Setback for the Master Machinist

July 9th, 2009

Confounded Tapers

For the first time in like ten years, I have real, paid-for antivirus software. I ran Bitdefender the other day (free version), and I found out AVG Free had missed stuff. I looked around to see which program the nerds liked most (or hated most, in the case of evil nerds), and I installed it and ran it. It turned out I had PILES of viruses.

I didn’t realize it, but a big percentage of those 419 emails have viruses in them. And if you use Thunderbird and delete emails, the emails don’t really go away. You have to compact your folders to kill deleted emails. So I’ve done all that. I had a whole bunch of deleted 419 emails hiding somewhere. I believe they’re gone now.

I may have lost real emails, too. Sometimes people you know send viruses by accident. I don’t care. I don’t know why I keep emails to begin with. The commercial ones can be useful. You may want to know where you bought something a year ago. But the personal emails tend to be trivial and not worth keeping.

I see no point in saying which program I bought. If someone out there hates me, the name of my program could be helpful to them.

I am still considering going RAID1. And I may do it for my dad, too. He emits some kind of radiation that kills hard drives. Last time it happened, I took him to a retailer which runs a well-known computer repair service. Actually, it was probably a software issue, but they decided it was his hard drive, so they replaced it. And DIDN’T CLONE THE OLD ONE. Wow, that was really worth $300. If he had had RAID, he could have tested his drives himself, popped the bad one out, stuck in a fresh one, and continued with life.

I didn’t try to fix his problem myself because my attempts at cloning hard drives had always failed. But this week I managed to clone mine, and the software was free.

People say RAID isn’t a backup tool. Whatever. I don’t want to get into nerd semantics. If your data is in two places, I call it backup. The fact that the hardware is also backed up just makes it better. A virus can screw up two RAID drives at once, but isn’t that also true of software backup on a slave drive that isn’t on a RAID system? I fail to see how RAID is inferior. I’m sure it’s not as good as paranoid backup in a vault in your basement, with all sorts of hardware safeguards. But neither of us is willing to work really hard at saving data, so it’s either slave disk or RAID.

He’s definitely getting real antivirus software. I set him up with AVG, Spybot, and Ad-Aware, but I had those things, and look what happened to me. And AVG was like big government. It kept growing and causing problems. “Here, President Obama and Speaker Pelosi would like to help you search the web! Let’s go look at fictitious graphs about declining polar bear populations!”

If the shopping mall computer repair crew was right (dubious), my dad’s problems tend to be hardware issues, not viruses. Although he once got a virus that sent his business contacts porn ads. He informed them that it was a virus, and that he was not a porn magnate. All I said was that this was his story.

Yesterday I got back to work on the soft-faced hammer I was trying to make. I had to give up. I utterly butchered the 304 stainless I was trying to use.

Here’s a link to the plans, so you can see what I’m talking about.

Let’s see. First, I have no steady rest. So I assumed that meant turning between centers. But I have no lathe dogs; everyone says I should make them when I get a mill. Fine. I decided to grip one end in the chuck and put the other on a dead center. That worked.

First problem: how do you get the length right on the various features? For example, the flange below the hammer’s head is 0.20″ thick. Great, but my lathe has no graduations in the lengthwise direction, and it has no DRO. A dial indicator has a measuring limit of about an inch, and you can’t mount it on anything really stiff when you’re using the tailstock right up against the work. I tried moving the compound and tool post around (so I could use the compound graduations), and I eventually came sort of close, but if this part had to be within even ten thousandths, there is no way I could do it.

Second, how do you do the taper on the handle? I have no taper attachment. I tried setting the compound so it moved in as it approached the headstock, but the tool goes deeper and deeper as you go, and the pressure increases, and the work pops off the tailstock. Also, the taper is 3″ long. How do you arrange it so a tool coming in at an angle hits the work at a point precisely 3″ from some other point? It seems impossible. You can get within a sixteenth or so by guessing, but the point of all this is to learn how to be precise, so that’s worthless.

