Recent content by Philjoe5

If you're referring to CTC Tools, their prices for gear cutters are great, usually NMT $150 USD for a set of 8. Indexable turning tools and inserts are priced OK and the quality of the the ones I've purchased has been very good. Cheers, Phil

John, The usual practice is to remove the steam chest cover so you can observe the operation of the valve. The valve operating rod should have an adjustment for its length. Rotate the flywheel and observe that the valve covers or uncovers each port equally. If not, adjust the length of the...

Ethan, You'll soon be making chips. The collet chuck was a good choice. I have the ER-32 chuck and it's very well made. You can turn a large diameter shaft (say 3/8") to 1/8" diameter in steps and not lose your datum Cheers, Phil

I would suggest that taking a depth of cut of 0.050" in a steel bar, even free machining steel, will shake something loose on a lathe of this size. When used within its limits the compound and crosslide with appropriately adjusted gibs will cut a bar 7" long x 1" diameter true to within 0.001"...

Ethan, No DRO on mine but the carriage has a zero resettable calibrated handwheel in 0.020" increments. Little Machine Shop doesn't offer a DRO option, though some other vendors do. Good luck with your machine whatever it may be. Cheers, Phil

Gus pointed me to the CTC gear cutters. I have the 1.0 and 0.8 mod gears and they work well and at about $130 for a set of 8 they're a good way to get into gear making Phil

Ethan, I bought the Sieg C4 lathe a few months ago. I bought the Little Machine Shop version in the US. It's the 3rd import lathe I've owned. I started with a 9x20, then a 10x22 and finally the 8x16. It is by far the best overall lathe of the three with the 10x22 close 2nd but the 9x20 a...

Nice work Gus. Thanks for posting Cheers, Phil

Herb, Generally you can't seat the collet with stock in the collet. Though, that depends upon the relative sizes of stock and collet. Install the collet, then put the work in the collet, then tighten the nut. Phil

When I was asked to be a moderator a year ago I asked the question, “What are my duties as a moderator?”. At the time IIRC I was told a moderator was to alert and eliminate spam, stop flaming wars and that was about it. It seems now that moderators have the additional responsibility to...

This was called plagiarism not long ago. There seems to be an assumption now that any information that is published on the internet is fair game for copying, sharing, etc. That may be true in the purely legal sense but it does not convey an appropriate message, IMHO, about the nature of this...

I've always admired this engine. I saw it at NAMES some time ago and had often thought it might make a good project when my skills had improved. I'll be looking in on this project and wish you the best of success in building it. Cheers, Phil

Frank, The gear that mates to the one you found must have the same diametral pitch. To calculate it, count the number of teeth on the gear you have, add 2 to that and divide by the outside diameter of the gear. That should give you one of the common gear pitches. If you get a number that...

What Jim said, Gail. The devil is in the details and you've got 'em by the tail;) Cheers, Phil

This is correct according to the convention in Ivan Law’s book which is used in the UK and US. Be aware, however, that Asian metric gear cutters do not always follow this convention so if you’re making metric gears follow the convention usually engraved on the cutter Circular...