Atlas 12/36 Question

[pdentrem]

Funny you should say that.. I have been trapping and releasing varmits quite a lot lately.. There is one racoon that is terrorizing our property.. tried to trap him with no success, I might have to just shoot it..

Local trapper uses sardines and sets the trap later in the evening, as possoms are out first and the coons come out closer to midnight or after in our area. He will catch cats but usually they do not return after spending the night in the cage.

 

[pdentrem]

To get a better finish you have to have a sharp tool, the right feed rate and rpm, also the tool nose radius larger than the feed rate. That way you are taking more of a cut like a tangential tool does, almost like a scrapping cut. If you can, a bit of hand polish with emery cloth either in a showshine method or backed with a wooden backer can help. I have use a belt sander on rifle barrels with a used up belt to get a good polish.
Pierre

 

[ChuckB]

To get a better finish you have to have a sharp tool, the right feed rate and rpm, also the tool nose radius larger than the feed rate. That way you are taking more of a cut like a tangential tool does, almost like a scrapping cut. If you can, a bit of hand polish with emery cloth either in a showshine method or backed with a wooden backer can help. I have use a belt sander on rifle barrels with a used up belt to get a good polish.
Pierre

That makes sense. Thanks for the info. I have used emery cloth before and it does a good job.

Thanks for the trapping info too!

I put this on YouTube yesterday:



[video=youtube;C6bSVQpDId0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6bSVQpDId0[/video]

 

[wa5cab]

Chuck,

.0042 is perha[s a little too fast for a finish cut with a sharply point tip on the cutter. As Pierre said, if you radius the tip of the cutter, you will usually get a better finish. They also make carbide inserts with radiused instead of pointed tips. Also, after finishing a pass, or at least the final pass, you should always back the cutter out before cranking the carriage back to the starting position.

For use on steel, I keep on hand a roll of 2" or so wide 220 grit sand paper. And a 10" or so long piece always torn off and available on the ready service shelf behind me. After the final cut, I hold the strip in the right hand, drop it over the part, catch the other end with the left hand and pull it around the part and walk it up and down the length two or three times to polish. Then wipe off the part and check the diameter.

The only real complaint that I have ever had with the Atlas feed rates is that the cross feed is about twice as fast as the longitudinal feed. Too fast for most milling.

The phenomena where a second pass removes just a little metal is I guess just something that happens. You can minimize it by keeping all three gibs properly adjusted.

Robert D.

 

[ChuckB]

Thanks for all the help. I have been provided some good info here. I just finished making this wrench for my 4 jaw chuck. I'd be ashamed to tell you how long it took.. It started out with with a 1" diameter steel rod. It took a lot of turning to get it down to size. The tee handle was a long bolt that I had to turn down. Overall, it turned out okay, but I wasn't happy about a couple things. I wanted to press fit the tee portion, but it had a taper after turning it, ( worn ways?) so I ended up notching the center of it and used an allen screw. The worse thing was the square tip. I free handed it in the grinder.. of course it isn't exactly square, but it has a decent fit and works. How should I have done it?

This is the most complicated thing I have ever done with my lathe and although a little disapointed, I still enjoyed making it and did learn a few things.)

 

[ChuckB]

Local trapper uses sardines and sets the trap later in the evening, as possoms are out first and the coons come out closer to midnight or after in our area. He will catch cats but usually they do not return after spending the night in the cage.

I have been sucessful trapping. What I ended up doing was to put a littile trail of cat food leading to the trap and a bowl of it inside. Caught the big racoon last night. Took him way down the road to the deep woods and let him go. Set it up again as soon as I got home and within an hour or so, caught a medium sized possum. Too late to take him down the road last night, but will do so when I get home.

 

[Uncle Buck]

:thinking: I don't know.. I'm starting to like this lathe! )

I have one identical in every way except those beautiful legs and I doubt I will ever look at replacing mine with another. If I do I know it won't be a new machine, and even to be considered a machine would need to be in like new condition for a used and very heavily tooled. The Atlas spoiled me, it was both, like new and heavily tooled when I got it.