Tee-Nut

Once again I lift my morning glass of milk to your memory.

R.I.P. rgentryatozdotnet

Reply to
Bob Gentry
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Here, here.

Bet there's only a few of us left that remember him.

My all time fav Teenut post is the six million dollar bionic drill sharpener.

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Had to go look it up. Enjoy if you don't know this post.

Glad to hear it, last thing I want is, for what should be a professional discussion to get out of hand and start to spoil anyone's day!

Then I apologise Jim!!

SOMBODY said that and, in the convolutions of this thread I had come to believe it was you!

(trust me..if it gets any more convoluted I will be writing nasty missives to myself..and so will you!)

No disagreement..unless you HAVE to! My point is that a lot of people on this list have only the option of tackling it with no help, no aids, no skill and no practice...or NOT DOING IT! What a tragic waste!

I can't be there to help them..but at least I can give them the confidence to TRY..knowing that it CAN be done, It has been done, and by golly, if that old fart teenut can do it SO CAN I!!

(Forgive me Jim..I am not SHOUTing..just putting emphasis on the key points!)

I believe I learned on a 3/4" taper shank drill..it is a lot easier to see all the angles and begin to understand how they work and interact.

By the way..we had a handy little dohickey to help get the drill lips level. I have never heard it described before..

For the morse taper shank drills from 1/4" up to about 1" diameter, we had a piece of 2" by 1/8" hot rolled steel strap..about 14" long. One end was bent at right angles, about 2" from the end to form an L shape with one 12" upright and a 2" horizontal. In the geometric center of this short leg was afixed a "dead" center..not a lathe tailstock center!!...more like a 1/2" bolt, 1/2" long, turned or ground to a 60 deg point (Approx...no great precision required) and screwed in from the under side. Thats IT..toolmaking over!

In use the inner face of the upright was coated with whitewash (Never SAW marking blue 'til I got in the toolroom!) The drill was ground, freehand, on the FACE of the wheel (not the flat side)...care being taken to keep the POINT angle as equal as possible on both sides..I'll tell you how to do THAT in a moment..

Lets do that now in fact..

Jim, You are dead right about not being able to grind a drill without mechanical help! Well here's how you create your own "6 Million Dollar Bionic Darex" ;^)

Let's assume we are going to sharpen a 3/8" diameter, 2MT shank drill..it is about 8" long (these figures are arbitrary..I just want every one to have the same mental picture of what I am describing.) We approach the wheel, which has been dressed on its face, dead straight across with no grooves..(Ve SHOOT anyone ve catch putting grooves in ze drill wheel!!..No Pity..No Prisoners..Ya! Verdampt!)

(Sorry)...

The drill shank is held firmly in the RIGHT hand...ALL the movement and control is imparted by the RIGHT hand. For the purposes of drill grinding, the left hand could be...with benefit..a LUMP OF CLAY!!

It is from this "lump of clay" that we fashion the Bionic Darex".

Place your left hand thumb and finger tips LIGHTLY together..Relax the other three fingers aand let them naturally curl against the palm of your hand. Let the drill flute drop into the vee between thumb and fore finger and let the tip of the finger "Find" the curve of the flute where it fits comfortably. The tip of the thumb rests on the sharp junction ot the land and the flute, about an inch back from the drill tip.

Now...SQUEEZE HARD!!! YOUCH!...I said it would be easier if it were clay! 8^) Lift the drill from your fingers...see the GROOVE?...Drop the drill back in..it locates within a thou or two! Magic?..Bionic at least! Squeeze again to set the groove. You have created a customised drill guide that fits better that that on any machine ever built! You can relax your grip now..feel how smoothly the drill will ride back and forth, guided by the groove you have created for it.

Place the knuckles of your left hand, LIGHTLY on the ginding wheel tool rest, and swing the drill shank, from left to right (using ONLY your right hand) and push the drill lengthways though that groove in your fingers back or forth using the groove to make the drill twist or "rifle" in your fingers. Do NOT move your left hand in any way..it is made of clay remember!

UNTIL....

A) The drill axis is "eyeballed" to be at half the required point angle to the wheel face...You can scribe or chalk reference lines on your grinder benchtop to help you line this up..at least untill it become almost second nature.

B) The drill axis is dropped JUUUst below horizontal. This will ensure that your soon to be ground drill lip will start with a "smidgin" of cutting clearance.

(Ideally, and certainly for a beginner, the grinder rest should be set dead radially to the wheel center and about half the drill diameter below the true center of the wheel)

C) The two cutting edges of the drill..the straight, sharp bits, formed by the junction of the flute and the back face (the only bit you grind), should be horizontally disposed..with the edge uppermost on the side closest to your left hand..the othe sharp bit of course, pointing downwards (Jeeze this would be a lot easier with a sketch pad)

This I will call the SET or START position!

