Chop Chop!!

Alright enough testing lets see some chips fly. From your vid it looks like you are on your way. Great job on the conversion.

Kobus, Hennie says he wants you to turn that into a chopstick.

Kobus,

I recently learned that turners will cut the corners off before they start to help round off the piece. It is a faster process done on a table saw and helps reduce machine time.

The rounding Gadget in V-Carve Pro from Aspire takes a square piece of wood and quickly make it round...I like watching BBB working.;)

Here is a short video showing that with Vectric V-Carve - Pro it is really easy to do spirals and fluting...Even I managed to do it first time around.

The lathe is not fixed to the ground yet and also not levelled, but I could not wait to try it..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmlx6Y8w0c8

Breg Gat ! ek hou daarvan:D

Kobus, you make the whole subject of "indexers" look so darn easy! :D

KISS ;) I am too stupid to re-invent the wheel.

I am not hugging and kissing, just keeping it simple

Nicely done Kobus! I definitely want an indexer! :)

really nice, I want one to..

Made this for fun, just to see how it's looks in blue :)

I think you find the next 'Gear' Kobus. Impressive.

Nice Mike I like the drawing. At the moment mine is bolted to the floor.

I have the following idea... Make a new shaft for that old lathe. This one a little longer than the original....16 mm up to the end.
Fit the old 3 way pulley on the shaft and connect the electric motor again.

Put my 120 tooth Module 1 gear at the end of this shaft after the pulley.

When I make spirals etc, use the stepper to drive the machine.
When I finish the piece (sanding or small steps that I did not get right with the CNC setup) run the electric motor. This will give me the SPEED to sand and polish the piece.

Also thinking of buying a 100mm taper lock pulley that will fit on the end and bolt my module 1 ...120 tooth gear onto this pulley. This will save some money as the engineering shops are mad with the price to cut a taper into my module 1 ...120 tooth gear.

Kobus, have a look for "weld-on" taperlock hubs. That type works with a key in the shaft.

Thank's Gerald. What is the best type ofsteel to get for a shaft....must be about 25mm then I will turn it off to 16mm on that side. Will mild steel bar work ?

Mild steel will work. Normally I would suggest you get EN8 which is slightly more expensive. But, nobody will sell you such a small bit and certify the grade - you will have to go scrounging and find a piece of unmarked steel in a scrap bin. So you aren't going to really know if it is EN3, 6, 8 or 24. Doesn't matter, you have a big diameter now.

Kobus, there is a company in Sebenza on the corner of Ingwe and Grader Rd that sells short pieces of EN grade steel. In Wadeville between Rossouw and Nagington there is a company that sells ground bar, which will be much less troublesome than mild steel.

Why do I do it...Because I now CAN
 

Thank's Jan...Wadeville is close to my work.

I wanted to do this for a long long time. Now I did it. After bolting the lathe to the floor and setting up things to be level, I made my little piece. It is 3 flutes 150mm long.

Attachment 8202


I see I have a brand new heading...about time

kobus very nice, see that is what indexer do . :)
I was thinking about when you bolt the indexer to the floor it is not flexing with the Mechmate, is this a problem.

Kobus,
Very nice, did you laminate the wood to get the interior hollow? I like it. :)

Hi Mike, I now find out that my table is not that solid. After using it for so long cutting X and Y, I did notice the table shake somewhat, but did not worry about it. Now with the indexer on the ground I can see the oscillations. As a temp. fix I wedged a piece of wood from the side to the wall. This weekend I plan to make some struts from the sides and bolt those to the floor. It was not causing problems, but I did not like the SHIVERS that old BBB showed....was worried he is getting old like me..:)

Heath, that is one solid piece of oak. I use a 6.35mm straight cutter and went in deeper and deeper. Set up V-carve pro to cut in 1.5mm steps up to 16.5mm. Then 0.8 mm deep cuts until I saw it cutting through....broke the first one when I tried to cut too deep too quickly. The twists are not that strong. At the end took a 12mm ballnose cutting a 3mm to finish the groove.

Reminds me of the Legacy Wood Working Tool Demo! Looks great. If I remember correctly if you are able to move the tailstock up or down you can make tapered ornaments. I should go and check out their website before I start passing on bad info.

Very nice Kobus!
You make things complicated for me. There are a thousand more ideas from the wife side after she looked at your post.:)

Kobus I see it is another thing that you can cross of your bucket list.Baie mooi:)

Ground Bar Industries
42 Stanhope Road, Malvern East, Johannesburg
Telephone: (011) 607-2000

Baaie baaie mooi Oom :)

The way Kobus is playing with his MM it won`t be long then he is going on retire right in front of BBB.

