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  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Ontario GTA West area meetup is planned for Saturday April 26th at Greasemonkeys shop in Aylmer Ontario. If you are interested and haven’t signed up yet, click here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

Another Calgary new member.

P

Perry

Ultra Member
Hi gentlemen.

My name is Perry.

I do a little hobby work out of my basement shop. Three smaller milling machines, (two CNC) , a small lathe and two watchmaker lathes.


Interested in doing a little anodizing at home. Read the thread by Janger (John) and it looks interesting. Anyone else into this. I've been looking for battery acid locally and found Gregg Distributors will sell me 18 litres for $44.00 Just a little bit more then I need.

Anyone want to go half on this?

Or does anyone know where to buy a litre locally?

Hope to join in a bit more with the local crowd.


All the best, Perry
 
Hi Perry! Welcome to the forum. I bought small jug (1 L?) of batter acid at Murdoch's ranch type store in Montana - I spotted it while on vacation... not convenient. I didn't have any success at car part places. I was going to try Gregg's and various lab chemical supply houses next. 18 litres is far more than you might need. As you read I diluted mine so depending on the size of your part you may not need that much. The problem with these places is they are M-F and I have to work! If you want a bit - 200ml of acid to try out I'd be happy to give it to you.

So Perry lots of keen interest here on CNC machines for the home shop - a couple guys have fabbed their own in various ways and modified their mills. @Alexander has a CNC lathe. This is cool stuff. Please post some pictures and descriptions of your gear! :)
 
Thank you for the warm welcome. :)

@Janger Thank you for the offer of the battery acid. I work 4 days on 4 off. Gives me lots of time to spend money. (Not sure if that is a good thing.)
I'm in no rush for the acid. I will most likely wait it out a bit. As I mentioned if a couple of guys are interested I will pick up the 18 litres and split it up. At $44.00 for 18 litres it will be a cheap source.

@Johnwa Good link, I stumbled on that one in my research. Have you tried it without the acid?




As requested here are a few photos of my toys.

Starting with the old.
A 1890 Rivett watchmakers lathe.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-b2cxa3cxQVNhQTA/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-VFAtWS1hMlo0Ymc/view?usp=sharing

A small mini lathe. (Busybee - Craftex)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-bU1lZ0xHYmp1Q3M/view?usp=sharing

A GrizzlyTools X3 Milling machine converted to CNC.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-Wk9kR1E1RFBwYk0/view?usp=sharing

A CNC Sherline mill.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-cjN1NEZpUHh1SkU/view?usp=sharing

I also have another small manual mill by Emco and a Boley watchmakers lathe.

Do not let the photos fool you, it is not always that clean in my little lab. :)


All the best, Perry
 
Very cool. I'm curious about the Sherline CNC, do you run it off Mach or does it have its own software? I guess I'm asking does it run on all 4 axis simultaneously? (I'm a CNC illiterate newb if it wasn't already obvious :) Are you into clock making or similar gadgets?
 
Hi Peter,

I run the Sieg X3 off Mach. The Sherline runs off LinuxCNC.

Just to make things a little more interesting, I set the MACH up in metric and the Sherline is set up in Imperial.

Both sets of software can run 4 axis simultaneously.

I do all types of little gadgets. Mostly watch stuff, but lots cool stuff.

The photo of the Sherline has a piece of lexan on the rotary table. I was trying a few test cuts to see if I could make a 90 bevel cut with the edge of the bit for a spacer ring. Here are a few photos of the sequence of making it.

Lexan lights up so nice......
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-ZFlhX2hJZWYyZW8/view?usp=sharing

It looks like I might be able to pull this off.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-T2ZHY2xva3dBbzA/view?usp=sharing

Hard to see here, but the final ring will need a 0.3 mm lip on the outside top edge
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-Z180Y1NGNHVsYmM/view?usp=sharing

It seems to fit ok.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-NDVIWEZWd2FfaVU/view?usp=sharing

All cut out and ready to try making one in bronze.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-MVNWMmRBR2J3Rnc/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-OERLVEJNYi01ZjQ/view?usp=sharing

Sometimes the hardest part of a project is trying to figure out how you are going to hold a piece. When all else fails Crazy glue seems like a good idea.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-bWFwbjlpWlJ1dlU/view?usp=sharing

I mentioned above, that the top side has a small lip on the outside edge. There is also a small lip on the inside for a dial to press up against. I cut that first and then flip the ring over and glue it to my holding jig. I cut the jig, then glue the ring in. That way I know it is 100% centered. The lip is so small and delicate, very light cuts are used to bring the ring down to size.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-eVRJWXVaRlNtaEU/view?usp=sharing

I'm sure you have all been there. So close to finishing and then...... Crazy glue was a crazy idea.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-MG1rRTlDc25Ea3c/view?usp=sharing

With no better way to hold it, back the crazy glue and I try again.

Here you can see the inner lip and the outter lip.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-eGVNXzB1WGFpRWs/view?usp=sharing

After everything was close, I cut a lexan disk to mount the ring on the lathe to give it a final clean up and true it. It ended up that I did not even need to turn the lathe on. I used a very sharp bit and spun the ring on the lexan disk by hand. (I did not turn the chuck).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-Q1QtS3h3ZDVWVEk/view?usp=sharing

And finally a completed spacer disk. ( A little bit of aging to take away that fresh machined look)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-YXBFQkNFZFRXazQ/view?usp=sharing

And here it is with the dial and some super bright lume.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Rv8BsCPVX-el9GNWE2Tmo2a2c/view?usp=sharing

The lume on the numbers is so bright it almost looks like my work mat showing thru from behind.

I hope you find this interesting and I didn't put you gents to sleep. I know I love these kinds of threads.

All the best, Perry
 
Really great stuff, Perry. I follow Clickspring on Youtube (clockbuilder guy) & he uses CA quite a bit to hold stock on arbor plates. I've had mixed results trying to machine thin washer shapes. If there is lots of surface area (glue adhesion area) and/or cutting force is normal to the joint, it held well (sometimes too well!). If the cutting force is in shear or especially irregular shaped stock with corners that go clickety-clack, I've had them fly off. I bought some of those jewellers resin flakes but I just couldn't het the hang of heating them up & bonding. I've also tried locktite with/without primer, which is a cousin of CA glue I'm told. It held but the heat and/or pry force was enough to maim the part itself so I think there is an art to this finicky stuff.

On another forum a guy basically pots his small parts with cheapo brand 5-min epoxy within scrap stock that has maybe .1" silhouette outline. Then does the machining. When complete he then heats the metal part to (want to say about 300F) the epoxy goes soft & de-bonds. I would have thought it would leave a gooey residue mess but he's done it a number of times. I can dig some links if you like. Epoxy (or maybe more of it when grouted in like this) seems to be a bit resilient on machining vibration whereas CA is kind of brittle, strong but up until a break point?
 
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