Machining Brass-tipped Lockscrews for my Lathe Spider Upgrade 

I'm pretty much metricated, but I have a full set of inch micrometers, depth mics, calipers and a fair number of inch drills, reamers, mills and taps and dies for Whitworth, BSF, BA, BSP, UNF and UNC threads. Takes almost twice the space, but then so much microwave gear has Imperial threads or is specified in inches that you have to be bilingual.

@@MachiningandMicrowaves if everything would just be metric, the world would be much simpler. I appreciate what goes into your content, and I look up to you as a machinist. I knew from the beginning that knowing how to use manual machines and old timer tricks would be incredibly important. All the "dirty little hacks" as I like to call them. CNC is wonderful, but I love being able to say I made it by hand.

AIMEE can't get the pronunciation correct. She either says jollep or jollip. If I add an extra "p" she says is Joll-opp. I wish the Google TTS engine would understand diacritics. I could get her to speak in a Barnsley or Burnley or Branston accent then.

‘Jolop’ gets pretty close.

@@ehamster So it does! Thanks!

I'm inspired by a Japanese RU-vidr whose channel name I forget, his sound design is absolutely stunning. Every little ting and tap is beautifully recorded and the whole of his soundscape is as well curated and produced as the images. I don't think I could emulate his work without serious work on putting absorbent material on the walls and ceiling or at least doing assembly work in a sound-stage. It is a joy to watch and listen to his work though. Must find the channel name....

If I was brave, I'd find a way to mount it in on the toolpost and use it to grind helical gears! I killed too many Makita tools and it was a toss-up between DeWalt and Milwaukee. I decided the DeWalts would clash horribly with the yellow trim of my John Deere lawn tractor, so Milwaukee got my dollars. I am SUCH a fashion victim...

Oh good grief, it's amazing that there were so few deaths and maimings in school metalwork class. We had a forge, oxy-acetylene welders and flame cutters, lots of big machines, presses, concentrated acid, Trichloroethylene, Carbon tetrachloride, aluminium casting and molten lead. I wanted to do Chemistry, so I couldn't do metalwork, they said. Forced me to do instead, so I deliberately failed all the exams to ruin that teacher's performance stats. Thing is though, I really enjoy as an adult.

I'm *such* a beginner at this. One day I'll be able to do editing like a Proper RU-vidrs. Probably in five years at my current rate of progress!

There are lots of variants of lantern chucks, mainly for watch and clock making. usually the body has the openings and the threaded section is a piston or a collar that pushes a sliding anvil. They've been around for a very long time, mightily useful tools.

Heh heh, if I had to earn a living trying to be a REAL machinist, I'd starve pretty quickly. I think I'd better stick to being a cybersecurity architect and producer of silly noises.

​@@MachiningandMicrowaves Unless you own a small business building high margin prototypes with regular stream of work, most machining jobs these days pay like $20 an hour for pushing buttons. No thanks, IT jobs during the day and machining at night is the way to go.

I'm having a lot of fun messing about in the machine shop and microwave lab. Thanks so much for watching!

That's very interesting. I suspect I'll be using it for when I'm squaring the flanges on waveguides and coaxial resonators so they don't droop or oscillate.

Also, I could consider threading the barrel and making a moderator for the Weihrauch .22 air rifle that I use to "persuade" rats not to eat the bird seed.

@@MachiningandMicrowaves my problem is with those creatures and my badger's food but that is why we have 5 cats, although unfortunately came without the relevant lines in the instruction code.

The trick is marinating the inserts in Tabasco Sauce for two days.

I wasn't convinced that I'd get anywhere close using a long drill, there would be 40 mm unsupported and unless I drilled most or all of the top hole using a stiff stub drill, I'd be reliant on that long drill to centre itself in the pilot. Then even if the top hole was on axis, I'd have to drill the bottom hole at full size in steel into a curved surface. It would probably be fine though, as you say, and I could have used a pin through the first hole to set it horizontal and not do any measuring beyond centering the existing first hole. Using a centre drill on a scribed line was pretty accurate, although I'm sure I could have done it better if I'd used a squared mandrel locked into the spider. I could have machined up a mandrel to fit into a collet block, but it would have to hang out the end of the vice. I'd also have to use a jack or second collet block if I wanted to get a sufficiently stiff grip on the block in the vice to prevent it rotating upwards if the drill grabbed. I snapped an 8.5 mm stub drill when that happened. I have a machinist's jack under the workpiece but that was no help when it pulled upwards. Now I always use a second block at the far end of the vice. My collet blocks are ER40, but the bodies are 2 inch I think, not really butch enough for this lump of steel. I almost talked myself into putting it into the chuck on my rotary table. As it was, the first bit of metal I found in the scrap box was a decent enough fit to clamp beyond the slit very very solidly, and I could aim well enough at the (invisible on camera) scribed lines with a centre drill. Perhaps I'd have done it differently if that scrap wasn't available.

