Layout

Back in the old days, when I was learning to shoot in service rifle competition, I found out a very interesting factoid.  The human eye can line up circles concentrically with very good precision.  Very VERY good precision.  I was shooting a stone stock M1 Garand from the DCM (Department of Civilian Marksmanship).  She was service grade, and worked as advertised.  But she wasn't too good in my hands at hitting what I wanted to hit.  

I found out about that circle magic, and I thought, "walp, the bullseye is round, the peep sight is round.... I wonder if they make a round front sight?"  Enter the Alley Globe Front Sight.  I saved up some coin for that, and it made a big difference in my ability to hit "with two or five rounds...... load!!"

I don't remember what I paid for it.  $25.00 maybe?  

 

Layout on the Pantograph Parts

I don't have a lot of experience laying out on castings.  That being said, and the aforementioned "trick" of lining up circles, I thought using a drawing guide would be the way to layout the hole locations for the pivot points and adjustment locations on the pantograph.  Didn't work as I thought it would.  Reason??  The outside of the casting boss is not very visible through the drawing guide.  I double checked with the Lufkin radius gauges, to be sure I knew the diameter of the boss, but I'm not happy with the result.  Some of the other holes are referenced from the location of that hole, so it has to be accurate.  That's why I'm going to the trouble to center them on the boss.  Makes it look good, and work better.

What to do?  Did I hear 'use a washer!' from the back somewhere?  Yeah, I'm gonna use a washer.

The parts are in fine fettle and have been primed with bbq paint.  Good to a thousand degrees.  It's what I had at hand.  I haven't settled on a color for the finished project.  It'll probably be Ford Tractor Gray.  I can get that at Tractor Supply.  I may just settle on primer gray.  Not a worry at this point.

The original document (Model Engineer 2 Oct 1970) showed a sewing machine motor as the spindle drive.  I thought that would work okay, but then I saw this on a website.  It was a complete unit, even has the collets.  So, I'm going to see if it this will work.  This here's the link¹.

 Glenn Makes a Request

Over at the Thundermug, Glen asked me to mention what I got the other day.  Back in the dark ages, I did some archery in college.  I didn't excel at it.  But it was fun and I surprised myself at what I could do with a bow.  I found out I have left eye dominate and I'm right handed.... very right handed.  So I had to learn to shoot with my left hand.  It was crazy difficult.  I can't pick my own nose left handed.  But I learned to shoot arrows as a southpaw and it worked pretty well.  I need an excuse to get some outdoor exercise, and I figured why not give this a try.  I bought my own birthday present. 

I went cheap, but well recommended.

Chinese import, but had good reviews

carbon fiber and had excellent reviews

saw it on sale and it started this whole fiasco

68" left hand, takedown model, 35# pull, 31 inch arrows.  I figure I can get longer limbs if needed and also ramp up the power if I can learn to handle what I've got.  I need to find a curtain to hang behind the bag target.

 

Trails Plowed Under

It is really weird when a family fractures....

¹  Added link to spindle motor 11-18 @ 1308 CST.

Project: Business Card Holder

45 Minutes from conception to completion.  That Sheldon lathe is a beast.  No chatter, even using a cutoff tool.  Material is A36 structural steel, one inch bolt and two, one inch nuts.  Faced one side flat on each nut, then tightened them together.  Slot was cut .075" per pass, 1400 rpm, 0.5" carbide cutter.  Wow.

 

 

A friend gave me some long rods that were used to hold big pump jack parts on pallets.  Fun, quick project.  Now, I get to go put it out at the hardware store.

Rest for the Weary

I finally got the tee nut for the Sheldon done.  Every bleeding time I tried to go out and work, something else came up that was on fire and needed done yesterday.  I seriously need to figure out how to offload some stress.  I probably won't be making any friends when I do...

Anyways.....

I met a farm family late last year, and bought a project from them.  I haven't done anything but move it.  But it's patient, and so am I.  They had a junk pile out there.  I've been back a couple times and brought back some really good stock to work with.  One piece was a two foot piece of 2 1/4 square tool bar.  Old two row plows that a Ford 8N could pull were usually made of one or two pieces of that size bar.  It was cut down with a torch, making that end pretty dang hard.  I chopped it off in the horizontal bandsaw.  I cut another wafer just a little bit longer than I needed.

