Inside Doc's Machine Shop

[JeeperCreeper]

Pm sent

[DocsMachine]

Well, F*CK.

Those of you following along, may recall I had to send the bulk of the knurled knobs back for rework, since there were flaws in the anno. Turns out the shop had also managed to misplace a rack of 24 of them.

The parts were reworked, and apparently they found the missing ones, and roughly three weeks ago said they were ready to ship. I printed out some postage and forwarded the tags... and that's it.

The lady at the company says they were mailed, but the Post Office has no record of having received the packages- the tracking numbers only say the labels have been generated, and they're waiting for them.

As of today, I still don't have them, the company says they shipped them and other than talking to their local PO rep, there's nothing they can do. I'll be talking with my local PO later today, but unless they can chase something down, I may be SOL.

That's roughly 170 of a 200-part run, lost. Plus being out over $500 in material, nearly that again in anodizing and shipping, and of course literal months of time and labor.

That left me about thirty finished parts, almost half of which have been sold so far. And if I sell all of them, won't even cover what I've spent just on materials for this whole project, let alone time, let alone the tooling I bought. (Which of course can still be used for other projects.)



As I said, I'll talk to the local PO later today, and give them a couple days to see what they can do. If they can't pull off a small miracle, I guess I'll need to cut some more, and spend more money to have those anodized...

sigh

Okay ladies and gents, right at this exact moment, I have fourteen left on hand. Everyone who's placed an order, and paid, before yesterday (Monday the 29th) has been filled and shipped. I will be making more, but at this point they'll be a minimum of six weeks out, probably more. If you're interested in getting one now, drop me a line- first come, first served.

Doc.

[Cal440]

Sorry to hear that Doc,keep us informed if they find anything

[superman]

That's rough. Part of the reason i worry about sending my stuff to anodizers.

[DocsMachine]

I have been having problems with anodizers for literally decades. Over 20 years ago, I had one literally close- as in the doors chained shut and phones disconnected- while they still had my (and many other shops) parts. Never did get those back, I had to buy a replacement marker for the customer.

Doc.

[NONOBLITUS]

Pm heading your way

[DocsMachine]

Doc.

[Grendel]

you running a restaurant now? Around here the lowest they list is 20%.....

[DocsMachine]

Well, according to the PO, as far as their computer is concerned, no such packages were ever accepted. No package, no number scanned into the system, there's nothing to look for. I'm told there's a vague hope they might tun up at what they used to call the 'dead letter' office, which is now the "Mail Recovery Service", or something like that, but that assumes they were in fact handed to the postman, but both labels somehow went missing.

So barring something magically turning up at at the other end, they're basically gone.

So... I've ordered more material, and as soon as I'm done cutting the rest of the steel collars (and one other part I'm currently tooled up for) I'll have to tool up to run a fresh batch.

No ETA, but it's likely going to be at least six to eight weeks. 🙄

Doc.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I bet they are still at the anodizer. Or with whoever was supposed to drop them off. They already shown how unorganized they are after all they misplaced 24 of them the first go around.

[DocsMachine]

I bet they are still at the anodizer. Or with whoever was supposed to drop them off. They already shown how unorganized they are after all they misplaced 24 of them the first go around.

-Entirely possible. It's also possible they somehow damaged them- too long in a bath and they got badly pitted, maybe- and are using the "lost in the mail" bit as a dodge.

And that's the other part that gets me- there were two packages, with separate tags. One was the bigger box I sent for rework, the other presumably the missing 24. Both disappeared. An honest mistake is possible, but one that affected both?

Either way, I have to act on the assumption they're gone-gone. I mean, they could show up tomorrow, or six months from now, or could never show up. It's stupid to wait any longer.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

I posted this over in the sales thread, but figured it should be here, too:

The anodizer found the missing parts. Just a paperwork snafu, really, but I had to complain in order to 'light the fire' as it were. They were very apologetic, and I have no reason to believe it was anything other than just a mix-up. I'm told they'll be in the mail Monday or Tuesday, so assuming something else doesn't go wrong, I should have these back in stock in a week or so.

