Metalworking, Machining & More: Peen around the hole, then drill and tap it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Metalworking, Machining & More: Peen around the hole, then drill and tap it

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shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Machinist goons, a retired metal shop teacher from IL got bored, put up dozens of hours of his old man shortcuts and tips on youtube, and has an absolutely hypnotic voice. Check out the collected works of Tubal Cain / MrPete222!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBC69869E8CB708F2&feature=plcp

# ¿ Jun 22, 2012 07:49

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 05:21

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

I'm waiting to find out if I've been accepted to a 5� year Tool & Die apprenticeship with Schaeffler Group. :ohdear:

# ¿ Jul 12, 2012 22:39

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Ambrose Burnside posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=?8qGHWZm0C-o
http://youtu.be/8qGHWZm0C-o

Somebody posted this at me on another forum to make me wistful.
It worked.

On that note, I've been thinking about how to make a wire/bar-twister, because it's something I've been trying to do a lot and it's very difficult to do, say, a multi-strand wire-twist with just a drill and a vice that isn't unuseably uneven because of slight differences in tension or whatever, and I'm considering doing A Wholesaling Thing Because I Need Money so I'd eventually need a way of consistently twisting easily and w/ heavier stock than I can manually, and ideally Without Fire Involved.

I was thinkin like a big worm drive unit, with a big hand-crank fitted into the worm and a vice-jaw-chuck thing on the axis of the worm gear. Not super-complicated, it'd just all need to be sturdily mounted in some sort of housing to withstand the torque it'd have to handle. Can I just -buy- matched worm/worm-drive sets from some strange supplier of gearparts that are sturdy enough to deal with twisting, say, a 1/4" bar or something? I hope I don't have to get it machined. Because that will be expensive. I don't care about the particulars of the gears, I don't want to have to care, I just want em to work with one another, be mountable somehow, and be beefy enough to not warp in use or fail or whatever.

This place http://www.huco.com/products.asp?cat=261 has a lot of gears in stock but you'd have to contact them about pricing. I'd think putting a mount together for them would be the biggest hurdle, you're going to need shafts and bearings to keep them in place, everything's going to have to line up, etc.

I'd try to find some kind of high reduction gearbox that you could buy assembled and then figure out how to mate that to a metalworking lathe. If you find one with a busted motor you could rip the electricals out, put your output from the gearbox into the chuck shaft and slap a big handwheel on the other end. Then you'll have an extremely sturdy base that can handle plenty of torque and big secure clamps on both ends of the workpiece.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2012 21:38

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Ambrose, I used to use a 4" Harbor Freight PoS belt sander to flatten the ends of iron pipe nipples at a factory. Pop for the blue zircon belts and it'll be fine, they cost 10 times as much but they cut 12 times faster and have about 40x wear life.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2012 07:23

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Hello getting paid to take three years of machining and heat treat classes for free!

# ¿ Aug 4, 2012 14:32

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Fire Storm posted:

Oh thread of metal, I have questions!

I'm looking to get out of my dead-end IT support career and get into something more rewarding: CNC MACHINING!

... OK, yeah, may not be the best thing in the world, but hey I can get my current employer to foot the bill for this and engineering classes and I figured I might be able to get some slightly better pay (or just plain better) than I am currently getting if I get training in multiaxis CNC machining. Mostly though, I'm tired of support, don't see a future in it for me anymore and want a change of pace.

At worst, I get to learn CNC and not have it apply for any way, shape and/or form to my work ever (I am OK with this).
At best, I get an amazing CNC job that makes me enough money to pay for my next level of education.
In the middle, it will be useful after I get an engineering degree and oh hey, it will help me have a better handle on the manufacturing process.

ANYWAY.

I've been looking at the program list for my local community college and I am wondering if the school's Advanced Manufacturing program (PDF file) is worth it. And if so... should I go for the associates degree or are the certificates good enough (IE: does it really matter if it's a certification and not a degree)? Or am I just an idiot for even thinking about doing this?

Schooling background if anyone cares:
I have a bachelors in programming from a crappy on-line college that allowed me to CLEP test out of most of the prerequisite classes, aside from the English and Math classes that I had taken at another community college. The engineering bachelors I'll be going for later needs about a year's worth of pre-reqs (mostly science and more math) that I'll take at this community college before transferring to (probably) Lawrence Tech's engineering program, so at best that's a 3 year plan.

