Hello All, I'm not really sure which forum section this should show up in. Hope you enjoy this, here goes...... This is an announcement of sorts, I'm not prepared to make a lot of parts, and those goofs at work still expect me to show up every day. You may want to see the photos below first, otherwise this may just bore you silly. I have recently come to the end of a very long and arduous process, of 80 some odd CAD drawings, and a lot more machine work than I originally thought would be required, but have modified a 1965 vintage US made Hardinge DV-59 lathe to cut threads using a single point 55 degree tool. The lathe is not the threading type, it is a toolroom machine deigned for small parts and secondary operations on parts produced by larger production machines. It is not a CNC machine and the operations are all manually peformed. It does have certain production attributes so really if you could get one to do the threading it would open up the ability to make some stove parts that you and I probably both need from time to time. I already had rebult and painted the lathe 5 years ago as I purchased it in sad state. As a collector like you I started to need certain parts not readily available, and contrived a way to do certain thread work using 55 degree cutting tools for Whitworth threads. I am just now only a week or two beyond completing and debugging numerous problems with the system used. It is somewhat complicated with a homemade shaft encoder, decoding circuitry, a stepping motor drive system, and Lord what mess I got myself into, but it works , and it is now in my gargage ready for use. I am able to cut certain Whitworth threaded parts for stoves, and still must learn a great deal more, especially for each new part that is attempted. To start I have cut some Optimus style 45 rise tubes for two friends and a 3rd new aquaintance who posted a request for a rise tube, all in UK, and all are contributors here on CCS. I started with 16 parts, lost 7 to growing pains, and 6 parts have shipped overseas Wednesday Jan. 3, 07, the balance of 3 are here now on some of my stoves that needed one, and I am waiitng now to hear if the parts fit ok for the collectors in UK. I will know more possibly late next week. I cut the parts burner end first from 3/4 hex free machining brass bar stock (known as type 360 brass here in the US) . After burner end operations the part is cut off as an individual piece, and another is started after shifting the bar to protrude from the spindle again. After making all the first round operations, the setup is taken down and re-set up to make the other end. Set up takes quite a while, and I am working to drawings I have previously made from measurements of the subject part. Trouble was my co-pilot. The second operations were much more difficult on the tank end, and I snapped a cutter almost immediately on the first part. My collector friends lent the moral support and advice via daily emails and I back tracked, and after a few weeks have successfully used the lathe to make a tap that can make the threading cut to the bottom of the tank end in the rise tube, with a hole in the nose of the tap to go over the interior tube on the inside of the rise tube. It took 3 tries, I may yet need to make a fourth tap. A tap takes me 4 hours, maybe less in time with experience. I also found that my test burner was small and that other burners I tried were too tight. I made a tap for that issue as well and chased the existing threads for the burner ends. My taps are rudimentary, but I am getting experience in making them, and in hardening operations. I found a small furnace on ebay and purchased it so that I can harden taps at home. It is 4 or 5 hours to do that process for air hardening steel so it made sense to avoid taking parts to work and using an old furnace there. I found that the tap making will be part of the process for many of the parts I will probably attempt. Hopefully the furnace will arrive next week. The tap for the tank end of rise tubes now being mostlikely useable , but only when mounted in the lathe there is more that it can be used for. It should be also suitable for reserve lids. Once again I need the test results from the rise tubes in shipment to be sure the last tap made is cutting large enough so that parts made with it fit easily onto exisitng stove threads. I have made a knurl holder tool, and have accumulated the necessary tooling to make the reserve lids but it will be weeks still before I can make them. Reserve lids are a little less complicated but will still demand a learning curve. Another part just produced were two parking boss parts for Optimus 00 bun foot (1920s and earlier perhaps). These were the large size of 3/4-16 thread and were made one-off style on the lathe meaning no set up, just cut each part one at a time with 16 successive passes or so with the 55 degree cutting tool at very low speed, until a sample reserve lid for that stove fits the part whilst it is still on the machine. It's slow going making those but they are completed and those parts also shipped with the rise tubes. From reading so far I think you can tell I am ill equiped to make a lot of parts but I need to start somewhere, so this is the only way I could think of. I'm just letting you know I will be able to help with some parts if they can be made with what I have set up thus far. Some photos are below of the machine and what it has been doing for me and maybe someday for you as well. Regards, Doug
could you make me up a ion flange spin deflector for my time machine ???? CCS justs gets better and better every time i log in i think in a few years CCS will be the last word on the subject --
Very Nice!! Wow!! that is all I can say. To make your own tap is a undertaking!! Great job and look forward to buying some parts from you!!
