Milling DVDs
A most excellent delivery in the mail today, about 20 hours worth of milling DVDs from Walt. Thanks Walt, you’re a star! 😀 😀 😀
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If I purchased it the shipping cost from Enco (for example) would be much less.
But there are some good deals on shipping if you can find them. I just had 25 pounds of blast media plus a whole bunch of tools sent to me for $8…..
Duh…long day yesterday. 😆 Thanks YN. 🙂
Walt, me no like Soba, too heavy for my taste. I’m a Ramen man. 8)
Well I meant if he’s going to buy it from some place like Enco, they would need to ship it from the mainland to HI, then he’d be shipping it to you.
If I purchased it the shipping cost from Enco (for example) would be much less.
But there are some good deals on shipping if you can find them. I just had 25 pounds of blast media plus a whole bunch of tools sent to me for $8…..
What’s a SOBA? as far as I know, it’s buckwheat noodles dude. My favorite, by the way, with katsuobushi flavored shoyu.
walt
I appreciate that YN, but sending stuff from Hawaii to you and then from you to me would cost more than straight from Hawaii to me. And I’d be saving a bundle anyway, postage included, being that $10 for the blocks states-side is about £7, and the blocks here are coming up at £38 (yeah, go figure, fucking rip-off UK).
I’m going to try some home-made stuff first and see how that performs. But thanks again for the offer dude. 😀
if it would kep the cost down I’d be happy to send some stuff lang’s way. Figure it might be cheaper having stuff send and to and then sending from the lower 48 than HI.
The chinise copies as in the photo above on the Bridgeport (that is a 6″ vice, by the way) also utilize the offset element so are suitable for milling, but they are NOT built as precisly as the Kurt. I have both and I will keep my Kurt and sell the Chinese knockoff. It does a credible job, but I can see the difference.
Lang, the 1-2-3 blocks are used on setups without the vice, so probably I’d get tha parallels first as most small projects use the vice. If you can’t find cheap ones and enco won’t ship to the UK, let me know, I can buy them here and send them to you. The blocks should be $10, or about 7 lbs sterling, I think. Easily affordable. Or, enco is having a sale on 2-4-6 blocks and giving a set of teh 1-2-3 blocks free if you buy the set, for $60; I”m still thinking about it. If I buy that set you can have my old 1-2-3 blocks, which have been used on exactly 1 setup so far (milling an L-0 adapter plate). I’ll let you know.
aloha,
walt
The vice I have is a SOBA precision vice. I’ve been playing with it and I think I’ve managed to square it pretty well now, by using the mill’s z-axis dial and a probe in the spindle onto the tops of both jaws. I have no idea though if it has the anti-climbing widgit you mention. It was a £120 item, so I’d like to think it has.
The parallels look to be of far more use for vice-work and I’ve found some sets (£25, not as cheap as I originally thought). The only 1-2-3 blocks I’ve been able to find here are over £38, so if I ever do need a set I’ll be very grateful for your offer to let me buy some via you. 😀
The vice is key. If you haven’t noticed yet, most vices close normally. If you crank your bench vice down on something gripped in the upper part of the jaws (I use that part the most), ALL vices tend to climb up slightly. Usually one jaw is moveable and the other is stationary. the moving jaw climbs up because the tension applied by the closing jaw is not on the same centerline as the screw moving the jaw. So the jaw tries to climb up. This is hard to see in a bench vice, but because the tolerances on most vices are sloppy, it’s there. I used to have a ‘normal’ vice on my drill press and I’d actually have to set the piece up on clamping, with one edge lower than the other because I could see the jaw climbing up when tightening down on the workpiece, it was that bad. The reason the Kurt vice (west german, I think?) is copied so much is because it has a bias element inside, cut at an angle, on the screw. As the screw tightens, the bias slides on its angle to offset the upward tendency of the moving jaw to pull the jaw down. The more you tighten, the more force is applied downward on the moving jaw to pull it down, so it does not ride up and move the workpiece.