Honestly, that program looks kind of lovely. There's only a handful of classes that actually relate to the machining and they're only 3 hours, I don't know how much real hands-on experience you can expect to get. By comparison, this is what I'm doing: http://www.netc.edu/documents/pathways_pdfs/machine%20Tool_degree.pdf
If you're serious about machining then you want to find a tool & die apprenticeship with a company that'll send you through a thorough, comprehensive tech school program while bringing into their shop for a few hours each day after classes so you can apply what you've learned immediately and pick up the little shortcuts and institutional knowledge from guys that have been there for 30 years.

However, since you've already got a bachelors and your company seems to be willing to pay for more school, my advice would be to forget about it and leap straight into engineering. There's a great thread in A/T here that can help you get started down the track: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3209369&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Aug 9, 2012

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 17:46

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Slot it with a cutoff wheel.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2012 20:20

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Today I spent six hours bending three pieces of brass wire to fit a template. Tomorrow: five hours cutting cutting steel U-channel into 2mm slices with a hacksaw. This apprenticeship is medieval and fun.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2012 23:24

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Anyone have a reccomended brand of files? Our entire apprentice group and our instructors have been dismayed to find out after recieving a large order that since last year, Nicholson has 1) moved production to Mexico and, 2) become absolute poo poo.

Seriously, 20% came bent from the factory.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2012 23:30

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Ambrose Burnside posted:

How can I buy nitric acid? It seems to be one of the most flexible and useful acids available for different metalworking processes, but doesn't seem to have an affordable civilian application like sulphuric acid (battery acid) or hydrochloric acid (pool acid) does. Also the whole "it's used to make explosives" thing, rendering it a monitored precursor.

I found a Popular Mechanics issue from 1935 that explains how you can synthesize your own from virtually nothing- it takes a spark gap actively arcing in a humid environment, and minimal equipment to contain it (literally a jar, a test tube, and some tubing). Problem being that I'd be able to render a test-tube at a time, and at an unknown concentration at that. Might still be usable if I just wanted a little bit for a Custom Fancy Mordant or a small etching or something.

e: Welp, you need something they call a "Ford spark coil", which sounds like a transformer to step up the current from the battery. I hate electric stuff why is it never simple

e^2: Nope, it's weirder. Apparently it's a scaled-up electric buzzer that uses an electromagnet and a springy portion to complete the circuit; it creates a barrage of forming and collapsing magnetic fields that induces a very high voltage across the spark gap. Apparently.

It's just an ignition coil. The ones from the 30's might have run on some primitive voodoo but any will work for this.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2012 00:49

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

If you're going to file the scale off of hot-roll, scratch it up a little bit with a hacksaw first so the teeth can grip.

And yeah, if you want flat and don't have access to a mill, files are going to get you a lot closer than any angle or bench grinder. Body position is a surprisingly big part of it. Left foot forward, right thumb on top of the handle, three fingers of your left hand on top of the blade. Check your work with a square every 20 - 50 strokes, mark the high spots with a black sharpie, low spots with red, make the black disappear. A 6" 2'nd cut file is going to take off about .0001" per stroke on 1018 steel, 10" bastard .0003" - .0005".

I feel like a sperg looking at that post but after having to spend 55 hours filing steel over the last 6 weeks I have to share the pain. This is what happens when you learn machining from Germans.

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Oct 3, 2012

# ¿ Oct 3, 2012 02:26

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Oh man I saw that episode the other day it's amazing how it was a biblical flaming sword when he pulled it out of the quench oil. Nothing has ever made me want an backyard forge so hard. Also loved the bit near the end where they called out tenth century t trademark infringement!

# ¿ Oct 14, 2012 08:38

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

What are some of the situations that would call for edm over a more conventional process? I know the big thing is working stuff that's already been hardened but what else has it got going for it?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2012 22:21

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Rotor, don't forget to budget for a vise, parallels, either a grinder to sharpen your mills and time learning to sharpen them or a lot of mills if you're treating them as disposable, and probably more vise accessories. Workholding is everything.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2012 00:16

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

rotor posted:

good hehe ... advise!! xD

what are parallels?

