Rainy weekend. Tree-tube cleanup and machine work.

Mowing - of course!

Just so its recorded, I mowed the front lawn - not around the cherry trees or the persimmons though.

Cleaned up the Paw-paw tubes

In my continuing mission to remove all of the protector tubes from my trees I attacked the paw-paw trees.  Unfortunately, the trees aren't doing as well as I had hoped.  I was only able to remove the tubes off of 6 trees.   Some of the trees are about as big as when I planted them!  ARGG.    Well, at least they are all still alive.  I put cages around the ones that I removed the tubes from.  I don't want to risk deer damage on these poor trees!

Ornamental tree cleanup as well

I went ahead and cleaned out the tubes for some of the ornamental trees too.    The two crab-apple trees in the front are doing quite well and are already out!  I took the tubes off of them and replaced them with cages.

I was hoping that the red-bud and dogwood trees were ready to have the tubes removed but alas, not yet.  In fact, the redbuds didn't seem to survive the winter - which is kind of a surprise since they are native in this area too!  The dogwoods seemed to do ok though.   I removed the tubes from the dead redbuds and cleaned and re-set the tubes on the dogwoods.  Some of the dogwoods are a bit rough. We will see how they fair this year.

Started work on my new milling machine arbor

Since it was rainy out and I couldn't mow or do planting, etc. I decided to start working on new milling arbor.   I received a set of gear cutters that need a slightly smaller arbor diameter than what I have, so the new arbor will be sized for them.  The length and shaft of the new arbor will be the same as the arbor I already have, so I just measured that out and began cutting a piece of my alloy steel using my bandsaw!

The existing arbor is model 6-151- style "C" - I actually found it in an old VN brochure!

About 9.25-9.5 inches long

The critical part is the taper insert.  I might try doing a threading on a scrape piece to be sure I get this right!  Oh, and taper too.  I have some mild steel laying around...

The widest diameter is the flange.  I didn't buy a large-enough diameter cylinder to match the original flange but I don't see why my flange has to match  diameter.  As long as there is enough flange to engage the registration tabs - which I am sure it will.

Measuring the actual portion that sticks out of the spindle.  This is the part that will hold the cutters.  I will also have to make spacers for this too since the original arbor spacers will have too large of a inside diameter to fit right.  Oh, will have to make a new arbor nut too!  Joy!  Inside threading on a small ID!

I mounted the cylinder up on the bandsaw and started it up.

It was much slower going than cutting through angle iron

I set it up, started it, and went inside.  I did put a little cutting oil on the cut to start, but I am not sure it was needed.  The chips coming off looked fine.  Didn't seem to get hot at all.  No discoloration of the chips was noticed.  No damage to the blade that I can tell.

The saw finished the cut and turned itself off.  Sweet!  Damn nice cut too.

I missed a few pictures of the drilling the centers (I used the drill press).   I was upset that I didn't have any center finder tools to determine the center points at the ends of the cylinder.  I managed to use the calipers to get the centers and then used a punch to mark the drill centers.  Well, turns out that getting the center drill bit to hit those marks was much more difficult than marking the centers!  I was planning on using the 4-jaw chuck to hold the piece while the other end would be held in tailstock center. However, after trying this approach I quickly determined that the centers where NOT concentric with the outside diameter of the cylinder!  So, I  decided to do the machining between centers using a lathe-dog to drive the head engaging on a jaw of the 3-jaw chuck.  3-jaw chucks do not hold material exactly concentric to the center of the piece, however.  To get around this problem, I used an old trick I learned on youtube!  The trick is to put a sacrificial piece of rod in the 3-jaw chuck and cut the 60 degree center in place.  Since its cut in place, that center WILL be centered on the lathe and will hold the piece perfectly!  Just don't remove the cut center before you are done, otherwise you will have to re-cut the 60 center all over again!

After I got the center ready, I needed a lathe-dog.  I had an old lathe-dog from my small home-made lathe.  I had brought the lathe-dog up to the farm a couple weekends ago.  The drill holes were too far apart so I had to find a new center and recut the clamps on the mill.

Re-cutting some clamp grooves on the old-lathe-dog clamp pieces.  I had to drill and re-tap the holes for the clamps too.

Once I got a couple of longer clamp bolts, the clamp fits nicely and holds well!

The lathe dog arm had to be extended a little bit to engage the chuck jaw.

Here you can see one of the new grooves I cut with the mill.  It could be a wider angle (its only 90 degree) to hold better on this large diameter cylinder, but remember, this cylinder will get turned down to a smaller diameter!  Then this clamp will fit the smaller diameters better.

Once it was mounted up, i took a cut.  Works fine!

the chips come off in long thin razor like strips!  AND, they are damned hot too!

Turned the entire cylinder here.  Should be perfectly centered and concentric at this point.  I should check for "taper", but I have lots of material to remove before that maters much.