The chinise copies as in the photo above on the Bridgeport (that is a 6″ vice, by the way) also utilize the offset element so are suitable for milling, but they are NOT built as precisly as the Kurt. I have both and I will keep my Kurt and sell the Chinese knockoff. It does a credible job, but I can see the difference.
Lang, the 1-2-3 blocks are used on setups without the vice, so probably I’d get tha parallels first as most small projects use the vice. If you can’t find cheap ones and enco won’t ship to the UK, let me know, I can buy them here and send them to you. The blocks should be $10, or about 7 lbs sterling, I think. Easily affordable. Or, enco is having a sale on 2-4-6 blocks and giving a set of teh 1-2-3 blocks free if you buy the set, for $60; I”m still thinking about it. If I buy that set you can have my old 1-2-3 blocks, which have been used on exactly 1 setup so far (milling an L-0 adapter plate). I’ll let you know.
aloha,
walt
It is all about accuracy. Parrallels are precision ground to insure perfect parallelism.
While you can make something on your mill to act similar to a parallel small errors add up and you will end up with a piece that is not accurate when you mill.
I’m thinking strictly in terms of those items I’m likely to make and how much accuracy is required for them. I’m happy with an AK47 degree of accuracy as opposed to an M16 degree, and I believe some home-made blocks will put me squarely in that ballpark. The breech & cocking-knob I made work perfectly, but the slight out-of-whackness is visible (if looked for) and somewhat un-sightly, and was the result of setting the work up by eye and a socket-head. With home-made blocks it wouldn’t have happened.
If I ever need greater accuracy I’ll lay out the moolah for the proper kit, but until then I’d like to save it for other stuff, such as a better vice. 🙂
It is all about accuracy. Parrallels are precision ground to insure perfect parallelism.
While you can make something on your mill to act similar to a parallel small errors add up and you will end up with a piece that is not accurate when you mill.
Thanks for the pointers chaps. 🙂
I’ve been having a look, found some sets of parallels that are quite cheap and some sets of blocks that are hideously expensive. I already have a vice, a monstrosity of a thing that was three-way tiltable/rotatable that I had to dismantle down to it’s last stage before it would fit in the mill at a height that was actually usuable. It’s getting it trued-up with the mill’s cutters that I’ve been finding a little problematical, but I’m now thinking I should be able to produce some accurate round blocks on the lathe of various lengths/heights that’ll serve for that purpose rather than splash out on parallels/blocks? Waddaya think?
Actually, that vice is a chinese knock off of the Kurt. I bought the chinese version of the 3″ vice, it’s now for sale here:
http://talonairgun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8644
I had purchased the real Kurt 6″ vice a long time ago, when I didn’t have a mill yet. It weighs probably near 70 lbs with the base. The metal is much much better quality than the chinese stuff. The action is also superb. My only complaint is, the face does not have a V machined into it for quick gripping of round stock. AND it’s too heavy, every setup is a lot of work muscling stuff around… which is why I bought the 3″ in the first place, only to discover it’s a bit small for my taste.
walt
Get this vice….
.. Appears to be a good bit bigger than my mills entire table.
I just got a set of 1-2-3 blocks (from enco as Walt suggested) – Not sure why I waited so long.
As for Parallels – Luckily I followed Adams advice and bought them at the same time as the mill. I didn’t think I’d need them, but even more useful than 1-2-3 Blocks.
Lang – Lots of that stuff should be available on eBay from UK seller’s.
No, I haven’t even researched the blocks yet but I’ll get around to it soon. The vice and parallels look like a must-have too. The prototype breech and cocking-knob I made are working very well, but the cuts are all out of whack slightly due to not having the kit mentioned above by which I could true everything perfectly. I’m going to go through the DVDs you so kindly gifted me first too. 😀
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Well, I suppose there’s no accounting for taste, but bugger it all. You Limeys put milk and sugar into perfectly good tea and drink that dispecable black ooze you call Guiness but balk at a refreshing bowl of soba noodles?? ahem. Kind of like having a diet soda with that pizza, eh?
walt