I was looking at this:
http://www.mechanicalphilosopher.com/kbsharpening.pdf

seems like a decent idea, and simple. seem like a reasonable thing?

Parallels are flat steel bars that come in precision matched pairs. When you have a workpiece that's too short to reach the bottom of the vise you need a pair of them to support the work so it can't tip over or slip inside the jaws.

That sharpener is pretty neat, you should make one!

# ¿ Oct 26, 2012 01:50

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

I don't know about brazing tube to tube directly but brazing steel tube into cast lug fittings was the primary method of bicycle fabrication for decades and is still used by a few high end boutiques like Rivendell.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2012 18:10

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Well, here are some pieces that have actually been blasted with lasers.

http://www.hypertherm.com/FiberLaser/applications_copper.jsp

# ¿ Nov 4, 2012 15:03

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Google companies that design and make military challenge coins, that's probably the closest business model to what you want to do. It doesn't seem like the economics work unless you're doing a huge volume of design work.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2012 01:53

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

tonedef131 posted:

Does that poo poo run on 3 phase? My work has an Acer bridgeport that we don't need anymore and I am thinking about buying it but I have no idea what it would cost to get 3 phase set up at the shop. Has anyone ever had 3 phase brought in where only 2 phase was in use before?

If you're lucky enough to live right across the street from a three phase line you might be able to get the power company to drop you a feeder, otherwise it'd cost out the rear end. Your best bet would be a rotary converter, which is basically a single phase motor hooked up to drive a three phase generator.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2012 16:04

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Brekelefuw posted:

I just finished my first semester of my Machining course.
Here is my final project just after I took my last cut:

I did polish up the taper a bit with some emery cloth after I took teh picture.

I was 1 of 2 people in a class of 15 that finished every project. Next semester we move on to advanced lathe work, surface grinding, and heat treating.

Also, I thought you guys might be interested in seeing before/after shots of a Cornet I got to work on last week. It was a challenging repair because the tube was twisted so badly. It is very easy to buckle it when untwisting, as well as put really ugly bulges in it when smoothing the dents.

You got to use a lathe first semester? So jelly. So far I've logged about 300 classroom hours of hand filing plus 25 on a drill press and maybe 10 each on a manual VMM and :wtc:

horizontal shaper.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2012 02:37

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Ambrose Burnside posted:

Freakin' owned

e: Shapers rule, though. From the looks of it anyways. I bet they're real soothing to work with compared to most machine tools.

Watching the chips go ping and fly away is hypnotic but it's hard to relax around a machine with that many pinch points after you've seen it take a .150" bite out of 1018 like there's nothing there at all.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2012 05:17

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Ambrose, I'd love to hear more about your repousse, especially what kind of materials it's good for. The closest work I've done to that was on this piece of 1/16" cold finish steel and the 4 before it that went to the scrap bin.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2012 12:48

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

areyoucontagious posted:

When you say hand grind the edge, how am I approaching the edge with the file in terms of angle? I want a really nice bevel, but I'm not sure if I should try a double bevel or just a single bevel. There's a lot of technique that I clearly don't have yet, and I wish I had a smith nearby to give me pointers- I'm really thankful this thread exists.

Edit: How do you guys get a larger bevel? Anytime I've tried to file an edge in the past I've always wound up with a mostly same-thickness piece of metal with a tiny sliver of bevel at the edge. Obviously I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not sure how to do something different. Is my approach to the blade with the file too steep?

Yeah, the size of your bevel will be purely a function of angle and material thickness. Also, if you're trying to hold your file at an angle, it's practically impossible to keep it consistent. Find a way to clamp your work at the angle and file flat across it.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2012 01:18

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

I'd advise against powder coat, it's a plastic coating that's weak against heat and doesn't hold up to UV radiation so well either. Engine enamel is the way to go as long as you have some way to cure it correctly.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2013 23:21

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Ambrose Burnside posted:

God bless you, child, for not skipping straight to power tools. Filing gives you a good intuitive feel for the comparative hardness of various metals that you completely miss with grinders. If you have a brass hammer or bits of copper on hand, file those, and be amazed by the butter-softness compared to steel. Then try filing, say, a chisel or punch, and gasp aloud at the file slipping off it like glass.