Don't what to know why you would try and make it numerically controlled! Nice capstan/turrent lathe there. Comiing over..... I want a play too. Nice job on the tap!! could cut down the side of the thread and plung cut at the end to clean it up. That way you only have to have the root radius right and a straight edge on one side with clearance!! Worked out how to cut taper theads yet?? Will I sent a list of stuff or just a few drawings for a starter??? 8) Bruce
Thanks guys ! My day job is unnecessarily stressful for the wrong reasons, poor quality, bad magement philosophy, etc., but as you know, you do what you can at work and try to leave the bad stuff there and not take it home as it's unhealthy. To compensate I usually keep a good project going at home and spend time in the shop, whether it be fixing/cleaning stoves or some other project like the lathe project. My claim to fame is imagination and I can be stubborn too so I don't quit in the middle too often. It is the same as fettling really, because that can really tax you sometimes, but you still go do it on the stoves you aquire. I also build a sea kayak from time to time in wood strip. I built automated machines years ago for cutting various types of cedar for my boats, and at the time, repairing the lathe was a part of that project. Those machines were another example of staying busy for the sake of sanity. The boats are a different post for another time, and they have taken a back seat to stoves and the lathe project.. Tapered threads: I could probably make tapered threads, but a get a shiver thinkingg about it. Are there instances where we know they are tapered on stoves ? I'm not sure on this one so let me know. It seems that the threaded stem that rise tubes screw onto on Opt 45, 48, Radius 17, 34, and others probably might be tapered but I'm not sure. It's so short it's hard to tell. Which parts to make: Jeeez, that was the toughest part of starting this post, how to respond to parts needs. I'm going to leave it up to you in this way: If it is likely that others need the same part it is worth figuring out how to make it. I will probably post in the For Sale section what I have made thus far, and will add to the list as useful items are figured out. If for example someone needs a rise tube that is a1/2 inch longer than the standard, that would be easy to do except for getting it set up. I have also made a year ago or so , the gland nut for Optimus and Primus 96, but with a UN thread (60 degree threads). for a collector in UK. I am now working on another special which we had discussed a while ago (I was shocked at the date on the drawing) on August 18, 2004 . I am just now starting to make his parts. That is the true measure of how long this project really was, but the real push was only the last year. How this really happened: I learned early on that taps for this work are not really available. THe threads are not really to British standard Whitworth. I was stumped. During the same time when trying to figure out how to make parts like this, I spent almost as much time on Ebay under the search query " Hardinge " as I did watching for stoves. There are typically 5 pages on ebay at any one (normal ) time for latehs and parts like mine. At some pont I noticed an offering for a lead screw and follower which are components made for a large production machine made by Hardinge, and now it is not so in demand with CNC machines on the market. I purchased a set of these for 24 threads per inch for $25 and set out to figuire out how to drive them with a step motor synchronized to the lathe spindle. It was trying at times, a lot of experiments went this way and that but it was fun and I learned a lot. I think the learning is what really drives us to do these things I doubt if I can reclaim the expense of setting the mahine up, but making a dozen parts up of a specific type can hopefully pay for the cutting tools needed to make the part, and as the special cutters number increases it should get easier to pick tools out of the bin as my inventory increases. I have just recently received a grinder free from a friend for shaping the tools, and have done a little work in trying to fixture the parts when grinding them. Like the rest of this work, and like what you all do when fixing a stove, it's getting a little easier with experience. Right now, every part I consider seems to need $50 in cutting tools as they run about $20 -$25 a pop for carbide, but already that is changing as well as I have a few different types to work with now. I should be working so must get back to it. I will post more on the thread when I get home with some photos. Thanks for your support, it is a high octane fuel. Regards, Doug