Doc.

[Grendel]

Here is crossing my fingers you get your stuff, anodized they way you want. Might have to do a Sheridan build so I can use one

[DocsMachine]

Got a couple things I need to do with the oiling system in the Omniturn- one is to improve the pump and spray-manifold system, the other is to filter the oil to get rid of a heavy load of "fines", or tiny, almost dust-sized chips.

Not knowing where to start, I flipped a coin, used it to buy a Dew, and thus invigorated, decided to start on the pump and manifold.

I had an idea for a way to add more nozzles, as well as keep them a little more out of the way of the tools. (I hope.) I dig through the scrap bins and found a chunk of 1" aluminum bar, and squared it up;





Measured a bit, and poked and countersunk a pair of holes 'bout there and there...



An those will bolt it to a set of convenient mounting holes in the headstock 'bout like so:



This won't work very well if I ever end up using a chuck, but I'm not sure that'll ever happen. If I need to hold something larger than 1", I have some "pot chucks", basically oversized collets, that can hold up to 2" or maybe a little more.

Anyway, I then drilled a big hole all the way through the long way on the block...



And tapped it to 1/2" pipe at both ends.



Then along the edge, I figured I had room for five ports, so I spaced, drilled and tapped those to 1/4" NPT.



Finally, just for aesthetics and to reduce the sharp corners, I beveled the top edges slightly.



A bit of light sanding to smooth things up a but, blow all the chips out, and she's basically done.



And, test-fitted:



The original idea was to simply extend a short hose from the existing port above the headstock, down to the new block, but after some pondering, I decided I'll reroute the hose under the headstock. I may put a 45-degree 'street ell' to aim the hose more directly to the back part of the chassis, but it may not be strictly necessary.

The front edge will have five valves, each with a short Loc-Line coming off of it- they'll aim at the part from the 'front', whereas the tools come in from the 'top' and 'bottom'. That should keep the nozzles out of the way of the tools, though I'll need to be sure they're not so close they start catching "birds nests".

If five ports proves to be too many, I can always remove the line and just shut the valve- or even remove the valve and plug the port entirely.

Next up... either the pump or... the other pump. I haven't decided yet.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Strikin' oil, part 2:

Popped the back panel off the machine, and removed the rock-hard and well-stained vinyl tubing that originally connected the pump bulkhead fitting to the headpiece I'd made when first got this unit.



That got replaced with a new chunk of vinyl tubing, this time routed around underneath.



Turns out I didn't need the previously mentioned 45 degree elbow- I'd thought the tubing was going to need to go straight toward the back, under that gap seen to the right.



But, it was able to tuck up to the left, and loop around nicely. I left the hose a little long, since there may be modifications in the future.

With the rest of the ports populated, and short sections of Loc-Line installed, I gave it a test:



With the current pump, I couldn't use the larger outlet nozzles- as you can see with just the two lower ones, there's not a whole lot of pressure left. But, that's somewhat made up by the additional nozzles, which I can aim to match up with more tools, now.

A quick collet change, load the correct program, aim a few of the nozzles a bit (and remove one as not needed) and punch the go-button. Works great!



I may have to do some more fiddling around with lengths and nozzles and whatnot, and I'm toyin' with the idea of maybe making the top two into "fixed" nozzles. As in, short sections of copper tubing, that always spray on the main body of the part- since the vast majority of my pieces are all about the same size and length.

And, looking at the runoff oil, you can see the rivers of glitter in it. I really need to get a filter arrangement of some sort going.



That's next on the list...

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Continued apologies, ladies and gents, for more 'radio silence'. I have been working all three of my butts off and burning the candle at all seven ends. (And I can't wait to find out why that's an odd number... )

One issue that's been bothering me is the above "glitter" in the cutting oil. It's bad enough in the turret lathe, but it was concerning me in the CNC- and I have a ton of parts I still need to run through this thing. I'd like to minimize how much "dirty oil" is getting sprayed all over the machine.

