Search results

Thread forming works fine on softer aluminiums - 6000-series are usually OK. 5000-series no worries. I find drilling to (metric) OD - (pitch/2) is normally OK. If this puts you between two drill sizes, go up in size. But you need to the VERY careful with the harder cast aluminium alloys -...

I'm a coward. If I am threading on my manual lathe, I use a crank handle I fitted to the rear end of the chuck shaft. That does not crash. But more likely I cheat and do the threading on my CNC lathe. It does a far better job than I could anyhow. Cheers

Bit of silver steel (aka 'drill rod'). I make them up regularly for mounting diamond wheels and CBN wheels. Actually, heat treating them afterwards is probably optional. I have not done all of mine. Cheers

Can take them a few days to reply sometimes. But I have found them fairly reliable. I have had faint markings on collets, but I found that if I angled them 'just right' to the sun they were quite readable. No, I don't know what is 'just right' - sorry! Cheers

I totally agree that exposing Viton to an actual flame is stupid. Equally, putting it in contact with a near-glowing exhaust pipe would be equally stupid. No argument there. I imagine using it as valve seat material for a steam engine might work OK - but it's a poor choice for other reasons...

Ah, but what are the alternatives, and who uses O-rings at 300 C anyhow??? I suggest that talking about 315 C is simply not relevant to normal model engineering conditions. Reality check: Viton is the standard material used by industry for temperatures up to (say) 200 C, which is well above...

I must be missing something here. We have large machines which do this at high speed, in most any size you could want. Why bother making your own nuts and bolts? Puzzled. Cheers

I've bought a fair bit from CTC, direct. The runout on the ER25 collets was less than the runout on the mill. Some carbide cutters are specified for wood, plastics and Al. Fair enough, don't use them on steel. Some of the cutters specified for steel are truly wicked! Cheers

Some things come to mind: 1) The mill head is out of alignment. The cure is obvious. 2) The vice jaw is out of square: check and fix. Btw, wire is a bit too localised. I use some red fibreboard instead: a strip about 5 mm wide and 1 mm thick. It handles any tilt in the moving jaw. 3) The block...

I tried ... many ways. None were good. The most successful, which was not very good, was to machine a few cm at the chuck end at a time, and to feed the machined bit through the chuck. But the result was that the machining drifted off-centre after a while because I could not keep the rod...

However, what often happens is that you get a resonance of some sort or other and end up with a spiral ellipse rather than a straight surface. Not always, but it happens. Cheers

Hi I'm running Alibre PE 12.1 - what used to be the 'free' version but is now selling for ~$99. getting the yearly maintenance is advised. Yes, it works very well - similar to the older and very expensive Pro-E, Solid-Edge and Solid-Works. You can upgrade the PE version to the pro and Expert...