It Rolls!

So after the apparent success of turning one working axle I had a go at making a second. Amazingly all went to plan, and more importantly they fit next to each other in the chassis.

As you can see even with the smaller wheels than the instructions suggested there isn't a huge amount of clearance between the two axles.

More importantly they also fit properly, albeit only just, within the splashers and it rolls!

Two Wheels, One Axle

Having messed up the first attempt at axle making I spent some actual time thinking through the process a bit and came up with a plan. This essentially involved keeping a long piece of 1/8" axle steel nice and straight on the lathe using a fixed steady (a recent purcahse and this is the first time I've tried it) and then lightly makring the sections for an axle on the rod using the cutting tool. I could then cut the axle from the rod and face and turn with just the end protruding from the collet chuck. Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos while marking up the axles, but here you can see the end result (after I roughly cut the two sections from the rod).

So if you look at those you can see I roughly cut them from the rod, so from each end I need to face off at the first line, and then turn down the rod between the first and second line. This will give me a stepped axle which should enforce the correct back-to-back measurement; although each end needs turning down differently to match the insulated and uninsulated wheels.

So far I've only managed to do one axle but......

And just to prove that they both fit on track and roll

And you have no idea just how happy I am with that!

Actual Progress

Whilst it looked as if the new wheels would indeed fit inside Ivor there was only one way to find out.... turn some axles and try fitting them.

I ended up messing up the axles, both sorting the back-to-back measurement and reducing the diameter slightly too far but....

To my eye that looks pretty good but.....

there is still very little clearance when viewed from beneath. I'd already bent the hidden part of the splashers when trying to fit the original wheels and I would have still hadto do the same for these wheels which just shows how little space there is and still brings into question how anyone is meant to build the kit given the instructions.

So next step is to re-think how to turn the stepped axles to get them the right size, but this small step feels like real progress, so I'm happy.

0.2mm from Success

I am never ever ever ever making wheels again. As you can probably guess the next step in the long running saga of building Ivor didn't go entirely as planned.

Having remembered from last time that it was hard work profiling the wheels I set everything up carefully and then turned the first wheel. Just as last time it was a slow process. I'm not sure if that's because the tool isn't as sharp as it might be, or if the brass Shapeways uses isn't ideal for turning, or if the Unimat 3 is a little underpowered for the job, but you have to take very very light cuts and I stopped frequently things cool slightly (otherwise the cutting tool gets so hot the oil smokes). Anway slow and steady got me to a nicely profiled 20mm wheel.

After the success of the first wheel, I made a coffee, and then profiled the second wheel. Then I made another coffee and profiled the third wheel. Then I made another coffee and started on the fourth and final wheel.

I took the final wheel nice and slowly and was just 0.2mm away from a completed wheel (i.e. I needed to advance the cross slide by just 0.1mm) when the threaded rod of the wheel holding tool sheared off and the knurled knob when flying across the room; fortunately away from me. So that's the second time I've had that tool fail now and I've no idea if it's just a bad design or something I'm doing wrong. Either way I was now just 0.2mm shy of four completed wheels which was rather frustrating.

The rod had snapped very close to the wheel so there wasn't enough left to try and screw anything on to the remaining stub. In the end I used the live centre to push the fixing against the wheel. It wasn't pretty and the wheel did slip a couple of times but it stayed straight and allowed me to reduce the diameter by the final 0.2mm.

Fortunately I think none of the remaining work to use the wheels would need the wheel holding tool (they just need holding in the step chucks) so hopefully I can continue on with the build of Ivor, but I don't think I'll ever try making my own wheels again.

Insulated Driving Wheels: An Experiment

While the build of Ivor might be on hiatus, I now have four wheels which are effectively scrap (given that they are no no longer the same size) on which it is safe to experiment. The final two pieces of the wheel design I needed to finalise were the insulation from the axle and the crank pin.

Let's start with the insulation first. It's difficult to see in the photos but what I've done is to simply take the test axle from a few posts back and fit this to one of the wheels. This involved opening out the axle hole in the wheel to 2.8mm which is a nice tight fit for the insulating bush I took from a pair of hornby disc wheels. I'm not sure this is the final way I'll go (I might try turning my own insulating bushes) but it is nice and straightforward and seems to adequately insulate the wheels from the axle at little effort or expense. Obviously on the real wheel I'd trim the axle back to the face of the wheel.

