I've actually using my TOS FA3V mill to do something other than gather dust!

This is a mish-mash of updates from over the course of a week and two different sources, so it might seem a bit less contiguous than most of my posts, but, it's EXCITING!

I discovered almost accidentally that if I rotated the mill, the hefty 4-conductor wire I have would reach the nearest breaker box! Here's Dave's excited video of me moving the mill with the overhead gantry crane:

I <3 gantry cranes!

Some of you on FaceBook may recall this photo I posted semi-enigmatically:

That casing is from a Getrag 4-speed transmission that would normally bolt to the back of the M10 (I think) engine in my friend's BMW 2002. We unceremoniously took a reciprocating saw and whacked a bunch off:

Then we got down to installing the serious cutter:

After that was installed, we proceeded to test the cutter, fastening and general functionality of the mill after making sure it was oiled and wired (probably) correctly.

 Video of test cuts (though this video is kinda boring):

I do love watching that cutter spin. The mill has a power gauge and it was barely above idle, even on the heaviest cuts we were taking later. I love this mill. =)

Secured the case to the table:

And ran some test passes. What we were left with kinda blew our minds. Check out the finish!

 It's pretty darn smooth! I wouldn't do a head with the current configuration, but with some tweaking and rotating the carbide inserts, I am sure an acceptable finish would be easily achievable!

The whole thing was cutting so cleanly, it left the threads perfectly intact on the fill bung:

That cut was a bit rougher, as we were playing with feeds and speeds.

Now on to the most precise machine work we did to date:

LOL! We didn't want to spend another hour making itty bitty cuts, so we just power hacked off another inch and a half after making sure we knew how far NOT to go.

 Leftovers:

Then we started machining again:

We stopped and checked the depth (I sure hope Dave's math is correct) on occasion, but not before getting some serious chip action going:

Chips were flying EVERYWHERE! I can't wait to get the power feed working in both directions so I can blast the chips towards the back of the machine, not out onto the floor, or my face. LOL!

Here is what the floor looked like after we were done:

I think we did some work! Or, we at least made the mill do some work while we got chips all over us!

This is what we were left with:

 I will be welding a plate onto that after we open up the input shaft hole a bunch, which will be the next major operation we do on the mill after the 10" rotary table I ordered shows up! That will be a fun package to get. It is listed as 137 pounds. heh

Since we made a mess, I had to clean up. It was late, very late, when we finished up, so most things just got plopped on the mill table, which I don't really care for doing, but, it is under the tarp and out of site, which is the most important part. Here's where I started:

I found a box to stick the tools in, took a while to clean out the chips in the t-slots of the table, and basically cleaned everything I could from the top down, ending up with this:

I also moved some of the shop crap that ends up in that corner (that area is the shop black hole) so we can move around the mill in a safer to our knees fashion.

Next time you see this project, I'll have my new rotary table and a better wiring scheme for the mill, so we'll be going at it hard to try to make the deadline that is looming pretty large. We'll make it happen, though.

Slick shifty stuff

This past weekend I spent some time with this titan from the past:

 Talk about beastly! I haven't used a big transformer box in years. Honestly, the new inverter boxes really do spoil you. This thing is as basic as it gets. 60Hz AC. Rectified DC. Tapped power ranges. Huge input current spikes. Popping the breaker. LOL! Good times.

That being said, if you can feed it, it will run absolutely well, and a far cry better than the sad excuses for welders you tend to see cheapskates with these days.

The other adventure was using undersized electrodes of an unidentified type. I was doing some simple mods to this:

I added an IAT bung (popping the breaker until the whole thing was preheated enough to weld decently without mashing the go pedal all the way On the second power tap, so about 130A).

Here's a way overexposed shot of the bung:

It came out fairly decently even though I haven't done any aluminium TIG in over a year!

The last bit was to flip the BOV bung 180*, which I did:

Overall decent, though far from perfect welding. It'll hold, that's for sure.

Note: that is not my welding on the BOV bung. I would have at least smoothed that out, but with the skinny tungsten and the breaker popping, I didn't want to start something that I couldn't finish.

Yay for TIG welding. :)

More Sign Holder progress

As I showed in yesterday's installment, I had to trim back the support Ts in order to allow the support arms to swing freely. It took a while to get the measurements for the cuts, but I came up with good dimensions for the cut. 

Here's how it looks:

The way the end looks now:

The new gap to allow the swing:

The gap is 1/4" and the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle that I trimmed off is 3/4". It's just enough and doesn't even look too bad.

The other issue I am running into is a bit of galling near the 2" tube:

 The type of aluminum selected for this piece is prone to this, but I'm taking care of the issue by smoothing  everything out and will apply some light grease after everything is assembled. 

