To those complaining about Stefan's pronunciation of "surface" - give him a break; English isn't his first language. But if it bothers you, turn it into a drinking game - every time you hear "sir face," take a drink. I find it part of his branding/personality at this point. Reminds me I'm watching one of Stefan's videos, as opposed to Tony, Adam, Keith, Jody, Tom, etc...
AlexLTDLX I’m personally very grateful that Stefan posts videos in English. I speak conversational Spanish as a second language, but I would be a total disaster trying to communicate technical content in anything other than my native English.
Yea...I always am amazed when someone from America who only speaks English complains about any foreigner's English pronunciation. It's their second language for God's sake. I'd love to hear those who complain about anyone speaking English as their second language....speaking German fluently. I'm guessing they will mispronounce a few words also.
Yeah I think his English better than majority of the public in the Appalachia. I have a hard time understanding some of them and and I have a pretty good ear for it. Have to do a lot of foreign ATC "deciphering". I now have an american accent speaking my native russian, but, I used to cause a lot of laughter for my miss-pronounced english.
AlexLTDLX That seemed like a great idea, so I tried it. I had to watch it 5 times before I got to the end, and that was only because on the fifth time I substituted coffee for beer.
I love Stefan's English.... Some of his pronunciation makes me smile and I'd never consider complaining about something that makes me smile. Sein Englisch ist besser dan meine Deutsch. Well, it all depends actually... does he say Al-you-min-E-um or Al-oo-min-um?! ;)
Morning Stefan - thanks for keeping home shop users in mind. For lots of us this is a non-paying hobby. I enjoy you taking less-expensive commercial products and teaching us how to make them much better. Always a lot of creativity on your channel. _Dan_
Well said Stefan. Because of the Chinese import machinery, home workshops can now be equipped in a way that was just not possible a couple of decades ago, because of cost and availability. I find with Chinese engineering tools they are basically sound, its details like cleanliness and sloppy final assembly/finishing that usually need tweaking but for the money, they're amazing value.
I love your precision work and you help show me i can do better even with the machine and tools I have to work with . I'm currently building me a lathe and needed this focus to keep me on track ! Awesome job !!
I'm glad there's people like yourself that take the time to make these Video's for us beginner's. Thanks for being an inspiration and keep up the awesome work.
I laughed a bit when you said consider them as kits, as that is exactly what I tell anyone asking about the machines I have and how good/bad they are. To me it was just half the fun and I also ended up learning a lot from it all.
Glad to see you gave it a thumbs up Stefan. As you know I just got me a 160mm 6-jaw from Zentra, purchased from San-Tools as well. Although not cheap, the Bison is about twice the price. I was in serious doubt, as I had no experience with Zentra, but have now evaluated it to be a pretty good chuck, now confirmed
You made me buy that chuck ;) And seriously, I am very happy with it - I turned a large diameter delrin part today and was clamping only on about 5mm length, on a diameter of 118mm. And it didnt feel insecure at all! Even when roughing with the full with of the insert :D The fine adjust works perfectly, and yeah, look and feel are good.
I think this is an important video Stefan. Many of us have Chinese machines for all the reasons you mention, and there's no reason we shouldn't make them as good as they can be. Demonstrating how to accurize one of these is not shown in any other video as far as I know (believe me I've looked :). I really enjoyed watching you work on this one and especially your thought process as you work your way through the surfaces :) Looking forward to the next part! :)
Stephan, You nailed it. My German Knuth machines are all chinese made. As long as it's accurate and affordable I don't really care where it comes from.
Glad to see the shaper can be used to true the sliding surfaces. I suppose you could use the shaper as a roughing cut before scraping the last thousandth if you desired a scraped surface and accuracy. Especially useful for large areas I would say.
Ignorant one here. I recently got offered a boyar and Schultz surface grinder for the cost of "get it out of my shop and you can have it." When you're grinding parts flat , how are you creating the first surface to mate off of? Wouldn't it just mirror the imperfections on the opposite side? You briefly talk about it @6:09. If you have some suggested reading material on the topic I'd be eager for it! Thanks for the content!