When I was originally working on the 3D model for the wheels my plan was to use a 14BA screw as the crankpin with a hole through the wheel tapped for 14BA so the screw would actually screw into the wheel. I had wanted to cast a recess into the back of the wheel to seat the cheesehead bolt but the wall thickness requirements meant that wasn't possible. So my plan was to screw the bolt into the wheel and then cut the head flush with the back. A little drop of loctite helping to hold the bolt in place. Unfortunately while I managed to open out the hole big enough to tap, I then broke one of my 14BA taps and stripped the cutting threads from another. With no taps left I opened the hole up slightly further so that the bolt was a tight sliding fit. Rather than holding it in place just with loctite on the body of the bolt I decided to drill a recess for the bolt head anyway as there seemed to be enough material. With that done the bolt sits nicely in the back of the wheel and the bolt head helps to keep the bolt perpendicular to the wheel while also providing more surface area for loctite to hold it in place. Once the loctite had set I did try pushing the crankpin out and couldn't do it by hand. Even with a set of pliers it took a lot of force to break the seal, so this definitely looks like a workable solution.

Ivor is Going on Hiatus

So unfortunately work on Ivor is going on indefinite hiatus.

After doing the maths this morning I thought I'd go ahead and turn the wheels down to 20mm from their original 21mm diameter. If you remember when I originally turned the wheels I said it was hard work to get them down to 21mm, well getting down to 20mm seemed nigh on impossible. I continued to take it very very slowly but the work involved looked like being too much for my lathe without substantial extra work to the wheel (thinning the depth and reducing the width with a normal cutting tool first etc.) but with perseverance I got the first wheel to 20.5mm and so decided to split the difference and stop there. All (reasonably) good so far.

Having let the wheel cool (they get quite hot during profiling) I went to undo the wheel holding fixture only to find it was quite tight. I gently used a pair of pliers to start loosening it (I did this last time when it was too hot to touch) only for the threaded rod to snap in half! This means that the wheel holding fixture is now useless. More to the point I now have one 20.5mm diameter wheel and three 21mm diameter wheels so Ivor is going nowhere anytime soon.

I think the best thing to do is simply put the kit away for a while and focus on something else. This will give me time to rethink the wheels (I'll redo the 3D model for a smaller diameter and to make them easier to profile) and probably to save up to replace the wheel holding fixture. I could continue on with the body, but I think I'd just get frustrated knowing I couldn't fit it to a working chassis (plus it might need modifying to fit the gearbox etc.) so will probably turn to something else entirely. Not sure what yet, but I'll be sure to post when I've done something new.

RP25-110

Next up in the sage of making wheels for Ivor is the bit I've been dreading the most; profiling the wheels to add the flange. In theory this should be easy as in essence all it involves is reducing the diameter of the casting using a profiling tool, but that glosses over a whole bunch of issues.

Let's start by defining exactly what we mean by "to profile" a wheel. Put simply it's to shape the tread and flange of the wheel to a specific shape. There are lots of different profiles all defined by different guidelines and associations. For Ivor I've settled on using wheels profiled to match RP25-110. This means I'm using the RP25 profile, as defined by the NMRA, with code 110 wheels, i.e. wheels that are 0.110" in depth (or for those who prefer metric, 2.794mm). Now a lot of the work of making the wheels fit this profile was done during the design of the 3D model as it set the depth etc. but it is impossible to 3D print thin enough and accurately enough to produce the flange.

To add the flange (and to ensure a nice smooth turned tread) I'm going to finish the wheel profile on the lathe, using a specific profiling tool. You can get profiling tools from numerous places but I picked up this one from Carbide Solutions as it had a square shank which made mounting it in the lathe easy.

Even with a sharp profiling tool (I'd not used mine before) this is actually quite hard work for the lathe and involved taking very very tiny cuts and quite a few breaks even during each wheel to ensure I didn't over heat the lathe or the wheel (it got exceptionally hot).

As you can see I've held the wheel in the lathe using a tool designed specifically for the job (another purchase from fohrmann-WERKSEUGE). The tool ensures the wheel is perpendicular to the lathe bed and clamped tight, although I did manage to over tighten the clamp on two out of the four wheels which unfortunately opened out the axle hole in the wheels slightly -- not a problem as I'll fit insulating bushes to these two wheels so will need to open the hole further anyway.

