complete? In this case it was lubrication. They said to put 'oil' in the base to the middle of the sight glass. Okay fine, I had a handle on that from simply having a few male genes, but please help me here ..............what freaking KIND of oil? I called them up (in Hauppage, NY) and after being put on hold was told Vactra #2. Left up to me I'd have put in some 90W HP gear oil, but okay Vactra #2.
Not mentioned in the instructions AT ALL or even SHOWN was a ball oiler on the perimeter of the table and another on the side of the base. To put oil IN the base they showed a threaded plug. Got that. Well okay, I gave each ball oiler a couple pumps with the oil can defaulting to Vactra #2, again. So the table is rotating is rotating with that silky smoothness of lots of heavy cast iron in finely machined and well oiled bearings/bushings. I mounted the steel plate on 1/4" thick sacrificial aluminum strips, clamped it and drilled 6 mounting holes in the plate. I then began milling the piece. After rotating the plate through almost a complete circle it began to get hard to turn, and eventually siezed up, DANG! I hated it and left it for a day or 2 (I was pissed off) but finally pulled the plate off, and could see nothing to do but to take the rotab apart to see wassup.
Leaving out a whole bunch of details, I had the rotab verticle with the table and it's central hub ready to be removed from the base. Nope, it wouldn't budge. I had to drive the table and it's hub out of the boss supporting it in the base. The boss in the base was slightly galled so I used a brake cylinder hone a bit to clean it up. The table's hub has hardened and wasn't marked.
Back to those unmentioned ball oilers. The one in the table goes to a hole above the boss. Atop the boss is a circular step, serving as an oil reservoir for oil for the table's hub. Although in this case, even an explaination in the instructions probably wouldn't have helped. The hub has a spiral groove ground into it to carry oil down and around between the hub and the boss it rotates in. The problem was the groove wasn't finished up to the top. There was no way for the oil to access the groove and find it's way down around the hub, other then possibly wicking down over time (weeks? Months?) between the 2 parts.
With the Dremel I finished grinding the groove up to intersect the oil reservoir. The ball oiler in the base allowed oil to go through a horizontal passage, and then intersect a connecting vertical passage that went down to feed oil to the thrust washer under the base, that carried the pressure of the 2 hub locking nuts. Anyway I finally got ti sorted out, and then fired off a friendly E-mail to Phase II.
http://www.fototime.com/5A5D6CFCA11C5E0/standard.jpg
I'd already milled off the outside portion. I'd managed to drop my old camera sometime previously and the couple picts I'd taken of that with the new camara came out way too bright and were unfocused. I decided to read the destructions and these other came out better.
http://www.fototime.com/FA640900C311E7C/standard.jpg
Almost through the plate. Lacking 1/8" of parting it off. As mentioned the plate was resting on 1/4" thick aluminum strips, but was only bolted through in the center. I had been using a 3 flute 1/2" endmill to cut the slot. At this point just before breaking through I swapped it out for a 5/16" 2 flute. I have a bunch of those, and felt that when making the final cut if the plate pinched it somehow or something else crazy I'd rather lose it then the much more expensive 3 flute.
Just an FYI I was in Lowes and they had these nifty little shop vac machines designed to utilize a 5 gallon bucket. They were $19.98 (you have to provide the bucket) and came with a 5 foot 1-1/4" ID flex suction hose. They really work well, and when I was finishing this up I used it to suck up the majority of the chips while machining the slot. Sure made cleaning up a lot easier as they're easy to carry in one hand with the nozzle in your other hand.
So about halfway done at this point.
................Buckshot
In that time I picked up a 12" x 12" piece of good ole A36 structural steel 3/4" thick for the new steady rest. It leaned against the front of my workbench for some considerable time, ageing to perfection. Actually it was a matter of knowing I'd have to fit it's setup and machining time into my schedule, and knew it'd tie up the milling machine for some unforeseen time. I hate to simply dwell on one particular thing, with so much other stuff that needs to be done.
