Miniature Engine Lathe - #1 - The Tool Post

p.m research lathe kit day one there's an awful lot of pieces here as a matter of fact there's 133 parts that need to be fabricated and the blueprints are relatively clear the one thing that's not on these prints and i was quite surprised to see that is the item number it tells you what the item numbers are here on the print and how many of each to make what material it's made out of or whether it's supplied as a casting but when you get to the drawings there's no item number on any of the parts which i think is unfortunate so the first thing you're going to have to do is tag them up the part put the number on the drawing so you know what to make it from there's a million different places that we could start on this model but i think i'm going to start with something just to have a little bit of fun and i'm going to make this little tool post assembly today it is going to be extremely small but since this lathe is so big right this has approximately a three quarter of an inch swing 19 millimeter swing and if i am correct then that would mean the face plate is an inch and a half in diameter one and three-eighths in diameter so it's actually under 19 millimeters and that is to the ways that's not to the cross slide or the carriage these are the parts i'm going to be focused on today tool post the base the wedge and the washer make a nice little assembly you're going to see a lot of the techniques that i will use on this are very similar to if not identical to the techniques i demonstrated on the steam engine so that means we're going to leave this connected to the bar to the raw material so you have a place to hold it for the sliding this is going to be very delicate you can squeeze it end to end of course to do that slot but i think it's just going to be easier to leave it on the raw material that it's connected to initially this is done out of a washer so you just take a little washer and you just section the piece off which is pretty clever and then make sure the radius in your tool post washer fits the outside radius of the wedge you want a nice little rocking action when it goes in there that's it let's take a closer look at the assembly print and this is actually just an exploded view they do not provide assembly sequence on this there are some notes assembly notes tell you what looks what what gets pressed into what what's a slip fit and there's the infamous four jaw chuck i'm looking forward to making that thing that's so tiny it's literally that's about actual size that's how big it's going to be little thing 25.4 millimeters of crust anybody's curious where this came from right there pm research got quite a variety of stuff check them out all right let's get over to the lathe put some material in there make some parts first couple operations here are very straightforward we're going to do the two diameters that are called out on the print 125 and a fifty four straight forward turning let's do it you have a couple options for the 15 degree lead you can do it with a form tool or you can set your compound to 15 and cut it if it's more convenient use a boring bar and run the machine in reverse i'm going to use a form tool the only danger of a form tool is there's more surface contact and you risk the small diameter climbing up and over the tool sliding operation will be done in a square collet block in the middle pick it up like you would pick up any other part find the center of it find the end and we'll dial in accordingly i'll show you the numbers that i'm going to use i'm going to drill a series of five holes in this small part and i'm going to pick away at it with a 1 16 4 flute end mill you can expect some flex to this part so if you can support it do you don't have to but not a bad recommendation spot face features are very small so is the drill that's about to come 55 in diameter and we're going through with it make sure the drill is nice and sharp watch for the flex of the part i expect the part to bend down just a little bit because that's only an eighth of an inch right here if you want to put a piece of wood under it just drill straight through into the wood or a piece of aluminum would work as well just don't mess up your parallel so when you put the hole through this part it is going to reduce the cross-section of the material so by working from the outside in you'll always have a full cross-section of your part right until the very last hole if you were to drill this hole first you would reduce that cross-section subsequently as you pulled out with the drill to do these other holes the flex or movement potential would be far greater let's put an end mill in there and do the exact same thing but smaller steps this is a 1 16 4 flute carbide end mill i'm going to start on the outside hole and walk my way in when i'm done i will sweep the entire slot one thousandths and maybe a thou and a half off center each way just to get a nice cosmetic wall be real gentle with this approach as you peck away with a cutter like this it is going to want to walk to the spinning side it's going to want to walk to this side towards the operator just because it's spinning clockwise so peck through it nice and easy take small bites and you should end up with a nice clean wall all the drilling for the next operation is going to be done with my micro chuck adapter if you haven't watched the video on how this is done this is a standard jacobs chuck 3 8 capacity this is a piece of half inch drill rod that's been turned down to 3 8 and reamed another cross hole and then my micro chuck on the end simply floats in and out i will push this in by hand i will not use the crank i will get the tail stock close to start the operation and all the drilling all the center drilling you're going to see is going to be by finger pressure just like that gives you a great feel if you don't have one make one setup works very well when there's resistance on the drill but be careful if you're breaking through to a slot or a cross hole it will have a tendency to take off on you so anticipate that spring-loaded neural tap guide if you have one of these make sure you put a light spring in it for the smaller taps and softer materials you don't want to drive an 080 tap in with the same pressure you're going to use for a half 13 and stainless not going to end well guys make sure you know how much stroke you got on it preload it take your time boy i would normally be coming over the top with my hand but you guys have seen enough pictures of the back of my hand for a while huh these little wheels work really well you can actually feel the text the text flapping the tap flexing as you drive it in treat it like anything else back it off and clean it there we go this is not the kind of operation you want to