Just use high speed steel. Cutting with brass about 120 feet per minute isnstead of 3-400 feet per minute in carbide. less hasles as you can get the swarf to lay where you like by adjusting feeds speeds and raker angles. And can cut down slow as you like. Don't have to spray it over a six foot area!! For alu use high speed steel as you will get a to much galling and broken tips unless you run it at 800 feet /min or more.Plus the angles ain't right as far as I'm concerened anyway. Did my apprentice ship using capstan and turrent lathes. Old war stuff Taper threads I used an ol english lathe with a taper atachment on it. Great fun learn a lot in a hurry that way!! Easy!! you think to you try it. Can off set your tailstock a bit but probalbly nor enought plus your cross feed won't move unless you do it manually which is fun to try and do propely. Usually go good until the finishing cuts and then a slight hesatation and you've stuffed it!! How do you sinc you lead screw to you spindle if it an't attached thorugh gears then?? Used to cut metric threads on a imperial lathe. engauage every 125 turns. Or stop spindle and reverse cutter back. Used to cut at 400 rpms with 1 inch s/s 4-6 foot long with 8mm sqaure threads. Aligment method was my favorite old but true!! Doing a top notch job there! Hmm one day I'll jet a sherraton student or some thing and see if I can use one still. My brain thinks I can as far as I remember that is!! My ears are still ringing from the welders and resonating huge clyinders being machined on vertical and hoizontal boring machines. Tips as big as your thumb dime a dozen!!! And I wore ear muffs!!! Bruce
Hello, Doug, Man, you are something special!!! Outstanding work, Mate, and congrats on your attention to detail!! Heck, I'd like one of your Opti 45 riser tubes, just to enjoy how nice it is!!!!! 8) =D> =D> =D> =D> A true work of art!!! Not having the skills necessary to create such wonderful parts, I'm in awe of those who do!! Thanks for sharing your fine skills with us, and may you enjoy many, many more years of such outstanding creativity!! Take care, and God Bless! Every Good Wish, Doc Mark
Hi Guys, Barrabruce has added some good info and thanks. You have more time on these machines than me probably. I will have to go over your post again later to let it soak in better, some initial response below. Thanks to all the rest for compliments, I am most proud to receive them. This may bore some, if so just skip over it as it is mostly the technical stuff behind how this sytem works. The response to the HSS steel cutting tools: Most of my cutters are triangular insert type or carbide tipped. The 55 degree cutters are inserts from Carmex Precision Ltd. in Israel, available at a tool supply chain here. They mount on a Carmex 5/8 diameter bar which happens to fit the turret. For the hole work however I am predrilling then shaving diameters, flattening out hole bottoms etc. with carbide boring bars, most with 1/4 or 5/16 shank diameters mounted in sleeves or in the adjustable boring bar slides in the turret. Most of my boring tools have a 4- 5 degree relief under the cutting edge. There is no carriage on this type lathe, and it has a dovetail bed. It can be outfitted with a compound slide (X -Y axis) and the upper portion of it (upper slide) can be set to any angle. The compound slide has lead screws and hand cranks for the operator to turn and lockable engraved readout dials reading in thousandths. There is also a single axis cross slide that can be fitted for repetitive work, moved by a lever on rack and pinion underneath the slide. It has stop screws at each end so you can cut in from the front with a front mounted tool, and then come in from the back with tools upside down. Both these slides can go on or come off of the machine with relative ease via a single cam lever for the compound or a single lock screw in the back fro the cross slide. When the threading system first started working I found that I did not have the reflexes of a cat, and could not stay in control during threading even with the lowest spindle speeds available to me. Another side track ensued. I sought out and found a 3 phase electronic speed control on ebay for $200 and bought it. It was a month to get it integrated and those things are fussier than a woman on wedding day. I blew another $500 on a commercial phase converter to take 240 VAC and make 3 phase 240VAC . My previous home made converter in use for more than 5 years had an excessive high voltage on one leg and the speed control device being the fussy female dog that she is demanded even power supply legs within 3%. It was a blessing really because I could not use the coolant pump on the lathe either as it did not like the voltage variations and kept tripping a breaker in the lathe's control box ( a real headache). There were a lot of hurdles on the speed issue but now I have a third speed range and it is nearly a creeper gear. The ultra low speed when needed is absolutely great. The lathe has a 2 speed motor, of 3/4 and 3/8 HP on respective windings. There is a