I did the same to the Spider Mandrel so I could hold some square hollow section steel. It only works if the threaded holes don't overlap too much. Next few videos will be a bit more radio-centric, although of course, it'll be Very Esoteric Radio, because I don't really do Ordinary

@@MachiningandMicrowaves 😁 looking forward to the next episode 👍

Now there's an interesting thought! Ball transfer units perhaps? Threaded inserts with rolling balls in the tip: ball-transfer-units.com/with-bolt-c-7.html and there are similar things with spring-loaded ball plungers for detents and for things that are not entirely smooth. There is a similar sort of thing used in microswitch actuators, and of course in better-quality steady-rests, but they use cylindrical rollers, much like this Starrett indicator tip www.starrett.com/metrology/product-detail/25W

We use them to put uniform force on a flat part with a dimple or hold to control hole location while doing something to it of make a jig. " Click in " to keep it's location on the machine table the same during retooling and or to stabilize machine tables as a dampener they come with different spring strengths available and even with special non metal and non ferrous tips. They'll improve your inexpensive cross slide vice greatly btw. Amazon has them last time I looked I called them "roller ball set screws" or grub screws on there. It's just a grub screw with a strong spring. Depends on how strong you bought .. and a roller ball retained in the tip that is arranged to collapse in at a certain amount of force locking when tightened but a roller lock when looser. You could probably make some yourself. But staking in the spring loaded balls yourself without a fixture will be a ba****rd . I'm sure. There's also a variation with a spring and plunger instead of a ball

I'd cheat and fit them from below and use a plug or setscrew to seal the thing in, but simpler to buy for the times I need them. One application is for a horizontal/vertical polarisation selector, with a ball detent at 0/90/180/270 degrees. Excellent tip, thanks

There's always a worry with anything banana-shaped that it could get flung outwards and cause a thrashing accident. I had to do cut a thread on a 1 inch diameter steel bar that was bent, but the bend started about 15 inches from the end, and it fitted into the headstock tube, but was almost touching the edge of the spider. I lined it up as best I could, then tightened the screws to hold it in the offset position. The end of the bar was about 4 inches out of true. I tried running it slowly and gradually increased until I felt uncomfortable going any further. I think that was 130 rpm. It turned OK at that speed and the lathe didn't leap about. I did the single-point thread a little slower in small increments and it worked OK, although the surface finish wasn't brilliant, but it was unleaded mild steel. The bar was too long to fit into my hydraulic press because it's show-horned into a small gap with almost no space either end. I did wonder about going all Keith Fenner on it with making hotspots and quenching them, and I tried using a cheater bar, but that just moved my very heavy bench. Anyway, it worked OK, but I wouldn't recommend it. I have an upcoming job where I need to do something similar and cut a 9 inch long thread on some 1 inch bar that's too long to fit out of the back of the headstock, so I'm going to use a core drill to make a hole in the outside wall and fit a liner and plate with a small cat's head and steady rest. The bar will poke out about 2ft beyond the wall of my 1850's brick-built barn. Guarding will be provided by a dense holly bush growing against the wall. That should make for an amusing video when it happens...

She is always 100% right though. 20/20 hindsight also.

@@MachiningandMicrowaves Being constantly right makes it that much worse!

Chainmail gloves, body armour, spread the chips out on a giant tarpaulin and use a camera drone to search for the missing piece. Not good if it's dark or raining or windy, obvs. Lucky I caught it!

I measured that distance VERY precisely in advance just so AIMEE could say that it was bad planning. I think if you could hear at GHz it would probably sound like a faster version of this classic: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ckc6XSSh52w.html

@Machining and Microwaves thanks for the link I just love the sound of that it's so melodic and relaxing☺️😍. I also love the high-pitched humming of 50kv transformer from old CRT screens😍, or the deep 50hz humming of the 20kVA three phase transformer from the Lokal "Umspannwerk". I also love when they disconnect it from the grind from time to time and huge banging Arcs shoot from the connectors when they open the circuit. It's so electrifying exciting 🥰. Also that's the reason why I have written machin porn at its finest, because of the precise measurements and smooth execution. Girls will never understand that even AIMEE 😉

The comment was aimed at someone who moaned that I would "only" be able to get the thing centred to within 0.015 mm using an edge finder and I should be using a DTI on the spindle. I normally run the 10 mm diameter ones at 800 and the 6/4 mm ones at about 1300, but with the camera setup, I can't reach the speed control on the VFD and the cones on the Bridgeport stick if I drop the varispeed ratio lower than 1200 rpm and I have to mess about with a bit of wood and a mallet to get them unstuck. I really need to strip out the cones and replace the liners or at least finish building the VFD speed control into the pendant enclosure that's been sitting in the project box for a year! I prefer using my Haimer for edge finding because it's easier to take out the backlash on the leadscrew than with a rotary finder. I really must get that VFD pendant finished so I can do electronic braking, jog and reverse as well as variable speed

@@MachiningandMicrowaves Thanks for your answer. If you use a DRO the backlash is no problem for center findin between two sides. I'm not sure if you use one. Otherwise it's calculating and shifting your zero accordingly. But you know how that works. Thank you for al of your nice uploads with great comments. Best, Job

@@jobkneppers I have a Newall DRO on the mill, but I don't trust it enough for repeatability unless the leadscrew preload is in the "right" direction. I should do some tests with milling blocks after centering using the edge finder and the Haimer to see if the precision is affected. It's that final 10 micrometres that I want to chase down.

As good as a mile. (Also entirely premeditated so AIMEE could throw some shade and snark, obvs)

Now I'm worried that The Scuttling Things might be living inside the headstock tube, living on cutting oil and metal chips. ooo-er...