It spent a little time in the mill, I carved out the profile I needed.  The thread on the hold down bolt is 16mm x 1.5.   I don't have much mm stuff in the shop.  Seeing as how I need a 14.5 mm drill and a tap for the hole, I was pretty much shot.  Spartan had a spare tap, so we met up and swapped lies and laughed and scratched for a while.  I hate to go home when we get to visit, there is so much to cover...

 

I like to use the old methods to layout.  I can't explain why, but they feel right.  So little feels right now, I can't pass up a chance to take pleasure in even simple things.  Layout blue with a big Sharpie marker, then mark the center with a hermaphrodite divider.  This isn't a rocket part, so it will be close enough.

 

I got in the shop yesterday and blew a 9/16 hole in the nut.  It was undersized but big enough.  I used some cutting slop I made with lard, mineral oil and paraffin.  (American paraffin, a stiff wax, not British paraffin, which is coal oil or kerosene)  That tap almost fell through the hole.  Very sharp tap, but I can't help but wonder if that old lard oil mix didn't have something to do with it, too.  And the thread finish is top drawer.

Old red farm paint

beautiful

There are youtubers that comment on Imperial inch measurement as bananas.  I read up on how the metric system was developed.  The Fwench started it, and it was some odd length of metal bar they used for a standard meter.  Every time the committee meets, the length changes.  I figure a MM is the width of a male maggot.  10 male maggots side by side and you have a centipedometer or CM... metric maggots...

I picked up some insert tooling, too.  This Sheldon is a hoss, they will harness it's might.  The old BXA tool post is about 8 years old, and I had a few tool holders for it.  I found a place that had a 5 pack for 70 bills, and I bought that twice over several months.  So now I have about 15 holders for the quick change tool post.  15 bucks each is awfully inexpensive, especially nowadays.

No more excuses

Life is still a mess, but I guess that is normal.  I complain mightily at times, then read about real problems like Glenn's parents, divemedic's daughter and grandson, Cedarq's innards, or BCE's at risk grandgirl and I'm shamed for being such a light weight.

Thankfully, I can go to the Heavenly Father and lift up the real issues and my piddly ones, too. 

Cheer up!  Things are bound to get worse.  And we were born for this time.  That means we belong to this time to make the difference in it, that God put us here to make.  I lose sight of that, but there it is.

 Good night ladies.

Story Time

 I saw this at ExTex's place.

Reminded me of a story:

Long years ago, I was a broadcast engineer in Houston.  I took care of the transmitter at the Nolan Ryan site.  It was a Townsend.  Used off the shelf components from WW Grainger.  Three visual, one aural.  Power at the combiner was 185 KW at 674-680 MHz.  Effective Radiated Power was 4 MW.  Four linear particle accelerators.  I don't remember the combined heat we had to lose, but the heat exchanger out back was about 30 x 100 feet with I don't remember how many fans. 

I was hired by the chief engineer who had lost a toe due to something very close to that picture.  He was touching a meter (monitored the 50KV line for the klystron), when it arced from his finger through his body and out his toe.  Somehow they got him to UTMB and saved him.  He had that sock in a frame on his wall in the office.  He got the chief engineer job to save him suing the station (I may be wrong on that, but I think that was the story).

In old versions of the dictionary, if you looked up audacious, his picture was there.  Think Leslie Nielson, only at 127%.  He was about 6' 6", and everything was scaled up to match.  Except his ego.  It was WAY bigger.

When he quit and moved on, his duties were split.  I did the billing and ordering, as well as tower site maintenance.  My buddy did the studio maintenance and was the defacto chief, until the Hialeah Homobre was hired.

Remember those old black and white tv's?  The one's where you had to wait a few minutes while the tubes warmed up?  Remember that hot dust smell?  High voltage components attract dust and then weld it onto everything.  It's crazy hard to clean off.  

My first overnight pulling transmitter one down for cleaning was eye opening.  I loaded up the squirt gun with alcohol, got the rags out, my little job table on wheels, called master control to advise them of the lower power output alarms that would be firing off soon, and started the shut down on one.   

The transmitter was about the size of a bathroom, about 50 square feet, 5x10 - ish.  There were a few "Jesus" sticks, and the high voltage had a drop switch on it.  It would short to ground if you opened the door with it running.  A literal crowbar switch.  The HV ran around the top of the machine, just about  head high to me.  After touching everything remotely dangerous with the rounding stick, I opened all the doors and started scrubbing down the interior.  It was caked.  CAKED in dust...  

