Les Golledge
Active Member
I couldn't put the day off any longer. It was time to relearn how to use a lathe.
Here we are, ready to square up an end. Ideally, there would be less of the work sticking out. I have the wrong chuck in the machine, which previously has been used for reprofiling wheels, using the tail stock and various bits and bobs. This chuck won't let the work poke all the way through, and for some reason my tutor today, Best Beloved, felt it was too much effort to fit the proper one. Let's just say we got away with it, and have agreed to install the other chuck for future work!
The first stage was to square up one end of each of the bars. I ought to sort out numbers for you: four coaches, two bogies each, that's two bars per coach, eight bars. I cut two off two spare lengths to allow for the inevitable visit from Captain Cockup.
Once I had been through and trimmed one end of each bar, we set up the tail stock to centre pop them.
Then I was ready to begin again. It took a while to get my eye in, but eventually all the bars were trimmed to near enough the correct length. Once squared up, the ends were centre popped, then it was time to drill.
Swapping the tail stock for the one with the drill chuck, a 1.2mm drill was used to make a hole in each end about 2mm deep.
Hi Heather,
Rather than use the centre in the tailstock use a centre drill in the tailstock chuck to make a starter hole in the centre of the end which can then be followed by a drill which will follow the hole created by the centre drill.
Here's the result of my Dogpile search for centre drill:-
Web - centre drill
Here's a page from RDG Tools:-
Model Engineering and engineering tools online from RDG Tools Ltd Home Page (Engineering Tools) Tel 01422 885069 /884605
I hope the links appear in this post.
I hope this is of help to you Heather also note these bits can be used in a pillar drill to more accurately start a hole ready for drilling with normal twist drill bits.
Regards,
Les.