As the oil in these machines is bloody expensive, I can't just toss it and swap it with fresh like one would in their car. None of the machines have an onboard filter system- few of any of the smaller machines do- so a common solution is a "Freddy" type sump vacuum.

That's a portable pump-and-tank unit that you can roll up to a machine, pump the sump dry(ish) which also filters the fluid as it's being sucked up, and the fines and gunk left in the sump can be scraped and wiped up. The pump is reversed and the fluid pumped back into the sump, now cleaner than it was before. (With the right filter, almost as clean as new.)

A commercial unit is not cheap, and are typically considerably larger than I need- my machines hold about ten gallons, most commercial units start at fifty.
So, since this is something I'll be needing for several machines, and possibly multiple times a year, I figured I'd build my own.

I started with an electric 'diesel fuel' pump off eBay...



And made a couple of custom flanged inlet and outlet fittings. A couple chunks of 3/8" steel, bandsawed to shape and gently massaged in the belt grinder...



Bored....



Fitted with a chunk of 3/4 pipe cut to length and TIGged in place...



And then faced back to flat and square in the lathe.



A couple of custom-cut paper gaskets, some good high quality RTV, and a quick trip to Homey-Dee since I didn't have any 8mm bolts in the shop.



That gave me a place to hang an eBay filter head, and two bidirectional ball valves from McMaster, each fitted with 3/4" hose nipples.



The pump doesn't reverse, so to be able to reverse the flow and pump back into the sump, we're using the plumbing equivalent of an H-bridge. And, better still, the oil is filtered in both directions. Yes, I know the filter is on the suction side rather than the pressure side, but I wanted to protect the pump impeller from the debris that'll be picked up.

To be continued!

Doc.

[Cal440]

Nice work Doc, building it to fit your needs always seems more rewarding!👍

[DocsMachine]

For the frame of this Sump Sucker, a lackey found me this lightly-used hand-truck carcass:



I surgically removed the axle mounts for later use, and cut the whole frame down by about ten inches.



After a little grinding and fettling, I welded the platen back on...



And after some adjustment, welded the axle mounts back on, to fit smaller cart type tires rather than the original pneumatics.



I then mocked up the tires and the 16-gallon steel drum I'll be using for a reservoir:



And, a few minutes manhandling a chunk of 1" x 8" strap iron, got me a 'cradle' to help hold said tank in place.



At the base, these two tabs clip to the bottom flange of the barrel, and secure it nicely:



And, with it all welded in place, and a spare ratchet strap, there's the chassis mocked up.



Again, more to come!

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Backing up slightly, mocking up the pump assembly 'bout thar with a hunk of I-beam (everyone has a spare hunk of I-beam, right?) gave me a rough idea of where it needed to be mounted to the frame.



A bit of generative CAD got me a workable shape for the pump mount/shelf thingie.



That pattern I transferred over to some 10-ga steel plate, unfortunately including a last-minute change that turned out to have been a bit stupid.



I then bent the first leg of that piece in the press brake...



And then, to add lightness and panache, I knifed a hunk off with the plasma cutter.



Why didn't I bandsaw it and then bend it? The short edge (at the left) would not have bent cleanly- it would have rolled in the press and given me a crooked bend. Don't ask me how I learned this, the hard way, many a moon ago.

Anyway, that cut face went for a ride through the belt grinder, with a couple different grits, 'til it looked reasonably smooth.



And finally, to cover up the stupid last-minute change I made, I bent the other 'leg', took one of the cut-off pieces, bent that in the press, cut it down, and carefully fitted it to the missing corner.



That got TIGged into place as well...



And ground smooth enough to hide my shame.



Then, to complete the subterfuge, I also plazzed off a big chunk of that face...



And ground it, too, smooth and to fit the hand-truck's odd dimensions.



Still more to come!

Doc.