With grinding the first side, youre creating the reference youre working off for all other surfaces - It basicaly needs just to be flat. All other relationsships (squareness/dimensions) will be derived off it. For workholding on the first side, you can just slap it on the magnet, hold it in a vise or against a angle plate. Or even glue it to the magnet :D
Stefan, have you thought about dressing an angle on the grinding wheel to resurface the inside of the dovetail. No need to put it on a sine vice at that point. You could also resurface the bottom surface at the same time. Thanks for the video!
Still cant reach into a female dovetail without tilting the work or wheelhead. On the male dovetail youre right, you can just stand it on the side and grind it with a dressed wheel.
AS if it isn't enough with silly SAFETY SALLY’s intruding, now have to put up with the GRAMMAR POLICE. Videos informative with light hearted humour, and enjoyable.
Maybe that half the top was scraped because it hit the bottom of the cross slide rather than they did it because they didn't know what they were doing.
bcbloc02 - The gib in the compound of my late '80's ENCO was only rough milled, not ground or scraped. The fit between the tailstock top and bottom looked to done with a side grinder. Trying to do the best I can with what I have for the Refurb.
That is exactly right. The Chinese machines are kits that if you apply yourself. It can be a great machine.i sold my 7x14 mini lathe for a decent amount and bought a central machinery 9x20.
Stephan, am I noticing that the shaper head/cutter is moving forward faster than on the return stroke? No bother unless you do big cuts and time becomes a factor. I do not expect the difference in cutter speed fore and aft will show up anywhere since chip color seems to be the criterion of cutter speed. I hesitate to mention this at all since I do not want you waking up at night dreaming of your shaper. OTOH, better you than me, ROFL about human foibles. Always grateful for your shared wisdom!
It is amazing. You can transfer every lack of precision from machines in Germany onto an casting and end up with stuff more precise, than china made precision tools
The alternative to chinese, is of course patience and the second hand market. I just find no joy in using chinese machines, or working on them either. It has taken me 5 years but I have a workshop of older quality machines now. I have a Deckel FP2 machine, cost as much as a new chinese mill. I have a swedish lathe, three kemppi welding machines. It is a lot of work. The deckel took 16 months of renovation and even repair before it was usable, the lathe took a few weeks of disassembly and cleanup before I started using it and I have had it for years now, but I will still need to make a new cross slide nut and screw for it, and some day I will likely have to scrape the ways and I still need to rescrape some parts of the mill (just for bearing). But that's all part of the experience and boy did I ever learn A LOT from doing the renovation work. But if I ever sell them on, they won't have lost their monetary value. I have gotten far on a very strict budget. Still I do have some chinese machines, a drill press and a plasma cutter (stahlwerk).
Sadly not everybody has the ability or time to go to auctions etc. I still hate to think about the FP-1 copy from Yugoslavia I did not jump on 15 years ago. Also at least here in the states as more people become involved in home machining (I think the "maker" movement has a lot to do with this) the price of good used equipment has gone out of sight. Especially anything that you can get into a basement. I still see CV lapped out Bridgeports for around 1500 US but a clapped out Bridgeport is not pleasant to run.
Hi Stefan, I see someone thinks your shaper is running backwards; me too. The power stroke should be the slower, return the faster. Your big drive wheel is running backwards.
I am a little lost as it seems I only see one center gib adjustment set screw. if you tighten the gib in the center would it not rock at both ends? If the dovetail gap from one end to the other is different and you make a tapered gib would it not bind as you mover the slide to the extreme other end? My mind must be fooling me or something.
