Outa here for awhile

I read an article about some custom work being done in China recently. It repeated the warnings that you must absolutely specify what the item will be used for. Their engineers will produce anything you want but you have to tell the salesmen every single little detail in order of precedence or they might give you something very inexpensive which will work exactly as you specified but no better, and it will die on a simple job which it should have been specified for, had you had your ducks in a row. It's a matter of honor for them, so be exceedingly precise in what you ask for. They'll damned well give it to you. If you don't specify that quality is #1, you might get butter steel.

A whole lot of crap tools happened onto the market when a few people said only "it should be able to do this and I want it done cheap."

DoN, thanks a lot for bringing those pictures.

Based on your story, I added a cron job to E-Stop my Bridgeport Interact every day at 6pm.

I do not want it to be left "up" and forgotten for possibly days, as in on weekend.

When E-stopped, there is NO power to the lube pump, servos, DC drives etc.

About half my tools are from HF, but I look them over before buying them. I always favored Xcelite for electronics, until 'Cooper Group' bought them.

Like the new Iphone? ;-)

I bought a set much like that once in the late 70s. Didnt bend it..but it sure turned int into a reamer when it unwound the flutes

Gunner

Good plan -- as long as you never expect to use it through that period. :-)

That was the plan for this. But I had a box with switches to enable various things during testing. (Everything is controlled by sold state relays.)

The reason which I *had* for switching off the lube pump was experience with an Anilam conversion of a Taiwanese Bridgeport clone which we had at work. If the controller box was left on, the lube pump would run all night, or all weekend, and we would find a puddle in the base of the machine -- all wasted Vacra No. 2.

I also planned a timer so the lube pump would have to be on for fifteen minutes (the cycle time) before the servo amps and the spindle motor's VFD would be enabled.

I'm not sure, but I *think* that the fire got started rather quickly after I left the room. (I smelled nothing before I left, and it was just a few minutes accepting a plate of food from my wife in the kitchen and then heading upstairs when I smelled the fire.)

The main trick (assuming that you have an equally old lube pump) is to make sure that there is nothing flamable near it. There was a long cardboard box, and the protective cover from a fluorescent fixture not yet fully installed) leaning against it, and bumped by the table during test drives with a pot (also in the box) controlling the servo amps. It caught fire and carried it down to the floor below the lube pump.

I think that without the path to the floor, the fire on top of the pump would have simply burned itself out without having lit off the contents of the reservoir.

Good Luck, DoN.

Yep -- early Japanese "butter steel" drill bits.

Hmm ... Oxwall -- the vendor of sets of butter steel screwdrivers, too. :-)

Was this in a hand-held drill motor, or in a drill press? (Or perhaps and "eggbeater" drill?)

Ever try to duplicate it on other sizes?

:-)

The one shown above got a reverse twist between the bend and the shank. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Black and Decker 3/8" VSR drill.

I decided that the set was probably somewhat uniformly S*IT, so, no. ;)

A couple years back, Junior raided his FiL's stock of dull, broken and mutilated drill bits and brought them to me to play with on my DD750. Among them I found what I think started out as a carbide tipped masonry drill which had lost it's carbide and been sharpened and used to attempt perforating steel.. After I cut off the mutilated section I rough ground it and finished it on the DD, then I drilled a hole through it and wired on a printed tag: "Drill Shaped Object, use only to make holes in room temperature BUTTER" When Fil spotted that in his supply of sharp bits, he totally lost it. The "Drill Shaped Object" occupies a place of honour over his bench!