Taking the Plunge

[Spence]

That may be a little old Ken.



Still, it's a real nice piece of engineering literary history.

[Joe Gwinn]

It looks like a X1 mill which is manufactured in China, I believe. ... They also have a X2 and X3 model. Google up "X1 mill" and you'll find plenty of links.

Bingo. Found it at Axminster: http://www.axminster.co.uk/product-A...Mill-33370.htm. (Their search function is a bit porous; my prior attempts there failed.) The Micro Mark mill is probably an X1 at heart.

Axminster said that the clamping kit was out of stock. You really need a collection of T-slot hardware and clamps, and some cheap 1-2-3 blocks, all to firmly clamp the workpiece to the mill table, with enough space under the workpiece that one can mill the work, not the table.

According the Sieg's website http://www.siegind.com/Products/br-x1-lathe.htm, the X1 uses 8-mm T-slots. This is a standard size, and parts are widely available. (The Sieg website is very slow, but does work.)

It's also a very good idea to bolt this mill down to the bench, or to a large-enough piece of plywood or metal. These mills are a bit top-heavy, and like to topple.

[Joe Gwinn]

In Defense of Old Books

Here you go... New Encyclopedia of Machine Shop Practice, George W. Barnwell, published 1941 by Wm. H. Wise and Co. Inc.

This is the main one, I have some others around with deep drawing info inside too but I think they are at work.

Enjoy,
Ken

How to deep-draw in small shops would be very useful.

By the way, Online Metals carries nickel silver sheet: http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?id=904&step=2

For a wider supplier search, enter "nickel silver" in the search box at http://www.metalsuppliersonline.com/...oosefamily.asp

That may be a little old Ken.



Still, it's a real nice piece of engineering literary history.

Actually, the older books may be more useful to us with manual (versus CNC) machines. All the current textbooks assume that one is in a big shop with all CNC (computer numerical control) machines.

The oldtime machinist (a dying breed) scoff that the operators of such machines are just "button-pushers".

[Spence]

two things:
It does come with T slot hardware other than the bolts which are 6mm.
I use them to clam a vise in place.

secondly, it's not top heavy. I decided not to bolt it to the bench as this unit will tilt up to 45 degrees but you need to get behind it to read the scale and make the sdjustment or turn it around.

[Joe Gwinn]

two things:
It does come with T slot hardware other than the bolts which are 6mm.
I use them to clamp a vise in place.

OK. The vice came in the package.

8-mm T-slot hardware uses M6 bolts. See for instance http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMAKA=73154577

If you want to use M8 hardware (for firmer clamping), use a T-slot bolt such as http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMAKA=85558195

secondly, it's not top heavy. I decided not to bolt it to the bench as this unit will tilt up to 45 degrees but you need to get behind it to read the scale and make the adjustment or turn it around.

It sure looks top-heavy to me, but I don't have one of these mills either. How far must it be pulled over before it will begin to topple? The smaller machines are more likely to tip over when bumped by accident, simply because they are so light (compared to the mass of the person doing the bumping).

The standard alternative to bolting it to the bench is to attach the machine to a piece of plywood using Tee-nuts (not T-nuts; see http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMAKA=67300921) and machine screws cut to exact length. Use a piece large enough that the machine plus plywood base must be tipped at least 30 degrees before it will begin to topple.

[ken]

I am a manual machinist myself for my daily bread... and proud of it. Yes, I can CNC, but manual is simply more fun. Any fool can push a button and make parts come out if the machinery is there, but it takes real skill and craftsmanship to make good parts with the tech they had back then.

Nobody on this group can afford a $2500 dollar well used Bridgeport, $10-50KUSD used powered punch press, or the $5K+ one new machinemade drawing punch and die to make your covers would cost if somebody else made them. The machinists 'in the day' didn't have CNC or even multiaxis mills - I milled and drilled many of the flat square aluminum structural pieces for my 'Jason L. style' winder to size with a flat faceplate on a manual lathe.

For those who don't have the $100USD an hour a 'real' machine shop might want to make your dies, these books will teach you how to make your own punches, dies, and any other parts you would want at a price any of you can afford. Like it or not, many of us will have to trade the time and energy we do have for the $$$ we don't, and these books are really training manuals for old machinists who had to live with the same level of tech you have right now. These shops who draw covers all day long today probably have six figures invested in machinery alone, but if you choose to learn how they did it 'in the day' you can do it WAY cheaper.

You may never have to buy Chinese parts again...