My little optimum BF16 has a bowed tapered gib on the y axis, it works but i know it could be better. Ive had trouble finding taper gib stock in Australia, im sure someone sells it, the machine distributor couldnt help👍👌🇦🇺
Perhaps the partially scraped nonworking surface was done for a decorative purpose. The unscraped portion was certainly ugly enough. I guess you could accomplish a suitable finish by flycutting instead.
dear stefan, i felt very depressed by this video., because i have all the same problems with yours but i dont have a grinder... it gives me horror when not only machining hard materials but also parting off on any metals... i am very sad but good for you...
instead of shaper, what about using dovetail cutter on mill? i am thinking to do so on my slide but not sure about precision.. ofcourse it would be very depended to mill precision at surfaces
Stefan, I have almost zero experience with shapers, but is there a possibility that yours is running backwards? The backstroke seems to be slower than the cut stroke.
Yes! Because mine is most of the time setup to cut on the backstroke :) I explained it here: gtwr.de/ressources/res_gack_rueckwaertshobelkopf/index.html
Although I do the some advantages to the multi fix toolpost It is rather on the large size The wedge shape of the Tripan is not by chance Its been designed to give maximum clearance My Tripan has gotten me unstuck on quite a few occasions because of its ability to get close
At 7:21, you are using the worn bearing surface (the swivel rest of the compound bottom) as a reference to grind the non bearing surface bridge dovetail (which normally represents the factory plane, although in this case a portion of it has been ruined by scraping). You are then using this newly created plane as a reference for machining the wear out of the swivel rest, effectively losing the factory plane and creating your own new plane. This doesn't make sense to me. Unless I am missing something, shouldn't the process be reversed here? Use the factory planed non bearing surface as the reference for the worn bearing surface of the swivel rest?
Did you consider making a new gib? I think you could even have glued a new gib in place then machined on the shaper. They are awkward to hold (I have made a couple) but only have one critical dimension ( I made mine _much_ too long to get lots of goes at getting the fit right.) One was made from a custom casting, but the other I machined from a length of "Durabar" continuously cast iron.
I made a new gib for a Schaublin 102 Compound recently. Machined it completely out of durabar. I roughed out a parallel section large enough for the gib, milled the 30° bevel top/bottom and then cut the long taper using the magnetic chuck on the adjustable angle plate. By fine tweaking of the angle plate I can get the fit of the gib very, very close, directly off the mill.
You can really tell it is a CHINESIUM lathe part. A real hack job was done on the whatever you called it but I would say scraping was not it. Some sort of chiseling would be a better term for sure. I am grateful for living in the US of A as lathes and milling machines here are plentiful and relatively cheap. A precision machine can be had for a few thousand. Something a hobbyist can afford if he chooses precision or just goes with normal which is roughly a thousand. I really like your shaper. What make and type is the machine Stefan ?? Look forward to hear from you Sir. Good day too. P.S. Have yourself a Happy New Year too.
I'm wondering why the shaper is the next best machine for straightening dovetails? Is it because it's a good quality machine and a mill is an import? I'm currently in a process of buying a shaper, which also involved a lot of research, and if you believe people on many forums shapers are obsolete.
If you've seen some of the shops where these units come from you would walk out.On those low end machines there scrapping is done for show, it's to hide the milling cutter marks etc ,nothing more.
What do you think about putting turcite or rulon on the sliding side of a gib? I guess with the friction lock it would not be ideal in your situation, but curious what you think.
Strange, I'm having the exact same compound slide and the gib is off 0.3mm just like the one in your video. I'm trying to get my head around how I can improve it with my limited skills.
Oh dear, i bought an import 9 x 20 lathe to supplement my colchester, i knew that would need some work but i wasn't prepared for just how much work, nothing fitted correctly nothing lined up. without my other lathe and mill it would have been a £1200 boat anchor. months of off and on work machining and scraping and it is now what it should have been when made. my Colchester although as old as i am is still a far more accurate lathe
As said, they are a kit. Also if an equivilant lathe built to the same quality standard was manufactured in the US, UK or the EU it would easily be 6 to 10 times too much. Even if the importers in the West were bringing in lathes of significantly better quality it would come with a stiff price increase. If Warco in the UK, Grizzly or Precision Matthew's in the US or any of the other importers* decided they wanted more features and better quality the price would go up. In reality the prices of a small lathe or milling machine are cheap in terms of their potential life vs some other non essential things people may have for their own pleasure. Sadly the price of used equipment here in the States has skyrocketed. A small Clausing 8520 or 8530 mill is pushing 3,500 bucks now. I fail to see why when one can get more capacity in an RF-45 or othe slightly smaller mills. *not all importers have the same quality standards they want the product built to.
