Press Brake Update

Finished cylinder assembly today.  Found the missing gland cover cap screw.  Purchased a missing nut for the tie rods.

Had a heck of a time getting the dust seal over the shaft.  Went on what I thought was the wrong way but not with the lip facing into the cylinder.  Should not matter much in that there is no pressure on this seal.

Torqued them to 100 ft/lbs.   Was wondering if my old torque wrenches still worked seems they did.  It's a lot harder to torque something that is not part of a larger object.    C clamped the cylinder cover to the work bench then it was doable.






After they were assembled I ran into trouble mounting them to the press.   The rods are not a tight fit in the end caps.  After too much messing about with the digital caliper and a rasp I drilled 3 of the 4 holes 1/16th inch larger and they fit.  So far have just fitted one cylinder.   These cylinders are heavy and my back hurts.  :)

Did a little more general cleanup on the machine.

Added a muffler and found the leaking hose.

Unknow Lathe Update

Looks like the lathe is an Atlas or Craftsman 10".   I have been told its mine but due to the flue pandemic the people involved want to hold off on picking it up till things settle down.  A bit disappointing but I am OK with that.  Gives me some time to move some other projects ahead and maybe make space for it.

A while back I lost a mill because I futzed around too long.  The asking is not out of line by my thinking and worst case I think there are enough tooling with it to soften the blow should it be junk.  And I don't think it is.  These hobby machines are seldom used hard like a factory or machine shop tool.

Press Brake Update

After successfully test assembling one cylinder I could not get the piston into the second.   Looking at the old rings I found one set to be .087" and the other .110" along the dimension in the plane of the ring.   Discovered this by substituting parts between the good and bad.  

The good piston and rings went easily into both cylinder.  

The bad piston would not go into either cylinder. so not the cylinders.

This forced me to measure the rings and I found the difference.  I could have deepened the grooves on the bad piston to accommodate the new rings but I will move ahead and reuse the old rings.  At some point in the future I may choose to deepen the grooves, and hone the cylinders, but not till I get the machine working and determine if I want to keep it.

Why might I not want to keep it?  The machine is on the crude side.  There is no back stop to position the work.  There is no way to limit travel on the top die.  And it only came with the one die set.

Now if I can figure out how to limit travel I could try 3D printed dies.  A backstop should not be all that difficult to add.  But its another project or six.  Time will tell.

Unknown Lathe (Atlas 10F?)

Need to go have a look at this lathe. 

Two new wood flasks

Made 2 new wood flasks just a wee bit larger than my two smallest ones.    Maybe an inch longer and wider.  This will let me ram up 4 identical parts.

Routed grooves for sand retention.  Keys are are 7 degrees on one and 10 on the other.   The keys works well after easing the inside edges.

All scrap wood.

Master Mill Poly-V Pulleys

Rather than make several avoidable mistakes in the shop I am working through it here to see what I can come up with. 

I am concerned about the motor pulley. The motor is a DC treadmill motor. The shaft is 17MM  (0.669") by 1" length with an additional section 1/2-13 LHT on the end.    I don't like the idea of registering a 4" aluminum pulley to this shaft.  Maybe a better bet would be to sleeve the shaft to a larger size and mate the aluminum pulley to the sleeve.  Or insert the steel sleeve into the pulley.

Maybe its best to make the sleeve thread onto the motor shaft.  That will give me several tries at making it work.    When I have a good true sleeve running on the motor I could lock tight it in place so it can be run in either direction.  In the last attempt I used a grub screw on the mill pulley and it caused a few thou runout on the pulley when tightened down

Sourced the 1/2 13TPI LHT tap.

Press Brake Update

Just back from Delhart Bearing.   Seals for both cylinders came to $117.48 with tax.

Both gland and dust seal have a larger end which faces the oil.

Thinking about assembling them in the house where it is warm.

Need to think about cleaning the old oil off the press itself.  Hot water, purple power, and a stiff brush might work.

Needed pictures of the Alemite air over hydraulic pump.

Called Alemite.  Tech said the model number should be near the fluid outlet.  Get that and send it maybe with some photos to their tech support for liturature.

Was going to ram up some molds today but got side tracked cleaning up in and around the shop.   A while back I prepared two batches of green sand using a clothes dryer screen,  Both use bentonite clay, one is my local sand and the other play sand.   The greensand is in sealed buckets so it should be about ready to use.  Might need to adjust moisture a bit.

Want to know if my local sand is better when used with bentonite.

Want to know how my local sand and play sand compare.

Maybe tomorrow.

Press brake update

Tested the system without the leaky main cylinders.   Did a bit of bending with the ram on the side.

Took the cylinders to Dalhart Bearing to have the internals ordered.    Waiting on their call.   The good news is that the cast iron rings are about $18 each as are the gland seals IIRC.  Should come in under $200 if I am lucky.   Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that it all works when I put it back together.

Learned that thickness of what one bends determines the width of the die.   This does not account for the hydraulics.

    material_thickness X 8 = die_width

The die on this machine is between 3/4 and 1" depending on how you measure it.
So it should easily handle material between 3/32" and 1/8" or 11 ga and 13 ga.  This is way more then I should need bending sheet metal.    Maybe even bend up some light frames.

The side ram has a lower die of 1 3/4"  or 7/4" which results in a material thickness of 7/32.   The 5/16" in the video was a bit of a stretch in more than one way.  Pun intended.

Meat Grinder

One advantage of getting into metal working is a good understanding of sharpening.  This is the business end of an antique meat grinder I have been dragging around without using for decades.  A few minutes on the belt sander and surface plate set it right.

There still some corrosion on the plate which I could remove with more sanding and polishing but it did work as is and reducing the plate thickness would require shimming the auger.   Have to think about that.  Thinking it works so leave it.  Might look into making additional plates on the lathe down the road.  It might be nice to have a plate with smaller holes for a finer grind.

First run was a 2 foot long cryo-pack of pork roast.  About 10 or 15 lbs.  Have not spiced it yet .  Did the traditional thing and added salt and pepper to a sample and fried up a burger.  Tasty.

Thinking I will coat the areas subject to rust with mineral oil for storage.

Finger Press Brake Cylinders

I was fortunate to find the data plate on one of the cylinders.  It was nearly impossible to read but with the right lighting the camera did a decent job of picking it up.

Converting air quick connects for propane use

From Discord

dustyToday at 2:20 AM

Did some more digging on propane seals

https://www.efunda.com/designstandards/oring/oring_chemical.cfm?SM=none&SC=Propane

Neoprene is OK for static propane use aka not on a car/truck etc

McMaster has seals which works on at least some of these connectors. Measure prior to ordering. https://www.mcmaster.com/neoprene-rubber-washers

McMaster-Carr

Choose from our selection of neoprene rubber washers in a wide range of styles and sizes. In stock and ready to ship.

Part No 90133A036 is said to fit some quick connects

pack of 100 for $12.43

There are better materials for use with propane but I have not searched for them

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dustyToday at 2:35 AM

FWIW I have been switching over to Milton high flow airline fittings https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001O2ZGQ6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 So MAYBE (have not checked to see if McMaster has washer that fit) $12 for the couplers and $12 for the washers (ignoring shipping) and you have 2 propane quick connects that should last a life time.

Lead Ingots

Cast two lead ingots that just fill a small fixed rate shipping box.
They will go to a friend in trade.





Tabber see,s to have an attraction to everything bad for her.