Equipment maintenence. WTF is that?

I kinda hate borrowing tools from the other shops sometimes.

I'm not going to comment on the retarded beam I'm working on, and I can't really answer any questions anyone might have a to the design of it, but, I'm required to bevel the flanges of a beam in order to weld a plate between the flanged for stiffening purposes. We have this really nifty and well made Nitto Kohki bevelling tool that can make pretty quick work of most bevelling operations up on material up to 15mm thick. If you're interested in learning more about that tool, here's a link:

Nitto Kohki HB-15B

Anyway, the tool uses six carbide inserts in a stagered arrangement on two holders for a total of 12 cutting faces. This is capable of ripping through a whole bunch of steel in a hurry. However amazing carbide is, you have to be fairly careful with it. Shocking it by slamming it into something and bouncing it shatters carbide pretty easily, which is why many times carbide tools are not usually recommended in hand operated machines. You need to feed it into the workforce smoothly but authoritatively and also keep the feed rate high. Basically, in order to keep it happy, you need to man up and give it something to do and keep it doing it. Or this happens:

 Granted, those inserts have a lot of use on  them, but those are crashed not simply worn out.

Fortunately, each insert has four cutting faces on it, so simply loosening the set screw and rotating the insert 90* leaves a fresh cutting face:

Why am I bringing this up? After I figured out how to do this, the tool was happier, it cut much faster and left an improved finish, though, that is not something we need to wiry about since the bevel will be globbed up via well on Monday.

The other shop's personal just don't take care of their stuff. It is annoying in a way that I'm always cleaning and fixing their stuff so I can use it properly, but, I have to do it anyway so I won't complain too loudly this time.

As for the retarded beam I'm fitting, here's the thing:

Figuring out how to get to that point from the horrible drawing was an exercise in head scratching between three people.

That backer bar is just for  show. We aren't (can't be) doing full penetration welds since a plate gets placed over the flange making it hard to weld along 5' inside a space that is about 11x5. Who knows why I'm fitting the backer bar, but I'm not the engineer. *shakes head*

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.

Tool Review Tuesday, 02: Channel Lock Welding Pliers

What is it?

Channel Lock 360 Welding Pliers

Here is mine:

What does it do? 
It facilitates many things when it comes to welding, especially splatter-tastic MIG and Fluxcore welding processes, such as cleaning nozzles, taking off stuck shields and contact tips, cutting wire/rod, light work-holding and, if I'm honest, chipping slag when I forget my chipping hammer.

How well does it do it?

EXTREMELY well. Let's take a look at some of the features that set these apart from other, cheaper and much crappier welding pliers!

 The jaws have very heavy, distinct knurling:

 This makes cleaning up this gunk:

a very quick an painless procedure!

The serrations on the contact tip grip:

 And the nozzle grip:

Are simply excellent and will last for quite a long time.

Pros:
-EXCEEDINGLY excellent construction, fit and finish
-Makes fast work of pretty standard nozzle cleaning and tip changes, especially when things are HOT
-Comfortable to use
-Very strong opening spring

Cons:
-Very strong opening spring (can be annoying if you have it in your pocket sometimes)
-The tip size is a bit large for smaller MIG nozzles, like most you would find on 110V MIG boxes
-Pretty beefy and might pull your pants down more than you are used to


Is it BBA (Beaver Built Approved)?
HECK YES!