Need a tool, Make a tool

You can heat that parting tool red and quench it to restore the temper even after sharpening. Don't be afraid to heat treat it.

If you try the mystery steel (which I would) at least use a torque wrench to break it so you know how strong it is.

You might look into buying a bar of Stressproof. Pretty good stuff and machinable. Not really expensive for one piece. old technology which never works today, right?

 

Miracle metal! Interesting, learned something new.

https://www.tellsteel.com/AlloyStressProof.html

 

I don't know if I'd trust a company that can't even spell Niagara correctly on their website

 

lol

 

The metal looks like a 4645

Edit. I did a quick look up on it, it looks just like a hardened cold rolled steel. I thought it had a little bit a nickel in it. I’ll just stick with 4140.

http://www.niagaralasalle.com/product-stressproof.html

 

I did an aluminum welding job on some 1/2" plate for my neighbor today.... While dropping it off, I asked him about 4140. He whips out a piece with a big hole already through it that was a throw away! This piece was made for this job. I chucked it up, bored it to size, faced an end and tried parting. I sharpened my HHS tool, grabbed the oil and went to town. Nice and slow, great curly chips and was making great progress! Ka CHUNK! The adjuster was working against me and lowered my tool and I didn't see it. Here is the carnage. File this one in the shit happens and lesson learned category. Hope I can save the holder. On another note, my neighbor has a brand new 'C' tool post that he tried to give me. I told him thanks, but I didn't want to pony up the bucks for the larger tooling to use with that thing. One thing about west Texans, they are very generous. I love that about living here.



Perfect little curly chips!


You guys were dead right! This stuff machines B E A U T I F U L! The colors are incredible to watch! I swear it machined easier
than that mystery bar I had. BUT it drills like a MOTHERF^&%#$R. I'm going to have to invest in better twist drills as my
HF cheapys put up quite a fight. I do want to experiment a little with my Drill Doctor. I might have the angle wrong for this hard stuff.




I thought this was a decent opportunity to see if she is turning taper. Over 6 inches, I'm losing .005, so I have some work there
to putz with some time. For this tool, it's buttkiss.





I thought maybe taking a bigger cut the chips might break better. Uh NOPE! This rats nest took a few minutes to remove.


Pretty happy with this finish. And I didn't even put any sand paper to it. Good enough for me! I'm not even going to think of
parting that chunk on the left off. I can zip that off in a couple minutes with my cheap and cheerful chinese tooling. I love those
little cheap carbides.

 

(Sniffle) I'm so proud..... seriously though that's fantastic!. Watch out for the stringy swarf: treat it as a mix of whirling barbed wire and razor blades. Imagine if a loop of that caught a couple of fingers and whipped through.

 

It's all you guys! It'd take me a few years to get this far on my own. My buddy told me our local steel yard sells this stuff. It's where he gets it and says it's normalized and I don't have to harden it.
What's the skinny then? Any guess about it's hardness? I've noticed trying to buy annealed 4140 is about next to impossible from what I've found. Everything says normalized I find.

 

Also use some sulphurized cutting oil on your drills and run them relatively slow and withdraw often to clear the swarf (just unlock the tailstock and slide it away from the headstock, then bring back): the hole will look smooth, almost reamed. I think normalized 4140 is roughly twice as strong as mild steel...from memory.


1" round normalized 1020 mild steel bar tensile: 64 000 PSI
1" round normalized 4140 bar tensile: 148 000 PSI

 

sulphurized cutting.......... hmm... So I guess my chainsaw bar lube was not the stuff to use eh'? lol

I am keeping my ways wiped down and I'm using 10w-40 motor oil on them. When I got the machine, it stunk to high hell of hydraulic oil. I think they were using that.
I'm not really a fan of sticky way lube. Is this an okay method for the ways? I'm a bit anal about seeing chips on the ways, I'd like to keep her in good shape. DId ya notice my chip shield?
That's that piece of shit hardboard I mounted on a bracket to the saddle. Makes it easy to sweep the crap straight to the back instead of watching the trough fill with trash.

I've got a case of 32 hydrualic oil for the gearboxes, but I think even that's not right. I thought the head stock gets something in the 60's. I'll have to pull the book.

I avoid that flying swarf by a country mile! I can easily see how that crap could pull you into the meat chopper.

 

If your way wipers are in good condition then you should be fine. Chain bar oil has a tackifier additive that keeps it in place and is ideal for lathe ways and can be thinned a bit with hydraulic oil. Hydraulic oil is for the headstock gears, my two lathes use ISO27 and ISO32 hydraulic oil and ISO46 is common too. Sulphur is an extreme pressure lubricant, so dark sulphurized cutting oil is perfect for machining steels, especially stainless but can stain copper alloys black.

 

Holy crap Jason. It seems like you’ve learned more in one week then most hobbyist would learn in a year.

Way lube and hydraulic fluid 32 are damn close.

 

Thanks Matt... But I'm using motor oil on the ways. I can't stand the smell of hydro fluid. Does way lube stink? I haven't bought any vactra yet.

 

The smell depends on the oil's particular chemistry and how it was processed: I have some Nulon ISO46 hydro-cracked, solvent refined hydraulic oil which is as clear as water and has very little smell. Is aircraft hydraulic oil a synthetic oil?. The oil out of my car's diff is a green colour and smell's toxic by comparison. As for way oil smell, sneak into your hardware store and crack open a bottle of chainsaw bar lube and smell it, then pick the nicest stuff. Tip in a bottle of Jib gun oil that smells like bubblegum.

 

RED aircraft hydro fluid comes in two flavors. Dino oil and synthetic. 5606 is dino and 83282 is the new synthetic. It has very little smell and can be mostly interchanged. Flash point I think is different too. Vapors of 5606 was really flammable. Diff oil is N A S T Y! Only thing worse is when the stuff is 40years old. I don't know off hand what the iso is... The stuff is pretty watery that's for sure. I could go for some bubblegum smelling oil! My AC unit on the house lives in a closet in the garage. While no HVAC system is completely air tight, I worked hard recently to make this one as tight as possible. When the lathe first came home and I still had the old AC on the house, we couldn't escape that smell. EVERYWHERE in the entire house reeked of that stuff.

 

That sounds different to my experience of Castrol Hyspin AWS32 and AWS46 hydraulic oil, Nulon ISO46 and my Valvoline Ultramax ISO32 has a bit of an oil smell when I took a sniff from the 20 litre drum just now. The SAE80W-90 gear oil smells but not nearly as bad as the bright green oil from my ute's diff.

 

Hey Mark, When I got the bridgeport, I got a crap load of end mills. Is there an easy way to tell what might be carbide over the HSS ones?

 

Sure thing: carbide is a grey colour usually brazed onto a steel shank and high speed steel is silver in colour. Carbide is noticeably heavier too and is only weakly magnetic due to the cobalt binder.


Tungsten carbide:


High speed steel:

 

Thanks. I'll have to look through my pile tomorrow.

 

I've been following this thread with interest. I'm learning a lot from Matt and Mark and others and evidently you are too!
I rarely give unsolicited advice but here it is. Throw out those cheap friggin drill bits and never buy another one ever again. You are stepping into the ring with both hands tied behind your back. Furthermore your drill Doctor is great for touching up but if you smoke a bit, replace it. Try cheap stuff in other areas, but your drill bits are a foundational tool. You don't drink Budweiser do you? (I know I'm hitting below the belt. Lol!)

Pete