This, for life. My current apprentice project is to file a straight peen hammer from a block of A2, I'll try to get some photos when it's a little further along.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2013 18:34

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Oh since somebody was shopping for files, keep an eye on eBay for older US production Nicholson. The new Mexican ones are the shittiest tools I've ever used in my life and Harbor Freight would be embarrassed to sell them.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2013 22:37

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Here's a couple hundred hours of my life since August. Most of the slabs in the middle assemble together into a benchtop shear, still need to saw out and file the blade and finish the heads on those screws and it'l be ready to go.

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Mar 17, 2013

# ¿ Mar 17, 2013 21:06

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Ambrose Burnside posted:

I'm lookin' at this 1/4" aluminium plate I have to saw up, you know, by hand, with a hacksaw, and I'm getting real sad that I haven't invested in a bandsaw yet.

Maybe I could do a faster job with a chisel n hammer...

I had to rough out the blade for my bench shear apprentice project with a hacksaw from 1/8" A2 stock, and they only gave us 18TPI blades :gonk:

.

It's all finished now, I need to get some pics of that thing up.

# ¿ May 7, 2013 04:04

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

AbsentMindedWelder posted:

The Proc,

So what were the dimensions of that blade, and how long did it take you to do?

About 5 x 1 1/2" with a 13" radius, and close to 20 hours counting the milling to size, drilling, reaming, sawing, filing, and starting over three times because I'm terrible.

Edit: Now with more effortpost. The whole thing clocked in at 151 hours.

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 23:22 on May 7, 2013

# ¿ May 7, 2013 22:57

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Slung Blade posted:

Proc, that bench shear is awesome. What did you make the business end of the blades out of?

They're 1/8" A2 steel filed to shape, heat treated, and then surface ground. I'll try to get the drawings scanned later today, there are many.

# ¿ May 12, 2013 09:51

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Who wants 37 pages of bench shear specs?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/141042245/Bench-Shear-Prints?secret_password=29to30aydcn6cuxs3z8m

# ¿ May 13, 2013 01:49

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Eikre posted:

Does anyone have a good online machine shop sort of a place where I can order a piece of custom-milled metal?

My desktop computer case looks like this:

It's affordable and made of genuine not-pressboard wood. I like it.

But the (computer) hardware on the front panel is all lovely and dying and the pseudo-brass plastic isn't as convincing as one would like anyway. So I'm gonna replace it all. There's some rewarding DIY work to be done but I'm not really interested in doing my own milling so I'd like to engage a business to do it for me.

It's not a very sophisticated need, I just want a brass or bronze plate cut to the dimensions of a blueprint image or CAD file I provide. I don't know what a good thickness would be; presumably close to as thin as possible to keep the costs down, but it will be supporting the weight and operating duress of a power button and audio jacks. Maybe a twisty volume knob if I get real ambitious.

The plan is to solder some headless bolts on the backside to attach it to the case, and have a hinged door (secured shut with magnets) to hide a card reader and optical drive. I'm open to cool suggestions.

Can you post your design here? If you're going to have cutouts for USB ports and the like you'd probably be better off looking for a laser shop rather than milling.

# ¿ May 15, 2013 22:11

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Akula Raskolnikova posted:

Why shouldn't you use a cutting tool on reverse on a lathe? For example, cutting away from the chuck with a left angled cutting tool. Any real reason? A guy at work does it and it drives me crazy, but I can't explain why.

Because the relief angle on the top of the tool will be backwards relative to the cut. It would be like taking a pair of scissors apart, switching the blades around, and trying to cut something with it.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2013 14:33

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Fog Tripper posted:

I am a couple steps into my Machinist training and am working on the lathe. The other milling machines and then CNC units are further into the training. I found out today that the stock metal is pretty darned cheap and I can pretty much work on whatever project I feel like as long as I am not competing for machines.

So I'm looking for ideas of what I can make beyond a useless practice widget. I had thought to make a few gauges for rifle barrels and other firearm components, but the mills are pretty old and am not all that trusting of their accuracy/precision.

Any ideas folks?