I began to wonder if the old chief had ever really pulled maintenance out there, or if he just slept on the couch out of sight of the security cameras.  There was no way to get it cleaned out completely by 0600, so I did the best I could.  Second or third overnight, when I finally got to the back wall, I found a sticker there, invisible under the dust.  Seems the guy that was there BEFORE the old chief had even been hired was a documentarian.  He initialed and dated every dusting he'd done.  And it had been years since the transmitter had been cleaned.

So, old "Leslie"  had shirked his job.  The dust accumulated until it arced over and bit him.  He managed to use that "accident" to get the chief engineer job.  Man what a piece of work.  Reminds me of an old bromide:

"Show me a self-made man, and I will show you the product of unskilled labor."

Some data points I remember:

The remote control was a mass of small yellow wires that were like angel hair pasta.  I was scared to touch the water fall of wiring.  No way to get it back to working without a total rip out and replace.  It was on my list, but I never got to it.

The klystrons were water-glycol cooled. Water and high voltage are bad bedfellows, so there were flow switches installed in case there was a blow out.  I don't think there was a flow switch in the place that wasn't held open with an old toothbrush. 

We had a huge variable transformer to adjust three phase power to the transmitters.  The bare parts of the windings were coated with something like tin to keep them from oxidation.   It was worn off, and no effort was made to replace it.  I found the proper stuff and took the whole thing down one night to re-coat it.  My phone call to mater control went like this:  "Okay, look, I will call you every fifteen minutes.  If I don't, call the ambulance.  If you don't answer, I will let it ring until you do."  Working alone on high voltage / high current isn't for the intelligent.

The billing was another issue entirely.  I found all sorts of "creativity".  I remember calling the general manager and asking for a meeting time after time after time....   

Here's a neat article, and the pictures show a single visual and single aural transmitter site co-located with the studio.  We had three visual and one aural.... The Townsend transmitter looked very similar to that CCA.....   Halcyon days....

Pantograph

I decided to take a few minutes and start on the pantograph castings.  My normal method, honed so many years ago on the only other casting I started  (and haven't finished yet) I painted it before I started milling it down.  Made sense to me then.  I decided to do it again and see if it works.

All my primer spray cans were plugged or empty...  So I blew on some high temp bbq pit paint.  I traded off my pit so no need for it any more.

 

Beautiful

The black parts were not in need of fettling.  But the spindle arm was.  I spent 20 minutes or so smoothing out the flash.  Some spots, it was really proud and I had to tap it down a bit so the file would cut easily.

That spindle arm still has a big gate / sprue on it that will be ground down tomorrow or Friday, then filed flat to match the rest of it.

I haven't decided on the final color.  I have some gray and some blue.  I may even have hammered green.  I need to dig in the stash and see what's available. Man this is starting to get exciting!!  

What can a pantograph do?  Well, it reduces or expands whatever you run the stylus over.  This one can shrink by a few different amounts depending on where you put the holes.  1/2, 1/4, 3/8 IIRC.  I could engrave letters and numbers, or make torx holes, or whatever I can make a template of.  Pretty cool machine.

Here's a good overhead view of one running.  

I have some leeway on making the base for it.  I'm not sure quite which way I'm gonna go on that.  Maybe an aluminum plate or maybe dig for an old cast iron drill press table.

The original used a sewing machine motor to run a spindle.  I  found a spindle motor that runs at 12K rpm.  It has a built in ER11 collet and comes complete with a DC driver, a few cutters, ER11 collets in multiple sizes and the two mounting holes will work perfectly on the spindle arm.

I can hardly wait to get started machining on it.  The heat broke a week or so ago.  Shop isn't bad at all unless it's really humid.  It's only in the mid 90's now.  Cool edge to the breeze most days.  This evening reminded me of summer nights in Lubbock county 40 plus years ago.  Nights were cool on the caprock.  Even in the middle of summer, getting into the mid 60's at night was not uncommon.

Lick and a Promise

That was one of dad's phrases.  Just give it a lick and a promise.  So that's what I'm doing.

Time seems to pass too quickly now.  Monday, Friday, Saturday....  Each day shorter than the one before and suddenly it's next week.  Three days and it repeats....

Here's the lick:

Good thing is you can read through  and print out what you really need.   (I hate doing that on a pc, much prefer a real book but this is quick and inexpensive)

The promise is, more to come.  Hopefully much more, and regularly.