I remember the 1970's we Americans were lamenting the loss of our precision machining to country's of Europe. Now the European Union has felt the sting from the Chinese Economic engine, I suppose WCAGA is the operative principal here.
ok im pretty new to this machining hobby thing, and im a little confused here, he says .02 mil but that would be like .00005 inch, thats tiny, is there something im missing here? because half a ten tho is within any part ive ever seen
"Chinese machines are great for what they are", I 100% agree, they are great hobby project parts kits, that with some skill and a lot of effort, can be turned into an actually usable instrument! :)) Also that scraping is there to hide the mill marks, what seems to be the case is that they didn't want to invest the time to surface grind the sliding surfaces, so they simply scraped them to hide the mill finish and provide somewhat smooth surface - it has nothing to do with precision, it is done simply to create an illusion of what should have been done. No amount lubrication makes those compounds feel like they glide on an oil film, not to mention the gib adjustment, where it can be tight in one spot, then you move 15mm and it suddenly gets loose. here are couple horror pictures of what I had to deal with - imgur.com/a/xA7Mi , used an angle grinder to get the geometry roughly where it should be (they were too far off to take that amount of material off with a hand scraper, that cross slide was rocking nearly 0.2mm, there was that much twist in it), then hand scraped to get them somewhat even, unfortunately I didn't take the pics of the "after"
I would be really surprised if the scraping is from the factory. I have one of the Chinese lathes and the compound is by far the worst part of the machine. Like you say some spots it is tight and others is loose.
they seem to be from the factory like that, so far I've had to deal with 2, a 250/550, and 280/750, both where from different vendors/factories, but the finish on the sliding portions was pretty much the same, and then there was the mill, it was one of the larger ones of the type Stefan has now, it is the "50" model, iso40 spindle, geared head, power feed on X, weight around 600kg, with a base, bought it straight from the factory, together with shipping just under 2k euros, and for that price you get extras like rocking axes, gears in gearboxes that will cut your hands, couple kilos of casting sand that wasn't cleaned off, etc, took around a week to get it in shape, couple annoying things left to fix, like spindle magazine that has too much play in the head, rocking if the brake is not tightened (will fix that with hard chrome buildup on the OD of the magazine, grinding, lapping etc to get the fit just right), the brake itself is sticky, which makes using boring heads very tricky, but for that price you simply cannot get anything with 40 taper that will fit in a small one room shop, the added bonus is that you learn how the machine is made, you'll know the weaknesses, and will notice things going wrong with it before they turn into an expensive disaster, plus all the bearings and spares are standard off the shelf sizes, which can be replaced easily.
jz1199 - I am currently working on the tailstock of a late '80s Taiwanese ENCO 1340. Looks like it was scraped in with a side grinder. Started to remove the paint, so I could repaint, and removed a good 1/8" of body filler. LOL Roughest castings I've ever seen.
A few technical comments : The " scraping " on the ways of the original compound were only to disguise a poor surface finish, or for deception. Before any remedial machining is done to the slide, the gib-angle itself should be used to measure the angle of the the gib-side of the dovetail. Rather than adding a shim to the gib - better to remove (end milling) the dovetail side opposite the gib, and install a rectangular pc of iron or bronze and then machine the 30* to fit. If found unacceptable - the gib can be mounted on a sine-plate to the correct the angle and surface ground. The gib should be held with double-faced tape to prevent distortion by a magnetic chuck. The machining of the dovetail should be done on a miller with a quality 30* dovetail cutter, not a shaper. Glass-bead blasting of a piece of metal leaves a glass residue, and as such is detrimental to adhesion. Stoning CI is a bad practice. CI is quite porous and will retain the grit from the stone - thereby creating an abrasive charged-lap. Since you employed magnetic-chucks in machining both components of the compound-slide - I'm SURE you de-magnitized both components. That's SOP. That procedure MUST be pointed-out in your video. The quality of your videos is excellent. You are quite accomplished Stefan. I would like to know where you received your apprenticeship or training. Cordially, patrick
I very much doubt that they are ground at all, and certainly not to a standard which is precise as it gets. They are just rough machined in many cases, but they are still amazing value for what they cost, as Stefan said, a compact Weiller lathe made in Grermany would be 20 to 40,000 Euros, not around 1000 Euros or less that the Chinese machines cost.