do with a t-handle it's just not suggested make sure you use one of these tap guides or even a broken end mill or broken tap that has a small countersink in it use that as a guide tear the smudge off of it before we get it out as you're backing it out listen for it to click or wait for it to click you'll feel it there it is okay i might be wrong but i think that's pushed back down chuck i don't even know my own strength there we go okay clean it up deep bur it accordingly let's part it off the length this part will be done try not to overpower the part with a huge parting tool small part smart tool part is 500 long 12.7 millimeters so i'm gonna don't have the razor blade roy with me so i'm just gonna use my little scale here part it off longer than i need to i'm gonna flip it around and face it don't be fooled just because it's small doesn't mean it can't get hot watch your fingers don't watch your fingers anyway you might want to just put a cup or a rag or something under the part and not get your fingers that close to anything that's spinning especially if it has a slot in it it's like a blender so be careful i am using a different camera setup for this so if you like what you see if it's working for you leave me a comment final product is 12.7 millimeters long it's about three millimeters in diameter for all of my imperial friends half inch long 125 diameter 154 head it's a 132nd shoulder on that so it's about point eight five millimeters thick on the end oh eighty screw that's o sixty diameter that is an o sixty diameter screw one sixteenth of an inch 1.5 millimeters also and i think just by the size of my fingerprint you can tell how small this thing really is got to start somewhere start with the small stuff and give you confidence because it can only get bigger from here i promised i would show the numbers that i just used on the print 5 16 on the print that's the overall length of the slot and that is the overall length that is not center to center that's the overall so make sure that you subtract or add the radius of the cutter accordingly like i did here first hole is at 126 1 8 3 16 quarter 5 16 and 3 8. easy it ain't pretty but it worked the tool post space is going to start from 5 16 diameter cold roll and i am going to do this backwards so it's going to start from a round piece just like it's shown but i'm going to be able to drill and counter bore from one side so it's going to be hanging out of the machine this way i'll take it over to the mill i will mill the face off or actually just make contact with it do it in a spin indexer so i can rotate and get the 185 width and i will step the end mill up and over and do the back side and bring it back to the lathe and part it off this is going to be a whole lot smaller than it looks when it's done and i would like it to be done when it comes out of the machine let's do it so so okay whenever you counter bore a piece after you've completed the through board double check the through board and make sure you didn't close it up from the pressure of the cut this was minimal but the potential still exists let's take it over to the mill put the flats on put the inner flats on bring it back and part it off okay we're going to take a small dust cut a witness pass across the front of this then we have everything we need we don't need an edge finder or anything else this is a spin indexer i'm going to do all the cuts by rotating the part and not anything else i could do it side to side but stepping in like you'll see is probably the better choice first thing i'm going to do is just bump this face with this cutter to establish a zero let's do it the goal here is to end up with 132nd shoulders on either side of this part so by doing what i just did let me get the cutter back in the frame here i know that the inside of the cutter is now true to the face of the part so if i zero my digital or my dial when i move in the diameter of the cutter i know that from that point on any shift that i make will give me the edge that i'm looking for to clearly illustrate that i know this is a 248 cutter i'm going to pull the part towards me 248. i'm going to zero the digital at this point now if i want to put an undercut on here that leaves me with an o31 shoulder an o31 shift and when i plunge this cutter down into this part the edge that it leaves right there is going to be oh 31 thick let's do it and test that theory pull back under just a hair all right here we go i'm going to do the outside first though outside first a 185 cross the flats with the outer flats established i can move the cutter on the y-axis however thick i want my little t-nut edge to be right there and that is thirty-two shift it in check it out excuse me it is 62 000 not 32 62 that is almost undetectable even on the camera sorry about that guys we got a close-up look on the bench here in a second got a dimensional check for a final cut here we go hmm and you can see how the process works once you know the diameter of the cutter it's easy to shift in the body diameter and then just a little bit more to give you whatever shoulder you're looking for pretty much with no headache whatsoever going to deburr this part put it back in the lathe and part it off to the final length of 1 8 of an inch finish length of the part is 1 8 of an inch this is my famous razor blade parting tool trick dragging the front of the part with the razor blade no obstructions no hang ups when it starts to click i know the parting tool is right there we go until the click goes away zero out your digital your indicator whatever i want to move it in 126 gives me something to clean up on emery if i have to this will be an interrupted cut get ready to catch it with something see if you can see that that is a very small piece now we'll clean off any uglies left over by the corner round on the parting tool obviously there's a break edge on it but that'll come right off that wraps up that part let's get a closer look on the bench there is the results of today's effort just for fun let's put that on the post just for fun done correctly the post should be subsurface to the bottom nice symmetrical flat it should spin freely which it does so now we got to make the concave swivel washer and a tool bit let's keep going the next piece i'm going to make will be this tool post wedge and they tell you to make it out of a quarter inch washer but the edges of a quarter inch washer are not all nice and crisp and sharp like that so i've got a piece of three quarter stainless laying around and i'm going to show you a way to do this from a piece of three-quarter diameter stainless it shouldn't be all that hard if all goes well it shouldn't be that hard all right this is the setup nothing fancy here guys we are back in the lathe for this part i'm going to face