varispeed belt system with a motor controlled moving middle sheave between two drive belts motor to spindle, so for each speed range of the motor there is an operator control to move the spindle RPM up or down via the variable belt ratio system. There is no back gear on this lathe. Also, the electronic speed control that I added to the system only activates on low speed in the lathes electromechanical control system. The concept drawing for how the threading system works and is synchronised is below in the form of a jpg photo. I edited it a few moments ago to bring it up to date. It may be borderline insane but it works. The photo below the sketch is the home made encoder disk, and a home made optical reader. The lathe's collet closer assmbly and control arm are removed in this photo so you can see the details of the parts added to the machine. These are old pics from my archives. [ Note for reference: I cut the encoder disks on a rotary table on a milling machine. They are 4 hours to make on a good day ]. The mounting bar for the optical reader uses existing holes in the lathe casting and the original bolts are parked on the left end of the bar (just like a reserve lid) so I don't lose them. Closer review may show that the reader is moveable up and down with small stop screws to limit it's travel. It also slides off the bar easily for a change of encoder disk. Here's why: burners need a 34 thread per inch thread. I found in my searches that the lead screws and followers for 34TPI don't ever show up on ebay as it is a non standard size here so no one has them to sell. How to beat the system: My standard encoder disk is 200 slots, and my step motor is 200 pulses per revolution. Perfect right ? I have a synchronized system, 200 pulses from encoder to feed 200 steps on step motor, both the lathe and step motor make one revolution together and stay synchronized through start stop reverse and whatever. To get 34 threads per inch for burner threads I have a second encoder disk of 188 slots, the slot to slot dimension is critical to the optical reader, so the diameter is smaller to compensate and keep slot to slot distance in range, and the optical reader must move up on it's mounting bracket when I use that smaller disk. So.......a 188 slot disk giving 188 pulses per rev to a 200 step per rev stepping motor with a 32 thread per inch lead screw mounted on it with it's appropriate follower gives damn near 34 TPI thread cutting, a win win situation. 200 divided by 188 = 1.06383 x 32 pitch = 34.04255 pitch. Knowing what was required in the beginning just meant there was a long list of things to do, which got added to as troubles came up, but by taking a break here and there and just waiting, taking it easy sometimes doing other things, the answers eventually came out of the blue. Regards, Doug
You've done an awsome job on it there. Well past my electrickery capabilities. Very pro looking job. I only used old wards which were the capstain and trruent lathe. thes had a sadddle as well. set up all you stops and things. Probably the most fun part of batching stuff!! The next 100 or so its just a boring daydream or repedative swinging off the handles and tramping the boards!! Well I was making things for the boss!! Not for myself. They had an old Lang with a taper attachment that connected to the saddle some how. It was a simple and easy set up. Those big old engllish bearings where preety shot and a lot of give in every thing but you got the feel as to how much the pressure on the sloppy srcews and things and could make it purr after a while!! Like watching and learning off the old coots!! As they say Craft will beat brains every time!!! Think a lot of the old skills are dying off. Take to much time verses money thing. Will find me a small screw threading lathe one day and have a play!!! OOOh the smell of cutting fluid. Bent over like a half closed pocket knife in a hot dingy lit shed!!! Will be my lab-or-itory!! HaaHaaaHaaaa Bruce
Hi guys, Thanks Bruce, Lathes are a nice machine to work with, and I enjoyed your comment about the smell of cutting oil and being bent over like a jack knife. It's funny and it's true. It is much more fun making parts for yourself instead of for an employer that's for sure, being more of an adventure and less drudgery. Setting up is the fun part for sure. I am always learning though and it is touch and go trying to make sure errors don't get past you in set up. It's pretty easy I find to get a bit cocky when getting started, and then you measure and find you jusy turned out a few rejects. That is the hurdle that is most difficult to get over, making sure you have checks and balances on your method so you get the results you thought you would. I think you have a great number of tricks up your sleeve too, and have read some of your posts on working on the canister stoves and getting variations figured out. Keep it