Ken

[Possum]

tell me more...

how realistic is it for a home garage dufus like me to consider doing my own humbucker covers? Andy C. I know did this in China a year or so ago and was having all kinds of problems with the metal stock, tearing of covers etc. This could get expensive with nickel silver stock to learn on.....maybe brass would be good to learn with?

[Spence]

how realistic is it for a home garage dufus like me to consider doing my own humbucker covers? Andy C. I know did this in China a year or so ago and was having all kinds of problems with the metal stock, tearing of covers etc. This could get expensive with nickel silver stock to learn on.....maybe brass would be good to learn with?

You'll never know unless you try. It's pretty much unknown territory for me too but to hell with it, I'm ganna have a go. Don't be afraid to try. I'll be using some cheap sheet materials before I try with German silver.

[Joe Gwinn]

how realistic is it for a home garage dufus like me to consider doing my own humbucker covers? Andy C. I know did this in China a year or so ago and was having all kinds of problems with the metal stock, tearing of covers etc. This could get expensive with nickel silver stock to learn on.....maybe brass would be good to learn with?

You'll never know unless you try. It's pretty much unknown territory for me too but to hell with it, I'm ganna have a go. Don't be afraid to try. I'll be using some cheap sheet materials before I try with German silver.

I have to agree. People have drawn nonferrous metal sheets into bowls and boxes for millennia using a big block of soft pitch, a hardwood stick, and a big hammer. This method is too slow for making pickup covers, but making steel dies to do the same thing is really the same process of smoothly stretching the metal.

Someone mentioned "Hydraulic Die Forming for Jewlers & Metalsmiths" (Susan Kingsley, 20-Ton Press(=Susan), 1993). I just read a copy. Very useful. Basic trick is to use urethane rubber as one half of the die. This is widely done in industry as well, and MSC sells the rubber, which replaces the soft pitch of yore. (I would guess that Ms Kingsley either grew up in or married into a family of tool&die makers, because she cannot have stumbled into all this puttering around in her studio.)

Anyway, something new, something old: The old books will give ideas on how it was done in small scale, and the new material (urethane rubber) may simplify these old methods.

[Joe Gwinn]

I am a manual machinist myself for my daily bread... and proud of it. Yes, I can CNC, but manual is simply more fun. Any fool can push a button and make parts come out if the machinery is there, but it takes real skill and craftsmanship to make good parts with the tech they had back then.

I'm learning machining, on old american iron, starting with a small (by US standards - weighs 1200#) vertical mill (Millrite MVI). No CNC yet, although I'll probably fit a digital readout (DRO) on this 1965 mill.

I bought it because it was industrial and yet small enough to fit in my basement, and it was available. The Millrite is about half the size of a Bridgeport, which it resembles. These things are available when they are available, not when we want them, so I just grabbed it.

Nobody on this group can afford a $2500 dollar well used Bridgeport, $10-50KUSD used powered punch press, or the $5K+ one new machinemade drawing punch and die to make your covers would cost if somebody else made them.

I wouldn't let this stop people. Used manual machines are not hard to come by, and seem to cost about one US dollar per pound in areas where there are or were mechanical industries. The bright side of the near-universal move to CNC in metalworking is that lots of perfectly adequate industrial-grade manual machine tools are on the market at near-scrap prices.

The machinists 'in the day' didn't have CNC or even multiaxis mills - I milled and drilled many of the flat square aluminum structural pieces for my 'Jason L. style' winder to size with a flat faceplate on a manual lathe.

I didn't have a mill or lathe when I built my Schatten-style winder, so I used a bandsaw with a shop-built sled (riding in the miter groove, to make straight cuts) and a small drill press. The winder is adequate, but a number of things didn't come out quite straight (or perpendicular), because of the limitations of my then equipment.

For those who don't have the $100USD an hour a 'real' machine shop might want to make your dies, these books will teach you how to make your own punches, dies, and any other parts you would want at a price any of you can afford. Like it or not, many of us will have to trade the time and energy we do have for the $$$ we don't, and these books are really training manuals for old machinists who had to live with the same level of tech you have right now. These shops who draw covers all day long today probably have six figures invested in machinery alone, but if you choose to learn how they did it 'in the day' you can do it WAY cheaper.

Yep.

You may never have to buy Chinese parts again...

I think the real issue is supply availability, especially of matched sets of parts that actually fit together properly. It seems like all the usual parts suppliers have gone wonky, causing pickup production to stall. This is the big dollar item, more so than overpriced parts. It's amazing how much time one can spend fiddling with such things.