Tomorrow's task will be trimming up the other side to allow the support arms to swing 180*. Basically I'll be doing the same thing as the other side:

Custom sign holders nearing completion!

Now that the shop is mostly taken care of, I can get back to actually making progress on projects!

I had to cut two more pieces of 2" wide plate as braces for  the sign frame:

Those pieces started out as one piece of 4"x8'x3/16" plate. I cut the plate to the length I needed ( 26 1/2") and then cut it down the middle with my bandsaw. It took a while, but with good layout and a steady hand, I am impressed with how nicely the ended up being.

Then it was time for some grinding. As and welder who prides themselves on making good looking and strong welds, it hurts a bit when you have to grind the welds down for aesthetic or, in this case, functionality. Here is what I had to do:

Since the T-shaped piece is going to have the sign frame support tubes swing around it, the welds had to be ground flush so that the side plates would clear.

Now I am showing off why I prefer to have good clamping areas on all work benches:

It just makes your life so much easier to have a solid place to clamp what you are working on down so you can not worry about holding things. Solid clamping makes for a much safer work environment. 

After grinding down the welds, I center punched the previously marked spots for the pivot and locking holes:

This is the tool I use for all my center punching:

Even though it is a Starrett, it is extremely reasonably priced. The tips are replaceable, though I haven't had to replace the original in the . . . 3 or so years I've been using it, marking many thousands of holes to be drilled. You can also adjust the tension which effects the effort and punch depth. I love it. If you want to make your layout and drilling much more precise, get an automatic center punch! It is very much worth it.

Once I got the holes marked, it is time to drill. Now here is a not about drill press safety:

If you don't have a piece that is long enough to rest against the upright of your drill press, put a stop on the dang work table. As you can see above, it is nothing fancy, but it is necessary! You can severely injure yourself, or, more importantly, ruin the piece you are drilling if it slips from your hands as you are drilling. The worst time for it to slip is when the bit is about to break through, as this is when the bit is most likely to grab the piece and spin it, breaking the bit, your hands/fingers/workpiece.

I finished drilling the pilot holes after being annoyed that my baby sized drill press didn't have enough stroke to drill all the way through the sides of the 2" box tube. I had to mark the other side of the tube and go through the whole process again. *le sigh*

Anyway, I finished getting the holes drilled and then cut the tube supports to the general length needed:

I had to file down the insides of the tube so that the supports would be able to fit around the hole:

I finished the supports to length on my sander, then tapped them into place:

The reason why I am bothering with this is that the support Ts are going to be the most stressed member of this whole construction. Adding in the tube to couple the sides together will greatly increase torsional rigidity which will help cope with with loads from the large vinyl sign.

The next task was to start drilling out holes on the sign frame supports:

This is where my drill press decided to stop working. Again. I am pretty stumped as to why, but I will figure it out or get another one as soon as I have the cash in hand to do it.

Always support your work! I would never have been able to pop 1/2" holes in the thin support plates had I not been clever and used the Ts to support the ends of the plates:

This is the assembly bolted together:

Do note that I will have to trim the corner of the T and also the corner of the plates in order to clear everything when the entire assembly swings. I left them square to make it easier to work on everything, but will make the final cuts when I know everything else fits as perfectly as posible. 

Today was a pain in the . . . everything.

Today, my TIG welder decided to throw a temper tantrum. I'm thinking that something might have gotten knocked around when I moved it to the new shop. I've eliminated just about everything else and have finally gotten some decent beads.

First order of business, the sign holder frames:

Hmmm . . . I wonder if the floor is level?

Yeah . . . Of course not. heh

Solution:

Using the plate and flat-face clamps keeps the pieces generally in place. Also, I am welding the sides as per the customer's request so he can fit poles or fasten attention getting things to the sides of the sign holder. Normally, I don't leave ends open.

First one welded together:

I got the second one welded up then moved on to making sure all the pieces I have fit together correctly:

I took a break and wanted to figure out WTF was going on with my welder. For some reason, I was getting a LOT of crud in the welds even after sanding, acetone, wire brushing with a stainless steel wire brush only used for aluminum and then acetone AGAIN. I checked my ground connections, torch connections, gas lines, adjusted gas pressures, played with the frequency and balance, found this:

moved up to 1/8" tungsten (thought I am not a fan of the type I am using for aluminum, but it works decently enough it seems) and after all that, I FINALLY started to get something resembling decent:

I got a bit hot on this joint:

The sign frame is going to get welded into the slot formed between the upright angles and the tab welded to the end of the box:

First on the right, last on the left:

Much better color on the last one, showing much improved weld quality:

Funky 1/8" tungsten:

 Odd color, but a really nice ball at 125A dialed in, so it isn't all bad.