You'll also notice that I've left as little of the profiling tool hanging out of the toolpost as possible to try and reduce chatter, and I clamped the crossslide tight so as to remove as many sources of movement as possible. On the first wheel I started with the lathe on a slow speed but that was a disaster as the tool tended to dig in and bounce around, even with the lathe locked as solid as possible. I reconfigured the belts to run the lathe on it's fastest setting (4000 rpm) and with very very tiny cuts this worked a lot better, and fortunately I figured this out before destroying the first wheel. Once I'd reduced the first wheel to the correct diameter (21mm for 5' 3" wheels at 4mm to the foot) I took a note of the position on the cross slide, and then repeated the process for the other three wheels.

It took me all morning (in blocks of a couple of minutes here and there) but I've managed to profile all four wheels. While I'm not going to claim any of the four as perfect, I'm happy enough with them all to try and assemble the loco. All four have a difference of no more than 0.02mm when measured and all are slightly above 21mm rather than below, so they are close enough that I think they should sit level. The main issue with them is that when I removed them from the sprue, and filed the excess away, I didn't take into account that the edge of the flange was the edge of the casting (something I'll change if I produce any more) and so in a couple of places there is a slight straight edge on the flange, but hopefully not enough to cause a problem, if it is I can always order another set and replace them but fingers crossed...

Stepped Axles

Having assembled the basic chassis the next step is to figure out the wheels. Unfortunately as the prototype is a cartoon character there aren't any wheel sets I can just buy off the shelf. The only suggestion in the instructions is to use "Ultrascale or Markits 5'3" 16 spoke wheels with 8 spokes removed". Having looked at both of these options I wasn't happy with either, as even with the extra spokes removed I didn't think they really matched up with those you see in the cartoons. In the end the only thing I could think of was to make my own wheels. Clearly this isn't going to be a quick and simple process so it's likely to go on for quit a few posts as I detail the different steps and experiments. In this post I'm going to concentrate on the axles.

As I mentioned previously the kit is designed for use with axles with a diameter of 1/8". The wheels on Ivor don't have a huge central boss, and certainly not something big enough to accommodate a 1/8" (or bigger for an insulating bush) hole so my plan is to use stepped axles. Most wheels seems to use steel for axles so I've bought some 1/8" diameter silver steel rod (from Eileens Emporium) but having never tried to turn anything other than soft brass rod (CZ121 brass to be precise) I had no idea how well this would work.

For a quick experiment I've turned down a short length of the silver steel rod to take one of the OO gauge wheels I used to build the Clayton. These wheels fitted on a 2mm axle so I had to remove roughly 1.25mm from the diameter of the rod. I actually found machining the silver steel possibly easier than brass and the turnings come off as long thing ribbons rather than lots of dust. All told (including setting up the lathe) this took about 10 minutes. Now obviously machining steps on both ends of an axle and getting the back-to-back correct is going to be more time consuming but at least now I know I can work with the materials I've got, and I've 26" of rod (minus the short test piece) to play with and I only need two short (approximately 19mm) axles.

A Blast From The Past

Having finished the Clayton commission I decided I'd try and finish some of my stalled projects before starting anything new. First up on the workbench is my build of Backwoods Miniatures Canopus. Last time this appeared on the blog was November of 2015, when I was in the middle of trying to fix all the issues with the parts supplied with the kit; on that occasion the slidebars being two narrow. While problems still remain the model is really quite close to being finished, and so I'm going to make a determined effort to see it through to completion.

After altering the slidebars and riveting the connecting rods to the crossheads, the next step in the instructions is to fit the cylinders. Not entirely surprising but it turned out not to be as simple a task as it sounds. In theory all I needed to do was drill a 0.8mm hole through each of the two whitemetal castings for the piston rods to slide through. I drilled the first cylinder with no problems at all, but drilling the second one seemed impossible. Not only did I break a drill bit but even when I'd found a second drill I just couldn't get it to drill through. I'm guessing an impurity of some form in the casting. Either way this left me with only one usable cylinder, so I decided to turn up a replacement. Fortunately I checked the one good casting against the loco before starting as in the end I had to turn up a pair of cylinders.

The instructions suggest that the cylinder should have two notches on one end into which the slidebars fit into. My castings didn't and worse still when the cylinder is held in place against it's bracket the slidebars are almost a millimetre too short to meet the face of the cylinder. So my turned replacements are the same diameter as the cast parts but about 1mm longer so that they fit in the bracket and against the slidebars.

While the cylinders are now a bit longer than they should be I don't think they look too out of place on the loco. Even having moved the slidebars outwards (back in 2015) the clearances are still really tight but turning the motor by hand seems to suggest there is enough space for everything to move past each other.... just. The test will be when I find where I've put the rolling road so I can give it a powered test where I can watch everything closely.