This is not a new phenomenon. The U.S. made hobbyist lathes from decades ago that are often highly regarded today also had "decorative" scraping on the ways and other parts of the machines to make them 'look' like they had been properly scraped. Then, as now, people thought that a properly scraped machine is a better machine, and that is correct. The issue is with "properly scraped."
14:17: ". . . almost (pregnant pause) .3 millimetres (much longer, more fraught pregnant pause, as the utter perfidiousness of Chinese metrology and QC is ripped to shreds by German silence. Several planets may have collided in the interim, also.)" :)
I think it requires a more skilled machinist to make good work with the chinese machines. I am not so good so I set my sights on 2nd hand european machines. A deckel would be the dream machine, I keep saving....
Soweit ganz OK aber was mich mega stört ist ein deutscher Titel des Videos und der gesamte Film ist dann in Englisch. Da braucht man auch keine Suche nach dt. Anleitungen machen wenn dann in Fremdsprache geleitet wird. Bitte nicht falsch verstehen, ich selbst würde mich nicht sattelwest in englischer Sprache sehen und wenn ich dann doch nach dieser Anleitung ein Versuch starten zu scrapen u. es läuft was schief weil ich etwas missverstanden habe wäre das nicht so schön. Einfach einen engl. Titel vergeben dann wird er für reine dt. Muttersprachler uninteressant und gut ist. Man macht doch auch kein dt. Video und stellt es in China zur Verfügung.
Soviel quasi amerikanisches Akzent - das klingt lächerlich und die 3 wird wie sri ausgesproche, dafür aber i have to thay und wörk. Mann hast du dich selbst gehört?
An experienced machinist with quality tools/machines "correcting" a poorly made machine. A common thing in a machine shop. However... Your average hobbyist or mechanic has neither the skills nor the tools to do anything other than make a crooked part more crooked.
To those complaining about Stefan's pronunciation of "surface" - give him a break; English isn't his first language. But if it bothers you, turn it into a drinking game - every time you hear "sir face," take a drink.
I find it part of his branding/personality at this point. Reminds me I'm watching one of Stefan's videos, as opposed to Tony, Adam, Keith, Jody, Tom, etc...
AlexLTDLX I’m personally very grateful that Stefan posts videos in English. I speak conversational Spanish as a second language, but I would be a total disaster trying to communicate technical content in anything other than my native English.
Yea...I always am amazed when someone from America who only speaks English complains about any foreigner's English pronunciation. It's their second language for God's sake. I'd love to hear those who complain about anyone speaking English as their second language....speaking German fluently. I'm guessing they will mispronounce a few words also.
Yeah I think his English better than majority of the public in the Appalachia. I have a hard time understanding some of them and and I have a pretty good ear for it. Have to do a lot of foreign ATC "deciphering". I now have an american accent speaking my native russian, but, I used to cause a lot of laughter for my miss-pronounced english.
AlexLTDLX That seemed like a great idea, so I tried it. I had to watch it 5 times before I got to the end, and that was only because on the fifth time I substituted coffee for beer.
I love Stefan's English.... Some of his pronunciation makes me smile and I'd never consider complaining about something that makes me smile.
Sein Englisch ist besser dan meine Deutsch.
Well, it all depends actually... does he say Al-you-min-E-um or Al-oo-min-um?! ;)
Smart to not critisize.I like the attitude you take of "See whats wrong and try to fix it".Far more intelligent approach.Good lesson in that.Thank's
These videos are absolute pure gold for us hobbyists trying to learn more. Many big thanks for your amazing videos Stefan!