I finally got tired of that flat piece of steel laying out there and decided one day to get started. I felt so good about finally getting it started :-)
http://www.fototime.com/B049102B1BC2E02/standard.jpg
You can believe this or not, but I've had this 10" Phase II rotary table and the Baker center finder for almost 5 years and have never used either. A lot of the stuff for the mill had been bought 2-3 years before I'd ever aquired the milling machine. I just knew I'd eventually get one. And so now I was getting to use a couple of the things. I got to finally use the Blake co-ax indicator to set up the rotary table on center, and getting to use the rotab.
Not too shortly after that, things did NOT go swimmingly. Chinglish is bad enough but when the instructions are written in passable English, why can't they be complete? In this case it was lubrication. They said to put 'oil' in the base to the middle of the sight glass. Okay fine, I had a handle on that from simply having a few male genes, but please help me here ..............what freaking KIND of oil? I called them up (in Hauppage, NY) and after being put on hold was told Vactra #2. Left up to me I'd have put in some 90W HP gear oil, but okay Vactra #2.
Not mentioned in the instructions AT ALL or even SHOWN was a ball oiler on the perimeter of the table and another on the side of the base. To put oil IN the base they showed a threaded plug. Got that. Well okay, I gave each ball oiler a couple pumps with the oil can defaulting to Vactra #2, again. So the table is rotating is rotating with that silky smoothness of lots of heavy cast iron in finely machined and well oiled bearings/bushings. I mounted the steel plate on 1/4" thick sacrificial aluminum strips, clamped it and drilled 6 mounting holes in the plate. I then began milling the piece. After rotating the plate through almost a complete circle it began to get hard to turn, and eventually siezed up, DANG! I hated it and left it for a day or 2 (I was pissed off) but finally pulled the plate off, and could see nothing to do but to take the rotab apart to see wassup.
Leaving out a whole bunch of details, I had the rotab verticle with the table and it's central hub ready to be removed from the base. Nope, it wouldn't budge. I had to drive the table and it's hub out of the boss supporting it in the base. The boss in the base was slightly galled so I used a brake cylinder hone a bit to clean it up. The table's hub has hardened and wasn't marked.
Back to those unmentioned ball oilers. The one in the table goes to a hole above the boss. Atop the boss is a circular step, serving as an oil reservoir for oil for the table's hub. Although in this case, even an explaination in the instructions probably wouldn't have helped. The hub has a spiral groove ground into it to carry oil down and around between the hub and the boss it rotates in. The problem was the groove wasn't finished up to the top. There was no way for the oil to access the groove and find it's way down around the hub, other then possibly wicking down over time (weeks? Months?) between the 2 parts.
With the Dremel I finished grinding the groove up to intersect the oil reservoir. The ball oiler in the base allowed oil to go through a horizontal passage, and then intersect a connecting vertical passage that went down to feed oil to the thrust washer under the base, that carried the pressure of the 2 hub locking nuts. Anyway I finally got ti sorted out, and then fired off a friendly E-mail to Phase II.
http://www.fototime.com/5A5D6CFCA11C5E0/standard.jpg
I'd already milled off the outside portion. I'd managed to drop my old camera sometime previously and the couple picts I'd taken of that with the new camara came out way too bright and were unfocused. I decided to read the destructions and these other came out better.
http://www.fototime.com/FA640900C311E7C/standard.jpg
Almost through the plate. Lacking 1/8" of parting it off. As mentioned the plate was resting on 1/4" thick aluminum strips, but was only bolted through in the center. I had been using a 3 flute 1/2" endmill to cut the slot. At this point just before breaking through I swapped it out for a 5/16" 2 flute. I have a bunch of those, and felt that when making the final cut if the plate pinched it somehow or something else crazy I'd rather lose it then the much more expensive 3 flute.
Just an FYI I was in Lowes and they had these nifty little shop vac machines designed to utilize a 5 gallon bucket. They were $19.98 (you have to provide the bucket) and came with a 5 foot 1-1/4" ID flex suction hose. They really work well, and when I was finishing this up I used it to suck up the majority of the chips while machining the slot. Sure made cleaning up a lot easier as they're easy to carry in one hand with the nozzle in your other hand.
So about halfway done at this point.
................Buckshot