Chimney Turning: Take 3

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last wrote a post. I had everything ready to write a new post on another attempt at turning a chimney and then my enthusiasm for modelling suffered a bit of a blow. No I'm not talking about the referendum (although as the result directly affects my job which I might well loose within the next 18 months it didn't help) but some rather public feedback on my modelling. I'm still figuring out if I want to talk about it, but having been away on holiday (which included a railway related day out) I'm feeling a bit better and so on with the story.

Last time I'd managed to turn two chimneys neither of which were usable; one broke and one didn't have the right profile. The third attempt basically followed the same approach as the first two, but once I got to finishing and drilling out the turning I switched from the 3 jaw chuck to using a new purchase; a ER16 collet chuck. The chuck is a genuine EMCO part but the collets themselves are cheap Chinese parts; the entire set cost me less than a single collet often does and they seem accurate enough.

Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos while actually using the collets but, as I said before, the approach was the same as last time, just with a different way of holding the parts. Once I'd turned the chimney (photos of it on it's own appear not to have been taken) I moved on to preparing the body casting by removing the old chimney and drilling a mounting hole.

This involved another new addition to the Unimat 3; a milling table. If you remember, I previously had to hold the casting using the 3 jaw chuck which wasn't particularly stable or safe. I started by extending the existing hole in the chimney down a long way using a drill of roughly the same size to help ensure it was vertical. I then cut the top part off the chimney off with a razor saw and tided up the casting before opening out the hole ready to take the turning.

With the casting prepared it was easy to simply slot the turned chimney into place.

It's not a perfect match for the drawing I have but it's very close (close enough for me at least) to a number of old photos of Tallylyn and more importantly I'm much happier with the turning than the original cast version.

Chimney Turnig

Ever since I first held the model of Skarloey in my hands the chimney has looked wrong. Mostly I think it's that the band around the upper part stands to proud and is too far down. After my success turning buffers and spectacle plates I thought I'd see if I could produce a replacement. Unfortunately thinks didn't go quite to plan this time.

From a drawing of the prototype I worked out all the main measurements and set to work reducing a piece of 6mm diameter brass rod. The first stage was to reduce it down to 4.6mm which is the diameter of the cap, I then reduced most of it down to 3.25mm which is the diameter of the band around the chimney.

I then fitted the top slide to allow me to turn the taper for the cap; I went for a taper of 45 degrees which seemed to match up with the drawing. With the two parts now joined by the taper I cut into the body of the chimney slightly (0.2mm) to produce the top edge of the band, and then turned the rest down by 0.2mm leaving a 1mm wide band. I then worked out where the base of the chimney should be, made a witness mark, and then turned the rest down to 2mm to act as a locating pin.

Next I parted the chimney off from the rest of the bar leaving a few millimetres above the chimney cap, before turning the part around and remounting it with the locating pin in the 3 jaw chuck. I then faced off the top of the cap until I almost met the edge of the taper, I then faced off just the edge leaving a raised section in the middle. The final step was to then drill out the centre of the chimney. I started with a 1.5mm hole but it didn't look big enough so I changed to a 1.8mm drill which is where things started to go wrong.

One of my pet hates on models is chimneys where the central hole is only a millimetre or so deep so I made sure the hole was nice and deep. Unfortunately I forgot that the mounting pin was 2mm wide and my drill was 1.8mm and when it got deep enough the chimney snapped leaving me with the locating pin in the chuck. Worse was to come though when I went to open the chunk only to snap one of the tommy bars.

Fortunately the tommy bar is still useable, if a little short, and in retrospect a number of things were wrong with the chimney. Not only was it too short (I wrongly measured the drawing) but the 45 degree cap looked silly. So I set to turning a second chimney following the same stages which produced something that looks a lot better.

Initially I was happy with this one, but on reflection, and after looking at some photos not just the drawing, it's still not right. I'm happier with the height and the angle of the taper for the cap, but the band is too high up the chimney (there should be more straight section above it before the taper), so I'll have to have another go at some point. I'm still calling it a success though, as it's by far the most complex thing I've turned yet and it's all good practice.

More Brass Bits

Yesterday I finally managed to clear enough space (by temporarily dumping things elsewhere) to setup the lathe to turn a full set of spectacle plates. If you remember I ran out of brass after making one last time.