Kobus, now you become my model... Please, please make a video with this job !
I didn't forget what I promise but Gmail don't allow sending exe files.
I'll find a way to send you those files.
Marius

Ok Marius, will do sometime.
Tonight decided to try the OTHER available gadgets in the V-Carve Pro program.

Firstly...HI-TECH way of setting the Indexer on Zero... you must have noticed that extra wiring to proxies and limit switches and stop blocks are out for me.

Attachment 8212

Then did a 4 flute where I ramp in and out at the ends.

Attachment 8213

Then a single spiral LEFT and then a single spiral RIGHT

Attachment 8214

And finally. The words MECHMATE, KOBUS and ERWA on a cylinder.

MAGIC........

Attachment 8215

gixi just rename the file to .txt after the file name and kobus only have to rename it to .exe when he receive the file. easy :)

Kobus, enough already, that just looks like too much fun! :)

Trust me Heath it is. I am so glad I went with the Vectric software. Remember in the beginning I was downloading all the available CAM programs, but just could not start making things. When I tried Vectric Cut - 2D I did something in 5 minutes. Upgrading to V-Carve pro was another good move and with the latest release ..FOR FREE... I am very happy with the product. These things are so easy to make with this, even I can do it.:D

Now where is that Aspire package ? ;)

Kobus,
With Aspire, you can wrap 3D around it.

I need to get an indexer built.

The way I see it is that it won`t be long before Kobus upgrades to Aspire.It seems that he has some sort of sickness, he just can`t stop playing with BBB and the best of it all is that there is no medication for that.:D

Hi Kobus, Nice job, i've made an indexer too but i haven't found an issue to make it work properly, my problem il to correctly set the Z zero on the job, i've got aspire 2.5, indexer wizard and CNC Wrapper, just a question for you, how did you set the Z zero on the job with mach 3 ?

Hi Mickey,

In V-Carve / Aspire I use the Z- 0 on top op the wood. When setting up Mach, I manually jog my cutter to the startpoint. Bring the cutter to touch the wood and REF All in Mach. I don't know or want to rely on offsets etc when the machine is in IT's home position. All my work I bring my cutter manually to my 0,0,0 point. Start the router and make a small mark at the point so that if I have to restore after a power failure etc I can see where to zero it again.

No hard and fast rules about this but there are distinct advantages to setting your Z zero at the centre of the rotary axis rotation.

First and foremost it remains constant and never changes. No matter what material has been cut away, power loss or interruption etc.

Find a spot on your headstock or some other fixed point and set Z to this point. The point will allways be a known offset from centre of rotation. Unchanging. This offset can be programed into Mach.

At tool change or any other reason you need to reset Z zero just go to this point and set Z.

No need to find some point on the job you last zeroed to, Have I cut it away? Where was it? OH Sh#*t it is not there any more, now what do I do?

Second reason is that you do not have to enter the new Z zero offset into "Rotation Radius" DRO each time for the rotary axis feedrate compensation to work.

The value of the Z axis DRO is correct value of the working radius, which is what Mach uses for the compensation value.

Third reason is the same but different. The toolpath view will show to the correct scale without changing the "Rotation Radius" DRO value.

Greg

Hi Greg, dis sounds complicated to me. If you can do a DUMMY's guide on ....This offset can be programed into Mach.... for me...step by step ...I will try it. Never used offsets before, but always willing to follow clear instruction. I am bad with manuals..Monkey see monkey do work best for me. :)

Thank you Mike. Good tip :cool:.

Not really an offset in the Mach sense. Just a way to set Z zero. And not complicated.

You need a point on your rotary axis that never changes and is always accessible. I usually suggest some point on the headstock.

This where you zero your Z axis. It is always the same no matter what material is in the rotary. And it is a known distance above the centre of rotation.

You enter that known distance ( say 75mm) in the "Gage Block Height" See pic. You only do this once. Mach will remember it.

So you are setting up a job or half way though a job and need to change tool and reset Z zero. You jog over the headstock and find your height. Then just press the "Set Z" button and Z axis will be set to the centre of rotation.

Greg

Hi there, thank's Greg and Kobbus, i've tried Offset in Mach one year ago but not with indexer, i try, but at this time i've got 180 wood Awards to finish for this week, after i try Mach Offset with my indexer, I think if Gerald is Ok we can open a Thread with Indexing feature on the MM, I've got some picture's too on my indexer.

I've found a Website But i don't if anyone of you got it, i post it :

http://www.222artisans.com/Rotary/RotaryTutorial.HTML

I search Now for 3D indexing, really 4 axis cheap software or tutorial, i think that can interest other Indexer User.

Michel