See the pretty blue chips?  I made sure the piece had plenty of cutting fluid on it.  The cutting fluid would smoke!  the shop was foggy when I finished this cut!  The piece was quite warm too.

In between showers...

I was able to get out between showers and do some planting.  We went to TSC and picked up some grass seed and a couple of spearmint plants (amongst other things).  I planted some grass seed in the front yard where I need to do more landscaping.  I figure it is going to be awhile before I get to the re-grading and fill so I had better get some grass growing here.  In fact, that was my plan last year as well, and I did plant grass here last year, but this soil is so poor!  Also, I added some fill here too last year and ran the tractor over it a bit too much for the grass I had planted there to survive.  Anyway, I planted some more!  I actually raked it in a bit this time too, so the birds don't eat it all and so it doesn't wash away (as easily).  I need to plant more in several places on the farm, but this is all I could get too.

We got 7/10ths of an inch!  Yay!  We needed it bad - the new trees need water!

I was supposed to pick up a couple spearmint plants from mom on the way up this weekend, but she was not home.  So I picked up a couple of plants at Mile Level in Bedford.  They were $2 a pot.  I decided to plant them down in the wet area near the old elderberry bushes.  Spearmint, if it takes hold, can spread quite invasively!  I am hoping this stuff does well here.  To be sure though, i will pick up the stuff that mom has and try it in another location.  Also, I have a bunch of little spearmint plants started from seed down at the city house.    If they little plants do well i will also spread them around - probably start some down in the city house yard too.

Stare of the garden report:

The front garden is the only one with anything in it yet.  I do see good growth though.  the onions are definitely showing signs now.  

Onions showing their tops!

Potatoes looking good

Strawberries taking hold!

The city raised beds

To be fair to the city house, the raised beds are doing quite well - only kale and potatoes planted here so far though.  It's obviously a bit warmer here!  Those potatoes are getting large!

Except for a couple that the squirrels keep harassing!

Kale and collard greens.  These will need thinning soon.

New collet chuck for lathe, spin indexer for mill, and more tree trimming

New toys!

I got some new equipment in this week.  New ER32 collet chuck, a spin indexer (with tail stock), a whole set of 5C collets for the spin-indexer, and a backplate to attach the collet chuck to the lathe. The backplate was for an 8" 3-jaw chuck but it had the correct spindle thread and size and it was a bargain at $36!  So I figured I would just machine it down to size!

ER32 collet chuck.  Only 100mm across.  ER is a European standard so everything is metric on this chuck.  This is the back of the chuck showing the registration depression and 3 threaded holes.

Here is the back plate on the lathe ready to machine!  I didn't have to bore the hub this time - it just fit perfectly! Look closely and you can see the pencil mark showing the part of this backplate that I plan on keeping!

Here is the chuck held up to the backplate to get an idea of how much I would have to machine.  Quite a bit!

Here I am with a cut-off tool making a deep groove in the plate.  No reason to turn down all that material.  I figured I would just cut through it!

Well, here is the thing..  The radius of this cut is tight enough to impeded the cutoff tool.  So I had switch back and forth with a boring bar and the cut-off tool.  It took a couple of hours to finally get through.  Not to mention wearing one cut-off tool to the point where it will need to be reground!

Wooohooo!  finally through!  Just got to clean it up now.  

Here it is with the registration hub all ready to go! I fit it damn near perfectly.  The backplate and chuck match on this registration hub - no wiggle at all!

Side view.

The chuck test-fitted on the backplate!  No Wiggles!

Closeup showing some defects in the casting!  It worried me at first, but I think it will be ok.

I was having phone-battery issues again so I missed some of the pictures of hand-drilling the three holes into the backplate as well as pictures of removing the backplate using the old "bolt a piece of angle iron to the backplate and put it in reverse" trick!  Sheesh!  Those spindle threads really hold those things on!

Oh, and the joy of trying to hand drill the holes!  I couldn't remove the backplate without having some kind of way of holding it.  Therefore I had to drill the holes with the backplate in-place on the lathe spindle!   Since the bolt holes in the chuck are metric,  I had to go to the hardware store to get some M8-1.25x45mm screws.. They didn't have socket head screws - the only thing they had that would fit were hex-head bolts.  I wanted the screws to feed through from the backplate to the chuck since the chuck already had the threaded holes.  This approach was also best because it allowed me to drill (and file and generally mangle) the bolt holes oversized to give me wiggle room for my half-assed hand-drill job.  I had to fiddle with the bolt holes for hours (it felt like it anyway).  The holes look like crap and are sloppy as hell, but remember, the bolts are not what gives the chuck accuracy.  The bolts are just to clamp the backplate to the chuck.  The registration hub is what accuracy, and it fits perfectly!