Armed with some new brass rod I set everything up and made a start on turning the 6mm rod down to 4.25mm for the outer diameter. My plan was to turn down quite a length of rod so that I could make four or more in sequence ensuring the outer diameter stayed the same. Initially I must have got the tool height wrong because as soon as I tried to take a small cut the tool dug in which tried to lift the front of the crossslide. While a little bit of pressure on the front of the crossslide stopped that happening the surface finish was terrible. So I stopped, made coffee, and then set everything up again. This time it was fine so I carried on.

The sequence was essentially to turn down the rod for the outer diameter, drill the central hole to 3.5mm (I would possibly have preferred this to be a little bigger but I was limited by drill sizes), face off and then turn down the end to 0.75mm to 4mm in diameter. This leaves me with a frame on the end of the bar which I then parted off. At that point I could just repeat the process from the facing off step to cut more frames.

I decided a photo of just four rings wouldn't be very interesting so instead we have a group shot of the main brass bits I've made for this model.

I actually made six parts, even though I only needed four. The first one I parted off badly which distorted it, and one pinged off never to be seen again during parting off leaving me the four I needed. This does mean that my success rate is climbing since I turned the buffers as two thirds of the parts were usable; it might even have been as high as 80% if I'd been able to find the one that got lost.

There will likely be a bit of a pause again as I'm getting ready for a work meeting next week that won't leave me much, if any, free time but then I have some annual leave so hopefully I'll be able to crack on with the final detailing and some painting...... although that would mean I need to settle on a colour scheme. I'm also not sure yet if I'll fit the window frames before painting, and then paint them brass coloured, or polish them up and fit them after painting. Anyone have any thoughts on which would look best? I'm thinking painting them might help me make them look worn and dirty as I don't want an ex-works condition loco.

Monocle

When working on the cab yesterday I realised that the rear windows didn't have any moulded surrounds. The front windows do have surrounds and I'd been intending to leave them as they didn't look too bad. As even old photos show rims around the rear windows I'm going to need to do something about them, so I think I'll now be replacing the ones on the front as well. On every model I've fitted window rims to they have been etched and while I could easily go that route I thought I'd see if I could turn them instead. Unfortunately after making the buffers I had just a tiny piece of rod that was roughly the right size left so as a test I made a monocle instead of a spectacle.

The hole in the cab is approximately 3.5mm so I opened this out to 4mm and then turned a rim with an outer diameter of 4.25mm and a central hole 3.5mm across that was a push fit in the enlarged hole. It probably needs for the rim to be slightly less proud of the cab and the edge rounded if possible, but as a first test this shows that the approach should work (a good job after I'd opened out one window hole already) so when the 6mm brass rod I have on order arrives I'll turn four rims rather than drawing up etch artwork.

Success Rate: 40%

The feedback on my first attempt at turning a buffer suggested that the problems with the surface finish were related to the speed at which they were being made. Specifically that I was probably turning the lead screw too quickly, but also that I might need to run the lathe faster than the 1500rpm I was using. I've now had another go using a faster lathe speed of 2450rpm while turning the lead screw much more slowly. This reduced the problem considerably although I notieced that the grooving was still present but was only happening when reversing the lead screw so was solvable by backing off the crossslide after taking the last cut to set a specific diameter. After a few false starts, mostly related to me not being able to count, I've now produced four almost identical buffers that I'm more than happy with.

In total I've turned 10 buffers giving me a success rate of just 40% but for my first lathe based project I don't think that's too bad at all. One thing I did learn is that I really want some resettable handwheels. In the end I resorted to facing off the brass bar until the dial read 0 so that it was easy to count out the other measurements along the bar. I also know I really want a collet chuck for holding small items as doing the final work with the buffer held in the 3 jaw chuck by the locating pin was fraught with problems and in one case I ended up with it clamped out of centre somehow which ruined the buffer when I added an off centre notch around the front face.

Anyway, I'm really happy with how these have turned out and in retrospect I'm actually quite impressed that the success rate is as high as 40%, I thought I'd go through a lot more brass than that before producing four usable buffers!

Third Turn's a Charm (Almost)

Having finished the boiler backhead and cab detailing (or at least the bits attached to the body casting) I've turned my attention to one of the other details of the original model which I think can be improved... the buffers. Certainly the loco is currently fitted with some rather distinctive buffers that have a circular core wrapped with a metal band as you can see in this photo.

If you remember back to the original model the buffer heads are just plain disks. Now no matter how skilled I might be with a file there is no way I could accurately file those heads down to represent the prototype and anyway given I own a lathe turning replacements sounds like a lot more fun.