Third, how do you get the little radius on the head side of the flange? I ground a tool 0.20″ wide, with a radius on it, but it really didn’t work.

I don’t know what tools I need or what to do with them. The plans don’t say what to use, and the instructional materials I have really are not adequate. They show how to do operations, from a very basic standpoint, but there is nothing in them that would enable you to machine things to specified sizes, except for threads and plain old cylinders. So I think it’s time to hang it up and do something easier. The infamous jack screw project looks pretty dumb, but I have hex stock.

I’m not sure why people say you should learn to use a lathe before you get a mill. The mill seems much simpler. To get your measurements right, you have edgefinders and wigglers and indicators and a DRO, plus graduations along every axis. If I had use the lathe to make a simple round rod, say 2.250″ long, I’d be stumped.

Speaking of mills, I do not have one. Still. It’s probably enjoying a leisurely drive through Arkansas right now.

I have to learn how to do this stuff. You can’t buy nice tools and let them rot. Maybe things will be clearer when the bulk of my lathe DVDs gets here. Other people have learned turning and threading, so I’ll eventually get it, too.

10 Responses to “Setback for the Master Machinist”

  1. Jim Dunmyer Says:

    I have a home-made carriage stop on my LeBlond that incorporates a 2″ travel dial indicator. It works well for most of these purposes and shouldn’t be too tough for you to duplicate once you have a mill. Just last year, I added a Trav-a-Dial, and that thing is the nuts.

  2. Virgil Says:

    Here’s a simple taper attachment you can build with all of your new tools:
    http://www.strippingknives.com/tools/taper.htm
    I used something similar on our lathes in school that had been built as student projects.

  3. Sigivald Says:

    RAID 1 is a “backup” only in case of single drive failure.

    Real backups are on a different computer or offline entirely, so you won’t lose everything if, say, a failing power supply causes your disk controller to write garbage to *both drives*. Or user error, OS bug, or virus causes the filesystems on both to get eaten.

    Seriously, if you actually care about any piece of data, it should be copied off of the machine onto another one. Ideally onto a piece of media stored off-site.

    (I’m not just preaching – I practice; my important data is regularly written to DVD-R and stored outside of my house. It’s quick, easy, and cheap, for peace of mind. I won’t lose nearly 20 years of pictures of my friends if my house burns down…)

  4. Steve H. Says:

    Here’s a fun question for you. Ever grab a disk you burned over a year ago, only to find that the data on it had disappeared? I have. Hope you made sure the media you used is bulletproof, and that the storage conditions are perfect.

  5. Steve H. Says:

    Thanks, Virgil. I’ve seen plans like that. I think I’m going to have to break down and do it, because used attachments cost a grand or more.

  6. Tyler Youngblood Says:

    Hi Steve,

    I’m sorry you’re having trouble with the soft faced hammer plans, but if it makes you feel any better, I scrapped the project twice before I got it right.

    If I may make a few suggestions, maybe I can help. First, 304 stainless is far less forgiving than aluminum, which is what I made my hammer out of. It’s not as durable as stainless, but the hammer could be made fully functional by putting a pin into the head (the threaded head of my aluminum hammer comes loose with vigorous use). Locktite might also be an option. But I’m happy with the aluminum version for “light” hammering, which is what a soft faced hammer is good for anyway.

    I didn’t turn the project between centers, but I had the benefit of a taper attachment, so that’s how I got the taper to work. If your compound slide has enough travel, you can definitely use that to put in your taper. Or you can buy/make a lathe dog for use with a proper face plate and do it that way. The only issue there is you mess with the alignment of the tailstock, which I try to avoid.

    I’d suggest trying to use your compound to cut the taper. If you only have 2″ of travel, change the taper to 2″. It would look different, but that’s fine, its your hammer.