The hex-head bolts in the backplate.  I sharpened up one of the M8's that I got to use it as a center-transfer. That part worked fine.  It was the sloppy hand-drill job that got me upset.

Looking at the back of the backplate here

See all of that space there around the bolt?   Good thing the bolts are just for clamping and not alignment!

The chuck and backplate bolted together as best I can.

The hex-head bolts won't clear the hub of the backplate!  Socket-head bolts will though.  I ordered some nice socket-head M8-1.25x45mm from boltdepot.  I hope to have them soon - I can't use this chuck until I get those bolts!

The next task was the cleanup of all of that damned iron-sand!  UGH.  I spent hours cleaning the lathe and vacuuming up all that crap!  I noticed that quite a bit of the swarf got into the cross-feed screw compartment.  I thought maybe that was what was causing a difficult to move feed.

On a side note, I tried using the powerfeed in high-gear and it made a HELL of a sound - I thought for sure that I had broken a gear.  Thankfully, the sound I think is what the manual refers to as "clicking".  The lathe has a safety feature to protect the gears when the powerfeed is overtaxed.  Somehow the big gear that transfers power to the powerfeed box will "slip" thus protecting the gears from damage.  I don't know how this works - maybe a big coiled spring or something?

In anycase, the cross-slide feed is hard as hell to turn.  After cleaning and lubing it was still hard to move.  So I decided to explore...  I removed the cross slide feed handle and found that there are 3-spring loaded balls behind it!  Fortunately, I didn't loose them!  I did learn how to remove (some) slack in the cross-feed screw.  I removed some, but not all.  After the handle came off then I pulled out the dial.  I needed a gear puller and as I was removing it from the cross-feed shaft I noticed that there was a bunch of gook on the gear of the cross-feed to powerfeed connection.  I scraped it off and also filed some rust from the surfaces between the indicator dial and the hand dial.  I cleaned everything with brake cleaner an even figured out a cleaver way of putting those balls back into the back of the feed handle!  It moves a bit better now.  I tried the powerfeed in high again and it didn't make the clicking sound and the feed stayed engaged.  So thats something. Someday I will get the courage to dismantle the apron!

Spin-Indexer

I watched a video on youtube where a guy showed a spin-indexer that I thought would be useful in my shop.  The indexer on ebay was very affordable.  I got the indexer and tail stock for $88!  Another youtube video shows a way of making index plates for a spin-indexer - so that might be a project down the road!


In the meantime, a little cleanup.  One youtube video pointed out the utility of having the sides of the indexer trued up in order to make setup easier in some situations.  Sounds like a good idea, especially for someone like me with no DRO or extravagant equipment.

Cheap Spin-indexer and tail-stock

Going to straighten up the sides of the indexer to provide more straight and flat surfaces to indicate off of during setups.

The face and bottom of the indexer are guarenteed flat and true.  Holding it in the vise this way and using an indicator to be sure the faces are true to the spindle allows me to mill the painted edges off true.

I made a short YouTube video of the experience.  I cut out the part where I made the mistake.  I have to make a point (or make some notes) to use the mill more frequently so that I remember to check certain key points - like making sure the tool is seated in the collet correctly - and making sure that the collet is seated in the spindle correctly.  Oh, and of course, making sure to use the dial gauges to make sure everything is true and flat and that the VISE IS TIGHTENED before making a cut! 

Video showing the Van Norman 12 in operation!

Nice finish!

Trying to focus in on the flaw.  Lower left corner.  Someone didn't tighten the vise during one of the cuts...

As a boon, because I removed about 1/4"-5/8" off the width of this base, I am now able to mount the indexer in my table vise in either direction - which I wasn't able to before milling!  Sweet!

Set-screw removal

I had been having trouble with a couple of set screws on the lathe last weekend.  One was on a shaft in the powerfeed and the other was on the spindle handlewheel.  I am not sure what the set screws are for on the handwheel - there are four of them and they seem to be holding in some springs.  I got one out part way and could not get it to go back in all the way.  After stripping the socket-head hex connector I had no recourse but to try a screw-extractor to get it out.  I have never used a screw-extractor before - so it was an experience.  I drilled out the screw and tried the extractor... MANY times.  The extractor seemed to have a hard time engaging the screw.  I finally drilled the entire way through the screw and THEN the extractor was able to grab!  I got out the screw! YAY.  It was a set-screw - 1/4"-20TPI .5 inch screw.   I used a tap to chase the thread.  Now just have to get another screw.  Hmm - wonder what happened to the spring?

Tree-trimming  

It was still very wet out in the fields but where the apple trees and grapes are was dry enough to get around.  I trimmed all of the grapes and most of the apple and pear trees.  I didn't do much with the peaches.  I wasn't able to reach the tops to trim - I will have to go over them again with the pole trimmer.  After trimming I plan to spray them all with dormant oil.