I've actually been thinking about how to turn replacements for a few days, as having never turned anything without Paul's supervision I had to think about the best way of approaching them all on my own. In the end I drew a picture with dimensions and then a list of steps (on the left hand side, the right hand side is notes I made while turning the first attempt).

If you can't read my handwriting (sometimes I can't even read it so I wouldn't be surprised if most of you think it illegible) by plan was to basically work inwards in steps; turn the bar down to the max width of the head first, then turn down the rest to the width of the shank, and then turn down just the locating pin. The only complications being the slightly smaller diameter of the front and back of the buffer head. Turning the one on the back of the buffer head is easy, but the one on the front I decided probably needed doing after I'd parted off the buffer by turning the buffer around and mounting it on the lathe using the locating pin. After lots of careful measuring and turning I had my first attempt completed.

Unfortunately, just as with my first turning, I managed to loose some of the buffer head when parting off, so the head ended up being a lot thinner than I intended, so much so I didn't bother to re-mount it to do the final work on the front face. While it was far from perfect I had at least turned something so I set off to have another go. This time I managed to make the buffer head too big when parting off and when I went to try and rectify this with it mounted the other way around in the lathe, I got my handles mixed up and took off too much, so that was also a bust. On the third attempt though (I still parted off too much but I then faced off the buffer to thin it down) I produced something that dimensionally I was fairly happy with.

The shank could do with being a touch thinner but I could live with it as it is now. The main problem is that the surface is not very smooth. I'm guessing I've not set something up right as I basically end up with lots of grooves around the turning, which are easy to see in the photo and easy to feel as well. After my experience last time I made sure everything was nice and tight and as far as I can tell nothing shifted while in use. My guess is I've got the tool at the wrong height or angle, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyone have any suggestions as I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong before it's worth turning a full set of four replacement buffers.

Practice.... May Eventually Make Perfect

I've now owned a lathe for over a month, but until Saturday all I'd done was strip and clean parts of it, I hadn't actually tried using it to turn or drill anything. Part of the problem was not really knowing where to start. You can read books and watch videos for hours and still miss really obvious things that can be the difference between success and frustrating failure. Also having made the investment the last thing I wanted to do was damage the lathe on my first attempt at using it. Fortunately Paul very kindly agreed to visit at the weekend to help get me started. So in between copious mugs of tea/coffee and slices of cake I finally turned the lathe on in anger to cut some brass.

Sensibly we didn't just shove some brass and a tool into the lathe we spent quite a bit of time checking it over and figuring out if it had any little quirks; like there is a bur inside the headstock which stops larger bits of brass sliding cleanly inside the shaft and which I need to look at sorting at some point. When we did make a start though we didn't mess about and went straight to turning a 7mm diameter wheel. This isn't as daft as it might sound as it turns out that the basic steps in making a wheel form a nice introduction to turning. You need to make some drawings first to figure out dimensions, then there is some facing and turning down to different diameters, then the use of a profile tool, then some drilling for an axle, and then parting of the wheel. In other words a nice introduction to lots of the common tasks I'm going to find myself doing on a lathe.

I didn't take any action shots, but these two nicely show the drawings and jottings as well as the finished wheel and a brief experiment in taper turning. I did make a few mistakes as we went along, so the wheel is far from perfect; mostly I didn't lock the tool post tight enough when parting off so it slipped slightly meaning I lost part of the flange. Of course the real test will be to see if I can repeat the process without Paul around to help, but that will have to wait. One of the problems we did discover is that the parting off tool I bought is huge in comparison to Paul's. Mine is just over 3mm wide whereas Paul's is closer to 1.5mm. Given the size of things I'm turning losing 3mm of brass is wasteful and will also put more strain on the motor. Fortunately Paul has kindly taken mine away to grind down so it's more useful as well as grinding more clearance on the left hand turning tool.

As well as turning we also fitted the milling attachment to check it also worked, which it does. Here you can see it in place and also see that I've bolted the whole machine to a chopping board (it was the best thing I could find), although from using it on Saturday I need to fit some rubber feet to stop is sliding around.

As well as showing me how all the tools and accessories I have work Paul also brought some of his tools with him so I've now seen how an indexing attachment works, as well as a collet chuck and some interesting step chucks. I can easily see all of them being really useful but I'm not going to buy any more tools until I've learnt to use the ones I have, or have a specific need for one, otherwise I'd quickly end up broke!

So, thanks again to Paul for driving over (and back in the snow). I really enjoyed meeting him, talking modelling, and learning to use the lathe. Hopefully he enjoyed himself too, or at least the cake!