Morning Stefan - thanks for keeping home shop users in mind. For lots of us this is a non-paying hobby. I enjoy you taking less-expensive commercial products and teaching us how to make them much better. Always a lot of creativity on your channel.
_Dan_
Well said Stefan. Because of the Chinese import machinery, home workshops can now be equipped in a way that was just not possible a couple of decades ago, because of cost and availability. I find with Chinese engineering tools they are basically sound, its details like cleanliness and sloppy final assembly/finishing that usually need tweaking but for the money, they're amazing value.
Rewatching this video as I’m restoring my Leinen top slide now and the depth of information is absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much.
Great video Stefan! Really great coverage of all the important details.
ATB, Robin
I love your precision work and you help show me i can do better even with the machine and tools I have to work with . I'm currently building me a lathe and needed this focus to keep me on track ! Awesome job !!
I'm glad there's people like yourself that take the time to make these Video's for us beginner's.
Thanks for being an inspiration and keep up the awesome work.
Thank you Stefan. Great job as always. Looking foward to part two.👍
Ahhh The old hammer trick. Richard King showed me that and I use it quite frequently now. Once again Stefan nice work and excellent video content.
Thats where I learned it too ;)
I laughed a bit when you said consider them as kits, as that is exactly what I tell anyone asking about the machines I have and how good/bad they are. To me it was just half the fun and I also ended up learning a lot from it all.
Stefan, your precision work is impeccable, enjoy watching you work.
Watching this is like a trip back in time. Stefan has bought his old lathe plus the shaper back.
Glad to see you gave it a thumbs up Stefan. As you know I just got me a 160mm 6-jaw from Zentra, purchased from San-Tools as well. Although not cheap, the Bison is about twice the price. I was in serious doubt, as I had no experience with Zentra, but have now evaluated it to be a pretty good chuck, now confirmed
You made me buy that chuck ;)
And seriously, I am very happy with it - I turned a large diameter delrin part today and was clamping only on about 5mm length, on a diameter of 118mm. And it didnt feel insecure at all! Even when roughing with the full with of the insert :D
The fine adjust works perfectly, and yeah, look and feel are good.
Thank you for this; I've followed your work for quite a long time but it has taken on new relevance because I have a lathe and a mill to improve.
ive just subscribed,my anxiety faded out ...thanks ,i bought a mini ,im in for a joyride ,greetings from adelaide
I think this is an important video Stefan. Many of us have Chinese machines for all the reasons you mention, and there's no reason we shouldn't make them as good as they can be. Demonstrating how to accurize one of these is not shown in any other video as far as I know (believe me I've looked :). I really enjoyed watching you work on this one and especially your thought process as you work your way through the surfaces :) Looking forward to the next part! :)
on point. just because its chinese means it si bad. it isnt. got a chinese chuck at it was on point from the beginning. guess i was lucky
Stephan, You nailed it.
My German Knuth machines are all chinese made. As long as it's accurate and affordable I don't really care where it comes from.
Glad to see the shaper can be used to true the sliding surfaces. I suppose you could use the shaper as a roughing cut before scraping the last thousandth if you desired a scraped surface and accuracy. Especially useful for large areas I would say.
Excellent & inspiring work !!
Thank you Stefan.
I'm very jealous of you having that shaper lmao I can't even find one in Canada small enough to get into my garage
You could use a ball bearing race as a circular parallel...
Ignorant one here. I recently got offered a boyar and Schultz surface grinder for the cost of "get it out of my shop and you can have it."
When you're grinding parts flat , how are you creating the first surface to mate off of? Wouldn't it just mirror the imperfections on the opposite side?
You briefly talk about it @6:09. If you have some suggested reading material on the topic I'd be eager for it! Thanks for the content!
With grinding the first side, youre creating the reference youre working off for all other surfaces - It basicaly needs just to be flat. All other relationsships (squareness/dimensions) will be derived off it.