NOW, move your left hand for the first, last, and ONLY time during th is whole exercise. GENTLY ease the cutting edge towards the spinning wheel, carefully maintaining all the angles and orientations of the SET position..until the cutting edge is JUST shy of touching the wheel. If you listen carefully you will hear the tone of the entrained air, whistling through the narrowing gap. You will hear a subtle but distinct change of tone JUST, I mean Just...a couple tenths of a thou BEFORE the edge touches the wheel. STOP!!! FREEZE!! DO NOT MOVE!!

Now, press the knuckles of your lump of clay..sorry, your left hand FIRMLY down onto, into and around the grinding rest..establish a "Groove" on the back of your hand as well as between your fingers.

We are now ready to grind, Your left hand locked to the drill and grinding rest is otherwise quite relaxed..letting the drill slide, twist and tilt wherever your right hand and the groove in your fingers tell it to go.

The actual grinding is a bit of an anticlimax.

You have previously studied a new drill point, you have read about clearance, and cutting angles, and rakes and......

With the RIGHT hand in control, gently, kinda, lean forward... bending or squeezing your arms hands and body..rather than actually moving them..untill you take up that last couple of tenths and the wheel begins to cut. Let it cut..don't force it, and dont' rush it..it really won't hurt anything if you take a full minute Per pass per face. YOU and your "Bionic Darex" are totally in control of that drill and the wheel..Forget the times when, close to panic, you swung the drill wildly past the wheel, hoping to get "the dirty deed" over with as quickly as possible.

Take your time, enjoy the moment, THINK about the shape you are trying to generate. Just the one face is left to "Interpretation"...every other aspect,angle, facet, what have you...Has ALREADY BEEN TAKEN CARE OF!! and is locked in place under your control!

The right hand should perform a "Lower Quadrant sweep" for want of a better term..An observer behind you would see your hand move from about 17 minutes past the hour on a clock face, to roughly 25 minutes past. But it isn't a smooth arc of a circle, more a sector of an elipse..You see, as your hand starts to drop slowly, you are also rotating the drill in "the groove"..the first third of the turn needs to maintain that very slight clearance angle on the cutting edge, and not increase it too rapidly.

You need the clearance to cut..But too much at that point will WEAKEN the edge, and cause the drill to snatch and chip...So the first part of the rotation is ALMOST but not quite, just as though you were grinding a straight cone point on the end of your drill. Only as you approach the second third, does your right hand start to noticably drop..kinda "Catching Up" on the rotary motion...increasing the clearance as it does.

In the last third of the rotaion the right hand drops quite rapidly..Thogh not enough to catch the OTHER drill lip on the wheel..that lip is coming around quite rapidly by now.

Above all, take your time, if it helps, move the drill one degree at a time, and think ahead what shape or angle the next degree of cutting face needs...Remember, you have control, and IT ain't going nowhere 'til you decide.

After a pass on one face, flip the drill in your "Bionic Darex" DO NOT MOVE THAT LEFT HAND!!, return to SET position and repeat, the pass on the other face.

Having done a couple of passes on each face..it is now time to check the results on our homemade "Optical Comparator"

(Sorry Jim I couldn't resist!!) ;^)

Rest the center hole in back end of the drill shank, on the center point of the "Comparator" and use, first one and then the other drill lip to scribe a light line on your whitewashed (OK Blue or red dyed) surface.

You will readily see if the lines coincide..if the lips are even..or not, as the case may be.

Lets assume they are..Now look directly DOWN on the end of the drill to check the clearances. HUH? How can you check radial clearance by looking it staight in the face? Surely you need to look at it sideways?

Well no you don't...for once all thos interacting and confusing angle and faces and clearances are going to work together in YOUR favor and make what could be a tricky bit of metrology..quite simple. While we are looking at the end of the drill, we will also check that the POINT ANGLE is correct too!!!

(Ok guys, leave quietly..teenut has finally lost it!!)

No really, trust me. IF you look straight down on the point of a well sharpened, standard drill, you will see the two cutting edges, joined by the CHISEL edge which crosses over the web of the drill The angle fromed by the chisel edge to each cutting edge, should be ABOUT 50 deg...anywhere between 40 and sixty is ok for a first attempt. (I can hear the purists and theorists screaming and lighting up their flame throwers) But believe me, get it in that ball park and your drill will CUT. If the angle is too steep..you don't have enough clearance...negative clearance will give you an angle event greater than 90 deg. Too MUCH clerance and the angle will appear too shallow!