    Also, if you try to cut a taper using your compound, make sure to take light cuts. It sounds like you started cutting at the wide end of the taper, and by the time you got to the narrow end of the taper (3″ later, up by the threads) you were cutting too much material. Instead, do it the other way. Start 1/4 inch back from the end of the taper and cut 1/4 inch in the direction of the threads, toward the radius. Your cut should gradually get a bit deeper, but since you’re only going 1/4″ (and not 3″), the increased depth of cut shouldn’t be an issue. Once you have made that first pass, the rest of the cuts will be parallel to that first pass (thus no gradual increase to your depth of cut). After you’ve made that first pass of 1/4″ or so, back your compound away from the part, then back along the axis of the taper you just cut. Your next pass should be 3/8″ or so, then 1/2, …. all the way until your last pass takes a finish cut along the entire 3″ taper.

    It’s hard to explain. I really should make a video because it’s much easier if you see it done. As far as the radius goes, I used a tool with the proper radius to cut the taper, so when the taper was finished, the radius was already present. The radius on the end of the hammer was done with a file while the part was turning (make sure to hold the file backwards, with the tang facing away from you and cut from underneath the part, not on top – that way if the part rips the file out of your hand it will be pulled away from you). And of course, use a file with a handle whenever possible. No handle? Find an old golf ball, drill, and attach to the end of the tang. Tangs are sharp and dangerous.

    You’ll need a mill to bore and tap the head of the hammer (where the handle attaches). You could do it on the lathe, but holding the part would require some significant workholding via the faceplate (I wouldn’t try it in a 4-jaw chuck, and a 3-jaw wouldn’t work at all). The threaded portions of the head where the faces attach are drilled on the lathe, but tapped after the larger hole is drilled, bored, and tapped on the mill.

    For practice I single pointed the threads on the handle, but they can be cut with much less effort using a die. One of the scrapped handles was due to a mistake I made while cutting the threads.

    Let me know if you’d be interested in me making a video of the process. I don’t really need another hammer, but I’d be happy to make a video if you think it would help (and if I can find the time).

    Drop me a comment if you run into any other problems. I’d be happy to help in any way I can. I’m still learning too, so I remember how frustrating those first few projects were to master. But once you learn how to do all the steps in the hammer (turn down the dia, turn a taper, file a radius, knurl, single point (or tap/die) threads) you’ve got a very strong foundation and a good understanding of how the lathe works. That’s why the hammer, although difficult, is a great first project.

    I’ve got another beginner project (a plumb bob) that uses hex stock, so if you’re interested in that (instead of the screw jack), let me know. Although the plumb bob is meant to be turned out of brass, not stainless. But stainless would work too.

    Good luck!

    Tyler Youngblood
    ProjectsInMetal.com
    Seattle, WA

  7. Steve H. Says:

    Thanks for the help, Tyler. I’m sure it’s obvious that I’m not complaining about the plans. It’s pretty clear the problem is with the operator.
    .
    I chose 304 for the handle, but I was still planning to use brass for the head, without the soft faces. I thought it might be good for banging the nut on my mill drawbar.

  8. Tyler Youngblood Says:

    No no, I know you weren’t complaining about the plans.

    I hadn’t thought to make the head out of brass and forgo the faces. That’s a good idea.

    However, if you want to use it for your drawbar, may I suggest you make one side of the hammer head into a socket (or into a 1/4 or 1/2 socket stem, and attach an appropriate size socket to it). That way you can loosen the drawbar and flip the hammer over to give it a tap. 1 tool, 2 jobs. What do you think?

  9. Steve H. Says:

    Sounds good, if the brass is hard enough. My mill hasn’t arrived yet, so I don’t know what kind of torque it takes. I think the socket stem would be a whole lot easier to machine.

  10. Jim Dunmyer Says:

    Steve,
    Tyler has the right idea. They do sell such hammer/wrench combos; the wrench part is generally 3/4″. You don’t need to really reef on the drawbar; I’d guess it’s less than 20 ft-lbs.

    Making your hammer/wrench is a great idea, go for it!