up, it's really fun to read about your adventures down there. There's a ton of guys on the site really that are amazing, doing amazing things. It's something to behold. I hope you find an inexpensive lathe sometime as you surely have the ability, you just need an old lathe to walk up and tap you on the shoulder and present itself. It happens. Years ago I did learn some good stuff from a fellow who was near 80. He had worked on the big machines during the war effort as a young man, and I think he ran lathes all of his working life. I had met him in a friend's garage workshop where they were making parts for General Electric, mostly special hand tools for working on machinery in the big powerplants, hydro, oil fired and so on. That old fellow could tell some good stories to us youngsters, and he was a real crackerjack on a machine, any machine really. It was in his blood I think. I learned much and enjoyed it too, and we shared some good times over a few beers, or when working on parts. Good luck with your projects, I enjoy your posts. Regards, Doug
Thanks for the detailed posts Doug! Very interesting and I really like how you overcame your challenges. I have a couple of machines myself but I only know enough to be dangerous. With your setup, you need a different encoder wheel for each different TPI you want to cut. Is that correct? How many different setups do you have? The small lathe I have has change gears to set up the speed on the lead screw for thread cutting, but unfortunately I did not realize some of the gears were missing until after I got it home and cleaned it up. Just enough gears missing so that I can't cut a single thread. Need to find or make some replacements... CB
Hi CB, Uh... that's exactly how much I know, enough to be dangerous. I have a lead screw and follower set for most each thread size, except 34 TPI . So far I have 16, 20 24, 28, 32,36, and 48 TPI sets and the average cost was $20-25 per set . Hardinge wanted $650 for a set for 34 TPI. No thanks ! A 56 is presently on ebay but I'm not sure if stove work would need it so will pass on it. When I run the sytem on my lathe there is no backlash in the movement of the turret and drive system for threading which is a blessing as there's more than enough to worry about already. When you thread with a geared machine such as the one you are working on (I think), there is usually a counter on the carriage that monitors the lead screw. If you disengage and move the carriage you must reengage when the dial is again aligned with the number you were on before, for if not the threads will not match where your cutter is. The dial typically has 1, 2, 3, and 4 on it at 90 degree intervals. I had an old 14 inch swing South Bend lathe that worked that way. The other way is don't disengage, but you have to back track at low RPM to go back to make another pass and it adds considerable time and annoyance. Either way you have to pull the cutter clear of the threads to go back to the beginning. I usually back the cutter off a few mils on my return passes but I can get away with not backing it off as well. It is my only advantage other than the leadscrews I'm using are deadly accurate at 2 inch diameter, and they are hardened and ground. You should be able to find parts for your lathe on ebay. If they don't show up right off the bat, you could set up an automated search so that any new listing that matches your criteria will automatically send an informative email to you. It's a lot easier than trying to remember to check ebay every couple days. You never know, you may get your parts really inexpensively. In my project in total there are probably 30 to 50 items from ebay, and I was surprised at the savings, much of it from 5 to 10 cents on the dollar selling price. It made it affordable. Thanks for your comments and good luck getting your machines up to the best operating levels that you can. You ought to put a lathe photo into a post here. Regards, Doug
I've got nothing useful to add to this post, just want to say, WOW!! I've been away for a couple of days, and this is a real treat to come back to. ....Arch
The wheel you are talking about is just a gear that spins on the lead screw. You can have many numbers on the disk and teeth on the gear as you like with in reason.
It been a long while coming. Excuse the mess Its getting there slowly. Still need to source a couple of missing change gears but I was down in the shop taking pictures of other things and thought I'd get back to this! My lathe in the midst of sorting: It seems to be a knock off Southbend or something. No real identifying marks. It is fairly old as I bought it from someone who said it belonged to his father. Rough guess of 30-50yrs old? Works quite well and not too badly put together A recent project for a belt driven buffer/wire wheel. Any advice on the best polishing compounds to use? Thanks for your patients! CB