For workholding on the first side, you can just slap it on the magnet, hold it in a vise or against a angle plate. Or even glue it to the magnet :D
Stefan, have you thought about dressing an angle on the grinding wheel to resurface the inside of the dovetail. No need to put it on a sine vice at that point. You could also resurface the bottom surface at the same time. Thanks for the video!
Still cant reach into a female dovetail without tilting the work or wheelhead. On the male dovetail youre right, you can just stand it on the side and grind it with a dressed wheel.
AS if it isn't enough with silly SAFETY SALLY’s intruding, now have to put up with the GRAMMAR POLICE.
Videos informative with light hearted humour, and enjoyable.
Maybe that half the top was scraped because it hit the bottom of the cross slide rather than they did it because they didn't know what they were doing.
bcbloc02 - The gib in the compound of my late '80's ENCO was only rough milled, not ground or scraped. The fit between the tailstock top and bottom looked to done with a side grinder. Trying to do the best I can with what I have for the Refurb.
Awesome! Three videos within one day!
That is exactly right. The Chinese machines are kits that if you apply yourself. It can be a great machine.i sold my 7x14 mini lathe for a decent amount and bought a central machinery 9x20.
Excellent video, enjoyed. I like the brass shim glued on idea.
Always Nice work Steffan haven't even finished watching. Gday from Australia
Stephan, am I noticing that the shaper head/cutter is moving forward faster than on the return stroke? No bother unless you do big cuts and time becomes a factor. I do not expect the difference in cutter speed fore and aft will show up anywhere since chip color seems to be the criterion of cutter speed. I hesitate to mention this at all since I do not want you waking up at night dreaming of your shaper. OTOH, better you than me, ROFL about human foibles.
Always grateful for your shared wisdom!
It is amazing. You can transfer every lack of precision from machines in Germany onto an casting and end up with stuff more precise, than china made precision tools
The alternative to chinese, is of course patience and the second hand market. I just find no joy in using chinese machines, or working on them either. It has taken me 5 years but I have a workshop of older quality machines now. I have a Deckel FP2 machine, cost as much as a new chinese mill. I have a swedish lathe, three kemppi welding machines. It is a lot of work.
The deckel took 16 months of renovation and even repair before it was usable, the lathe took a few weeks of disassembly and cleanup before I started using it and I have had it for years now, but I will still need to make a new cross slide nut and screw for it, and some day I will likely have to scrape the ways and I still need to rescrape some parts of the mill (just for bearing). But that's all part of the experience and boy did I ever learn A LOT from doing the renovation work. But if I ever sell them on, they won't have lost their monetary value. I have gotten far on a very strict budget.
Still I do have some chinese machines, a drill press and a plasma cutter (stahlwerk).
Sadly not everybody has the ability or time to go to auctions etc. I still hate to think about the FP-1 copy from Yugoslavia I did not jump on 15 years ago. Also at least here in the states as more people become involved in home machining (I think the "maker" movement has a lot to do with this) the price of good used equipment has gone out of sight. Especially anything that you can get into a basement. I still see CV lapped out Bridgeports for around 1500 US but a clapped out Bridgeport is not pleasant to run.
Are you running your shaper backwards? Really nice repair.
Watching your video as I try stroop waffels for the first time. Enjoying both.
Carefull with those waffles ;)
What? After months of waiting I get half a video? Shame on you, Stefan. I want my other half, and I want it NOW!
Hi Stefan,
I see someone thinks your shaper is running backwards; me too. The power stroke should be the slower, return the faster. Your big drive wheel is running backwards.
No it is not :)
It is setup to cut on the pull stroke.
gtwr.de/ressources/res_gack_rueckwaertshobelkopf/index.html
I wonder if they used that area to practice scraping before they worked on the working surfaces?
I've heard that on those machines the surfaces are only scraped for appearance and oil retention, not fitment.
Oil retention is the key. Two perfectly machined surfaces won't slide against one another. They'll stick. They're useless.