[Joe Gwinn]

I have a 4 ton fly press which will handle any pressing I do in the future.
It has a cannon ball for a weight on the handle. It's old school but reliable. As an alternative there are plenty of hydraulic presses out there which are cheap and space saving.
the fly press looks a bit like this :

[ATTACH]260[/ATTACH]

It took three burly guys to lift it into my old Land Rover, threatened to roll out the back door ( which would have killed the occupants of at least 3 cars following ) and took all my ingenuity to move into the workshop.

The guy I bought the Millrite from has one of these, and loves it.

A typical hydraulic press looks more like this :

[ATTACH]261[/ATTACH]

I nearly bought one of these but they are insensitive and require certification once a year to be H & S compliant. Bollocks to that...

Is this a UK thing? We in the US have far too much nannying, but we don't have to have such small presses inspected. Yet. And every car repair facility in the country has at least one.

The arbor with the punch attachments that I mentioned in this thread will easily punch holes through german silver PAF covers.

The arbor with the two vertical round rods in the back? I wonder how long the alignment will last. The hand tools to do much the same thing are quite robust. The classic is made by Roper Whitney: http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMAKA=09271057.

One other thing I've considered making are cutters for flatwork. They would be fairly straight forward to make on the mill. Imagine a cookie cutter.

Yes. It's called platen diecutting and uses a steel rule die. For example, http://www.schroederinc.com/flat/. One can buy rolls of steel rule knife stock, which is sharpened on one edge, and make one's own knife dies. They use a plywood backing plate, but aluminum would also work, and might be a good idea given how tough forbon is. The knife is held in place using epoxy.

That's the idea only I'd harden the steel and mount it on a 1" shaft to fit the fly press. Making parts on demand has to be the way to go in 2007.

So that's what those 1" posts are for. An alternative is a kick-press die set. For example http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMAKA=76035104. There are a number of similar items on the same page of the MSC catalog.

[David King]

I just bought a Bridgeport mill 8 months ago. It took me 20 years to find the right one and own the right house to keep it in. Before that I used a bench top from Grizzly. There is no comparing these two machines. The 42 year old BP is a 1000 times better than the new Taiwan mill and only 1/3 more. I'm trying to decide whether to finish the garage where the mill is now or move it into my basement.

[ken]

Dave King... If you can get a Bridgeport into your basement I'd never try to piss you off.

What I'm saying is that the machinists of old had the same parts to make then that they did now, yet they managed OK with 'old school' machines. It's easy to make a pickup cover if you have the right drawing die, and the book I mentioned has the info inside so even those of you with drill presses and files can make a die if you have to.

For those of you wishing to buy used machine tools... please take a machinist friend along and check all the ways, table and quill on possible mills for any damage! I was going to buy a 1940's? Bridgeport from a local factory's toolcrib last summer, but I didn't because the knee got jammed and some fool tried to move it with a hydraulic jack and broke the knee. I would have bought it too.

Possum... Learn to draw on brass first, it's the easiest. I have a recipe around here for a drawing lubricant for your pickup covers using home materials. The book I mentioned above actually shows drawing a box shape just like a pickup cover on the bottom right of page 349. Want to make threadable bosses for the height screws on HB baseplates? Same book, page 350.

Ken

[Joe Gwinn]

I just bought a Bridgeport mill 8 months ago. It took me 20 years to find the right one and own the right house to keep it in.

That was my problem too. I don't have a garage, so it had to fit in the basement. Which Bridgeports don't. The Millrite does fit, although I did have to take it apart to get it through the door.

Before that I used a bench top from Grizzly. There is no comparing these two machines. The 42 year old BP is a 1000 times better than the new Taiwan mill and only 1/3 more.

Grizz stuff is all from China; Taiwanese stuff is better, and old industrial american iron is even better. I was deeply reluctant to buy a Chinese mill for this reason, although Sieg and Rong Fu aren't bad, and are the best of the Chinese stuff available in the US. Jet is also good. Jet used to be only Taiwanese, but they have branched out since then.

One rule of thumb with machine tools is to buy the heaviest tool (in pounds) you can physically manage. This is one reason the Bridgeport is so much better than the Grizz bench mill.

I'm trying to decide whether to finish the garage where the mill is now or move it into my basement.

How cold does it get in the winter? Or wet? Iron machines will rust if condensation is common.

[Spence]

It looks like a X1 mill which is manufactured in China, I believe. In Australia they're available through Carbatec http://www.carbatec.com.au/store/ind..._380_2400_2430 and hafco and probably a few other places too! In the US you can get them through Harbor Freight. They also have a X2 and X3 model. Google up "X1 mill" and you'll find plenty of links.

It's the same as the Super X1 mill. It can tilt up to 45 Degrees.