For the record despite what the instructor tells me about how boring manual machining is, I am actually feeling rather cool about being able to shave down a really heavy piece of metal.

I had a couple extra hours after finishing all my projects for the semester and tried to make a giant body piercing stud out of some 1" stock I found in the scrap bin. Unfortunately, I ran out of time after finishing the first half of the first ball radius. Having forgotten about the turned-down section on the other end that I planned to cut off, it was with some chagrin that I unchucked and discovered I had made a giant aluminum tampon.

Edit: Cutting radii manually might be something fun for you to try! Here's the spreadsheet I put together to generate all the coordinates: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqVxt1xVmOOzdFJsclJXd2huc2JlWjN0aWVJTWc3dXc&usp=sharing

If you feel really ambitious, I've thought about combining that with a really low-pitch thread setting to make some kind of rounded twist vanity piece but I'm just not on that level yet.

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Aug 3, 2013

# ¿ Aug 3, 2013 23:14

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

I finally got around to shooting the big projects from summer semester. Though I've long complained that toy dump trucks are too plastic and round-cornered these days, I never thought I'd get to make one from 5 pounds of steel.

Everything wearing a coat of Dykem is from first semester when were only allowed to use files, punches, and a drill press. I have almost 25 hours just in filing that chassis square. Hand tools, hot rolled steel, and a �.008" tolerance is a great recipe for pain.

Then there's this precision vise from more recently, now that they've taken mercy and given us knockoff Bridgeports and a surface grinder:

I can scan the prints for that next weekend if anyone wants them. Fall semester starts monday, I'm stoked to finally get into the meat of this program with 26 credit hours including Intro to CAD, DC Circuits, Hydraulic/Pneumatic Systems, Jig & Fixture Design, Die Theory, and another manual machining shop class where 75% of the grade is fabricating an arbor press.

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Aug 18, 2013

# ¿ Aug 18, 2013 15:49

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Slung Blade, I was actually wondering about how to approach a flypress without any castings the other day because of that awesome restoration job you did! It'll never happen in the shop because time, but that could be fun to tinker with in the CAD lab. What's the thread pitch on your spindle? Wasn't it multiple helix?

# ¿ Aug 19, 2013 08:41

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Mount your parting tool upside-down and run the spindle backwards so the chips form on the bottom of the cut and fall out of it.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2013 20:45

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

kastein posted:

Well it looks like I have a new project to finish before I start on the aluminum casting stuff. Thanks to fellow AI goon Disgruntled Bovine for alerting me when his employer decided this belonged in a scrapmetal dumpster... it needs some repairs but was well worth the lack of purchase price.

Correction... two projects. One is fix the reportedly stripped gears in the head that are keeping it from working, the other is find a way to get it into my basement.

Anyone know where I can buy parts for a Sharp First HMV? I don't know what's wrong with it yet, but I figure I should start shopping so I know what pricing is like.

I'm going to be rebuilding two of those as part of my industrial maintenance class next semester, I'll forward anything that seems helpful. Externally, the "Supermax" machines we have in the shop look identical to the Sharps, I'd bet the drivetrain guts are interchangeable between them as well.

I finished my baby arbor press today!

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Dec 6, 2013

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 06:23

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Disgruntled Bovine posted:

you cannot go wrong with the Mitutoyo 103-260.

I have to post and back you up on this, the 0"-1" and 1"-2" have seen me through 5 semesters of machine tool school so far and with weekly checks against the jo-blocks I have yet to have needed an adjustment.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 22:20

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 05:21

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

codered11343 posted:

Any advice on getting metal (scrap or new) to use to start loving around on a lathe and mill? I live in DC/MD. What would you all say? Online? Wholesale? Stealing scrap from a metalworking shop?

I don't need to much now, I just want to know what you do to get your metal.

Call up the nearest community college with a shop and offer to buy their scrap bin. If you want something specific, this is the supplier to my school: https://www.myalro.com/ Checking a few sizes of cold roll, their prices are significantly better than onlinemetals.com but they ship freight so dunno if it would be worth it for a small order.

shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Feb 16, 2014

# ¿ Feb 16, 2014 16:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Metalworking, Machining & More: Peen around the hole, then drill and tap it

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