While looking at the end, check the point angle, How? Look down the axis of the drill at the cutting edges. Are they straight? If so, your point is pretty close to the right angle (As designed for that drill, by its manufacturer when he set the helix angle and the cross section of the flute) If the edges appear CONCAVE the point is too flat and if they appear CONVEX, the point is too "Pointy"

If your drill passes all these tests, which take but a second or two to perform, THEN IT WILL CUT..pretty close to size, without chattering, chipping, overheating, wandering or seizing. I guarantee it!

Hey, thats a pretty good start for the first drill you ever ground! All it takes now is a bit of practice for it to become second nature and almost as easy with a little 'un or a big 'un!

Hey guys!

My apologies for "goin'on" but If it helps just one person to pluck up the couragre and go hand sharpen his (or Her) first drill, by hand...

Then I hope you will bear with me.

It is late, I am tired and I am not even going to proof or spell check this,

'night all

teenut

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Yup, I remember him. It has been a long time!

(Just went to a memorial service for a cousin. I went to her wedding in about 1968. Time does fly!)

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Yeah, I remember him. One very knowledgeable fellow.

Reply to
Garrett Fulton

I certainly do.

That was a good one -- and also the one on how to set the feed speed on a milling machine.

R.I.P. Indeed DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Thanks Karl, I lost it long ago.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

"Tom Gardner" <

Here's the link to his page. Lots to enjoy here!

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Reply to
Phil Kangas

I liked the Tee-nut posts. (thanks) I didn't follow his post on how to sharpen a drill bit with out fancy tools... is there a video of that?

George H.

Reply to
ggherold

Huh , I didn't know that Tee-nut was Tubal Caine from youtube ... I subscribed to his channel .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

BTW I found his video for sharpening drills, if there are other newbie's like me.

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The part where he bashes the drill sharpening jig and throws it in the trash is fun.

George H.

Reply to
ggherold

Here's the link to all of his shop videos. Lots of info there.

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Reply to
Phil Kangas

-- - - - - - - - - - - I didn't either. . . Something funny here, I thought Robert (Tee-Nut) passed in 2001. The TubalCane youtube was posted in 2010.

Janna, Roberts daugnter, posted on 1/11/2011 the following. . .

"Thanks to you all for remembering teenut again this year. He obviously made a big impact on a lot of lives with his contributions here, and it means so much to me to see that he's not been forgotten,

10 years on.

I recently stumbled upon the archive of all of his posts that someone here took the time to compile, and realised that he'd interspersed his technical posts on metalworking with A LOT of sage advice and humour. I wish I'd read it all earlier, but it really gave me some insights into who my father was."

The above posting dates lead me to question Tee-Nut as TubalCane.

Wouldn't mind at all if someone proves me wrong though. I enjoy TubalCane's videos. :)

Bob rgentryatozdotnet

Reply to
Bob Gentry

There were two people who involved in metalworking who published, in one form or another, as Tubal Cane. One was Robert Bastow, AKA Tee Nut Eric

Reply to
etpm

My favourite sage advice was about owning a business or owning a job. I have been involved with several people who talked about having a business, but really just wanted to own their job.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

This last link was put together by Errol Groff who used to post here. I wonder what has happened to him. He was a metal shop instructor somewhere. Another old timer gone? phil k

Reply to
Phil Kangas

And what is wrong with owning their job??

I assume owning your job means becoming a independent contractor instead of a hired employee.

Reply to
jim

OK , it appears that the Logan Lathe QCGB repair videos I watched were NOT by Tee Nut . I was afraid to criticize those because Tee Nut is held in such high esteem here ... and I was not impressed . He had the usual crashed carraige syndrome where the last 16/32 gear pair (left side) had stripped the 16t section . Logan wants a handsome price for replacements , and they're worth it - to someone who can't make them in their own shop (I can and have) . He ended up buying a gear that needed modification but did work in the end , but bitched and whined thru the whole project . Not at all what I'd have expected from Tee Nut , based on what I've read here about him .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

- - - - - - - - The day hasen't been a total loss! I learned something!! :-)

Thanks Eric!

Bob rgentryatozdotnet

Reply to
Bob Gentry

When Robert first started posting on rec.crafts.metalworking, he posted under the name Tubal Cain -- which was previously a pen name used by a prolific writer on model engineering in the UK. He was no longer living, and Robert thought it was honoring him, but some took offense, so he changed his posting name to Tee-Nut.

Someone else has started using the Tubal Cain name for web based videos, apparently. Probably similar intentions.

Well .. he *was* *a* Tubal Cain for a short while, but not this one. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

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