Makin' 'Cocker barrels like they did in the Fifties!

[DocsMachine]

Im curious about your cutting fluid pump assembly, that thing laid some oil. You gut a parts washer or something?

-Nope, that's factory. It's a Warner & Swasey No.2 Turret Lathe, a heavy-duty, designed-for-the-purpose production machine. It has a coolant sump and pump built in. I have it set up with cutting oil rather than water-based coolant, to reduce the possibility of rust or staining.

Thing is, that's only "just cracked open"- if I opened the nozzle full bore, it's a friggin' fire hose. It's 3/4" bore pipe all the way from the sump. W&S didn't mess around when they made this thing.

Doc.

[Siress]

Huh... I feel like a donkey for having suggested you start a youtube channel recently. Glad to be aware of it now. Subbed.

How repeatable is this approach across a production run?
Does this burnish the surface as well? That'd be cool.
Do you custom grind the desired profile into a cutting tool that cuts the skiving knife features?
How do you sharpen the skiving knife?

[MrBarraclough]

Silly question, probably, but something that's been itching my curiosity: What usually becomes of swarf? Does it get swept up and landfilled (just tossed in the trash)? Do you collect it in bins or something and eventually take it to a scrapyard?

[DocsMachine]

might as well go big on the ask, how about a vid series showing the birth of a fastback cocker body, start to finish? Then once the Video is done , you sell it to one of us here?

-Wish I could, but those bodies were all machined by an outside shop. I was basically just the retailer. I don't even have one.

[/How repeatable is this approach across a production run?

-Very. The only issue I'll have is how durable the fine cutting edge is. That's O1 tool steel, but as this was more a proof-of-concept build than anything, it's kind of indifferently hardened. I have a better design in mind, that I'll try once this run's done, that I think will be more versatile, and will use a better knife.

However, in this case, I'm just making a batch of 48, just to get some damn product back in my stores- even this knife should easily last through that.

Does this burnish the surface as well?

-It does, I believe. The top of the knife is dead flat to the travel of the cut, so there's some natural burnishing to the part, helped of course by the flood oil. The surface finish is surprisingly smooth and even.

Do you custom grind the desired profile into a cutting tool that cuts the skiving knife features?

-Actually, I milled it, then heat-treated the finished part. I did touch it up lightly afterward with a surface grinder, but in this case, the profile was easy- really just the groove to produce the boss for the threads. Th only other part of the trick was shimming it up to get the dimensions right.

[quote]How do you sharpen the skiving knife?[quote]

-Just grind the front face.That preserves the top profile. And the way this particular knife is designed, I could grind that front face back close to a quarter of an inch, so there's lots of life left in it.

What usually becomes of swarf? Does it get swept up and landfilled (just tossed in the trash)? Do you collect it in bins or something and eventually take it to a scrapyard?

-Me, personally? A little of both. If I can keep the chips clean (meaning they're not mixed with steel chips, or dirt/sand, etc.) I do, in fact, bag it and take it over to the local scrapyard. I don't get much for it- I think I have about a two and a half bucks in 'credit' there right now - but I'd rather see it there than in the landfill.

But, there's times when I do wind up with mixed metals (there's steel, Delrin aluminum and titanium in the small lathes chip tray right now ) and of course there's chips swept up off the floor which inevitably get dirt and whatnot mixed in. That stuff I do just sweep up and throw in the trash.

I'm a little tiny garage shop- I barely make any swarf at all. Most big shops will have dumpsters out back to keep their chips in 'til either they take em to the recycler or the recycler comes and gets 'em. I know some shops (in the States) that produce 20K pounds of swarf per month. Even at ten cents a pound, that adds up to some real money.

Doc.

[Meleager7]

Darn, I had the story backwards, I thought you machined the bodies, and technical troubleshooting sold them!

I now officially request a vid series on the Twin-V cocker!

[MrBarraclough]

Thanks for answering about the swarf. Every time I watch a video of something getting CNC machined I wonder about all that material which surely must add up to a significant amount.

I take it that steel chips must not be worth recycling, since presumably if they were machinists would magnetically separate them from the aluminum.

[CrowsFeast]

Steel chips are worth recycling, but the volume where it is worth recycling them it's no longer really viable to separate magnetically.