this off and i'm going to part it part of the way through until i can work that back to the 16th of an inch that i desire thickness i'm not going to part it completely off it's not going to happen until it gets to the mill let's do it all right easy to start this one face it off put an undercut in it we're going to the mill all right now i think you can see why they say it's easier to do this out of a washer i'm just not content with a washer so part this part of the way through get it down to the 63 64 whatever you're looking for i want to see 63 so i'm going back in there that's all you need to do to start right there okay let's go to the mill make it look like a wedge anytime you go from a lathe to a mill with a round piece you know you start off with an indication of the part there you go we are just going to take a little piece of this and we're going to bite it off and we're going to make a part that looks exactly like that i can't give you the numbers on it because depending on what size cutter you use your numbers will change but i'm going to put a slot in it on either side of center and then i'm going to walk back and forth until the wedge just starts to fall off and i know that i only have one really nasty edge to deburr that'll be a really short fire way to make this wedge let's put this camera on a tripod what a beautiful picture that is put the camera on a tripod and we'll make it happen note to self guys if you're going to grab a piece of scrap but that'll if you're going to grab a piece of scrap metal to do this don't grab a piece of 304l stainless this stuff is just just nasty 17-4 would have been a better choice but 303 would be even better all right let's make a witch okay up until this point this is a fantastic way to do this if you're using a 1 8 cutter which i'm not put this one on the calendar thank god this happened on the 12th of january get it out of the way i added 16 of an inch to my radius offset instead of an eighth boo hoo that's gonna have to move this part around the back and do that again not a problem but there you go it happens and it just did okay anybody that's paying attention knows that the camera angle changed and we have an unfinished feature on the back side well that's because my calculator gave me the wrong number i think the batteries must be dead or it's a defective calculator i don't know so we're going to try again on the back side here actually i'm going to fess up and say i calculated all my offsets for a 1 8 cutter when it's actually a 1 8 radius 250 cutter so put that on your calendar i'm glad i got that out of the way i'm safe for the rest of the year now let's try again all right now you can see the wedge starting to form right here that is the part that i'm looking for the rim the remnant that's going to fall off but let's see if i'm right about this speculation here since it's attached towards the center i can expect this to end up as a really sharp razored wedge looking burr right there i do not expect this to fall off clean if it does i'll be shocked if you do want it to fall off clean make the undercut that you put in here this where i drove the parting tool in make that just beyond the thickness of the part that you want to have fall off that way this little diving board that i'm forming here will have the most support possible as expected there you go there's the wedge we're looking for pretty good picture of it too that is one of those one-way pieces i call that you're not going to put that back in there for any extra work let's pop that out clean that thing off and deburr it and add it to the assembly that was fun when you're done with your tool post wedge it should look like this the very next piece in line will be the cup that it sits in that gives you the height adjustment in the tool post how small is that that's how small it is that is tiny i'm looking forward to seeing this thing go together you can't do it from the washer like they suggest but i wanted nice square edges on mine so i did mine the way i did it 304 stainless another piece done let's move on to the cup last piece in the setup right here is the tool post washer the only thing difficult or even challenging about this is this radius right here and you could probably put an angle in here if you had to so long as this wedge sits in there nicely and articulates back and forth on the edges not on the center on the center it's going to be a little bit less stable 5 16 cold roll eighth inch through see if we can grind up the tool real quick and do something about that radius get this done we're going to use the remainder of the material from the t-nut flatten off the face continue with the eighth inch hole and put a dish in the front with the form tool form tools where the radius form tools are not that hard to do the hardest part about a radius form tool is getting it on center vertically and axially see if we can get lucky here i do have a radius gauge and this is a form tool i've had for quite a while i'm just going to try to line up the peak of this radius the face of this jaws doesn't give a specific depth but it does show an edge around the radius so let's not go too deep with this shhh well i hope the camera got that that is really superficial radius gauge itself should sit right in there that is really hard to tell exactly where that's registering i'm gonna block you out here for a second forgive me look oh do yourself a favor and keep your lathe clean while you're doing this you drop one of these you never find it little dish in the face eighth inch through break edge on both sides i'm gonna run it on some memory let's put this thing together anybody that may be curious as to whether or not that's an actual real tool bit in there it is what i did i took a section of a parting tool and i cut it off with a dremel so the t profile that you see is actually the profile of the parting tool but now it's laying down and yes that is a high speed steel tool bit in there that is about 0 40 by 060 with a little bit of a little bit of nose on the front so i'm going to bet that that will cut when the time comes everything is made out of steel with the exception of the wedge the wedge is 304 stainless and i guess that's about as real as it gets appreciate you watching i hope you enjoyed that there's more to come take care joel pi advanced innovations in austin texas i'm out empty me you

Channel: Joe Pieczynski

Views: 104,848

Rating: 4.9652796 out of 5

Keywords: Joe Pie, JoePieczynski, Advanced Innovations, advanced innovations llc, how to, machine shop, shop tricks, shop hacks, shop techniques, shop tutorials, PM Research, mini lathe, miniature lathe kit, building a scale model, mini machines

Id: _U3j5kY2Cgs

Length: 42min 31sec (2551 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021