Gotta boogie, be back soon.

EDIT:  Well, I tried the link on an Apple device and it started flinging errors or fishing messages.  So YMMV, use at own risk, etc.  On a Linux box, it just worked.  pdfdrive dot com.

Cast Iron Kits

This winter, now that I'm on the mend, I wanted to do some shop projects.  So, I've been reading my books, looking at the net, yadda yadda.  

 I've been watching folks build some really cool stuff on the YT.  Joe Pie has been doing miniature models, as has Blondiehacks.  Spartan-C got a few of those tiny kits for winter work.  Windy Hill has been making castings.  I started to get a yen for a project for the winter.  Our winter is usually like late summer weather for those north of 40° North latitude.  Averages around 50-60 at night and 70-85 during the day.  Some days it can get colder.  But the La Nina holds up the temps.  The gulf also moderates our temps.

So, I was reading Workshop Techniques, and I ran across a couple neat projects.  G. H. Thomas outlines a small pantograph machine.  I have some of those old K&E lettering templates, and I thought, why not.  I have a few drachma saved up.  It would be kinda cool to be able to engrave stuff with those fancy letters.  That started an internet hunt for any casting kits for it, and I finally found Martin Model. 

I got the last one!!   Very quickly shipped and every part was wrapped in paper.  Even sent along some C size drawings for machining and assembly!  The castings are top drawer.  Fettling wasn't over much, and I didn't see any inclusions or blow holes.  Three had cores.  Very nicely done.

 

Back several years ago, my mentor was asked to help liquidate an old machine shop in REDACTED.  We went to look, and it was a squirrel and rat restroom. Some windows had blown out, and the critters moved in.  The owner had degenerative head disorder, and his daughter had stayed with him to the end.  She was the one that requested the help, as it was time to move on.  I got a lot of stuff from there, as did my mentor.  I paid her probably too decently as I take a dim view of folks taking advantage of those that are easy pickings.  My mentor basically priced the big stuff for her, and we picked through  the small stuff.  One of the things I got was a dividing head.

The dividing head allows you to rotate a work piece precisely.  It has a 40:1 gear ratio (some are different 90:1, 30:1, 4:1) , allowing you to divide a 360 degree circle into basically how ever many divisions you want.  One crank turn is 9 degrees, a third of a crank turn is 3.  It allows you to make some very interesting things.  Gears, those cool ports in shotgun barrels, bolt heads, and really, the sky is the limit.  

I found one in the shop there, and of course, it was rusty and stuck.  I got it for a good deal, and tried my best to free it up and make it useful.  Old Hammer Smith, the owner of the shop, had beaten it bloody.  It was missing parts of the casting where it had been "adjusted" with a ball peen hammer.  I never got it to work.  I still have it though, natch.  Bound to be some goodies in it I can use.  Like the worm and gear.

In the same book, G H Thomas shows a neat little Versatile Dividing Head.  Martin Model had it, so I bought it.  I'm missing a part, so hopefully, that will be on it's merry way soon.

 

parts 1 and 3

No nifty print for this, I'll have to use the book.  This isn't the only place to get one either.  Hemingway Kits in the UK has it too.  Its the whole package, all the bits and bobs.  And it's a sight more coin as well.  Plus shipping across the waters.

 

So, there are options.

Personal Updates:

The big D is on again, and it keeps getting changed.  I'm ready to be done with it.  Just flat done.

 

"G W.."  "Drago...."  I think me a Drago would get along pretty well.  We speak the same lingo.  One of my dreams was to meet Mr. Morrison.  But he left me behind before I truly appreciate him.

 Youngest son's trailer house sprung a water leak.  I fixed the worst ones, and then it blew out again.  Just got done today with the second fix.  Me and my sister in law, the sister of Herself, worked it through and finished it.  She's a hoot.  We allus have fun working together.  She's about 5 years younger than me.  And I've known her longer than Herself.  I.....  dunno what I was thinking...

Wriggling under a trailer house and connecting PEX wore me out.  I worked a grand total of 23.2 minutes over a four hour period and I am d-u-n, done.  The up and down on my knees eats through my stamina fast.  But I always feel better after I rest a couple days.  And I seem to last a little longer each time I work out.  And by a little, I mean 5 minutes or so.  Not very much at all.

Thanks for stopping by.  These days are flying by.  17 since the last update?  Rilly?