[superman]

shaping up nicely.

[DocsMachine]

Somewhere about here, I picked up a hunk of 1/2" 304 stainless, and threaded it to 1/2"-13 on one end:



Then, since the axle bosses from the original truck were for a 5/8" shaft, I dug some scraps of black Delrin out of the scrap bin, and turned them into something closely resembling an axle bushing. If you squint a bit.



These got lightly pressed into place...



The axle slid through and marked....



And of course cut to length and similarly threaded.



I later installed a couple of Nylocks to make sure the nuts didn't go for a walk.

Still more!

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Getting back to the pump mount, with it tacked to the frame, I could eyeball a location and mark the bolt holes. I cut the tacks and took it to the drill press to punch said holes.



And, with the mount now fully welded to the frame, another quick mock-up.



Being reasonably satisfied- and having about nine hundred other things that I needed to be doing- I wire-brushed the frame a bit more, hung it up, hit it with some decent etch primer, and rattle-canned it with some "Dark Machine Grey".



After that had a chance to cure for a bit, I bolted down the tank and pump, adding an old friction strap from my goodies bin, suitably cut to length, for the tank retention, and started running the hoses.



Which brings us to about the last bit: I needed a pickup tube to go into the tank. For this, I started with a hunk of 1" brass from the scrap bin, and cut and drilled it to a rough dimension.



That got soldered to a couple feet of heavywall 1/2" brass tubing...



And that, in turn, got... er, turned down to a finished dimension.



In order to fit into another hose nipple, and also get soldered into place.



That, of course, gets screwed into the smaller bung of the barrel lid, and connected with another length of vinyl hose.



The rest of the hose gets hooked to the sump-suckin' end, the power cord zip-tied as a bit of strain relief, and there she is, ladies and gentlemen!



The One and Only Super-Swampy Sick-Sump-Special Slime-Sucker Series Sixteen!

But we're not done yet!

Doc.

[Cal440]

That came out real nice Doc!👍

[DocsMachine]

Now, does it work?

To start, I filled the filter with clean oil from a fresh can, to help "prime" the pump- it's a positive displacement vane pump, but still better to have some oil in there right away.



And, you can see how much 'glitter' is in the oil- and this is after it's been left to settle for a week or more.



I couldn't easily hold the camera and operate the pump, having foolishly been born with just the two arms, but it sucked up the sump nicely, leaving a thin scum at the bottom that was probably half oil and three-quarters metal.



I was able to pump the oil out of the sump, and then mostly back into the sump, before the flow fell off noticeably- the filter had rapidly clogged. I swapped it out with a fresh one, emptied the sump again, and this time fully scraping it out and wiping it down.



But, as you can see, even after filtering it twice- through two filters- there's still a lot of fines in there.



Here's the final result:



It IS, believe it or not, cleaner than it was- and noticeably. It's easier to see in person- those white spots and some of the "swirl" you see are air bubbles, but there's clearly still a quantity of extremely fine debris in there.

The filters I used are listed as 10 micron, about 0.0004", or half a thousandth of an inch. Those particles are apparently smaller than that.

I can get some filters that should fit this unit, listed as 3 micron- two thirds smaller. I may pick up a couple of those and give them a try. I can see a cleaning cycle eating two filters each time, a 10 micron and a 3 micron, but that's over $500 in cutting oil in there, and $50 in filters to get another couple years of use out of it is a small price to pay. (This oil has been in the machine since late '21, so it took some two and a half years to get this bad.)

BUT... it also shows me I'm going to need to eventually invest in a proper high-flow filter system mounted to the machine itself. So that the oil is constantly filtered while it's in use. Such things are readily and commonly available, but not exactly cheap. A small setup I figure is going to run me over a thousand bucks, and involve a new pump in the turning center itself.

Long story short, this machine works, and pretty well. It's not perfect- I admit I was hoping for better results- but it DID clean the oil noticeably, and made it easy to clean the sump out, so it was definitely worth the time.

Doc.