I am a little lost as it seems I only see one center gib adjustment set screw. if you tighten the gib in the center would it not rock at both ends? If the dovetail gap from one end to the other is different and you make a tapered gib would it not bind as you mover the slide to the extreme other end? My mind must be fooling me or something.
My little optimum BF16 has a bowed tapered gib on the y axis, it works but i know it could be better. Ive had trouble finding taper gib stock in Australia, im sure someone sells it, the machine distributor couldnt help👍👌🇦🇺
Perhaps the partially scraped nonworking surface was done for a decorative purpose. The unscraped portion was certainly ugly enough. I guess you could accomplish a suitable finish by flycutting instead.
dear stefan, i felt very depressed by this video., because i have all the same problems with yours but i dont have a grinder... it gives me horror when not only machining hard materials but also parting off on any metals... i am very sad but good for you...
instead of shaper, what about using dovetail cutter on mill? i am thinking to do so on my slide but not sure about precision.. ofcourse it would be very depended to mill precision at surfaces
Stefan, I have almost zero experience with shapers, but is there a possibility that yours is running backwards?
The backstroke seems to be slower than the cut stroke.
Yes! Because mine is most of the time setup to cut on the backstroke :)
I explained it here: gtwr.de/ressources/res_gack_rueckwaertshobelkopf/index.html
Although I do the some advantages to the multi fix toolpost
It is rather on the large size
The wedge shape of the Tripan is not by chance
Its been designed to give maximum clearance
My Tripan has gotten me unstuck on quite a few occasions because of its ability to get close
That is one thing I don't like about the Aloris. It just takes up a large amount of volume. Especially when using a tailstock center
Like your attention to detail, thanks for the videos.
At 7:21, you are using the worn bearing surface (the swivel rest of the compound bottom) as a reference to grind the non bearing surface bridge dovetail (which normally represents the factory plane, although in this case a portion of it has been ruined by scraping). You are then using this newly created plane as a reference for machining the wear out of the swivel rest, effectively losing the factory plane and creating your own new plane.
This doesn't make sense to me. Unless I am missing something, shouldn't the process be reversed here? Use the factory planed non bearing surface as the reference for the worn bearing surface of the swivel rest?
Did you consider making a new gib? I think you could even have glued a new gib in place then machined on the shaper. They are awkward to hold (I have made a couple) but only have one critical dimension ( I made mine _much_ too long to get lots of goes at getting the fit right.) One was made from a custom casting, but the other I machined from a length of "Durabar" continuously cast iron.
I made a new gib for a Schaublin 102 Compound recently. Machined it completely out of durabar. I roughed out a parallel section large enough for the gib, milled the 30° bevel top/bottom and then cut the long taper using the magnetic chuck on the adjustable angle plate. By fine tweaking of the angle plate I can get the fit of the gib very, very close, directly off the mill.
You can really tell it is a CHINESIUM lathe part. A real hack job was done on the whatever you called it but I would say scraping was not it. Some sort of chiseling would be a better term for sure. I am grateful for living in the US of A as lathes and milling machines here are plentiful and relatively cheap. A precision machine can be had for a few thousand. Something a hobbyist can afford if he chooses precision or just goes with normal which is roughly a thousand. I really like your shaper. What make and type is the machine Stefan ?? Look forward to hear from you Sir. Good day too. P.S. Have yourself a Happy New Year too.
The shaper is a Grob. A d he sold it. To Nick Mueller I think
@@mpetersen6 Thank you for letting me know peter. Good day too.
@@victoryfirst2878
Nich has a good series of videos on just what you need to do to get a Chinese dovetail column mill properly aligned.
@@victoryfirst2878
The shaper is actually a Gack
at15.38minute I heard not cleary,Could you tell me where to buy Duron or terkai that attach to the gif?what website should i buy?
I'm wondering why the shaper is the next best machine for straightening dovetails? Is it because it's a good quality machine and a mill is an import? I'm currently in a process of buying a shaper, which also involved a lot of research, and if you believe people on many forums shapers are obsolete.
single point are very good for flatness and you gan get any angle!
If you've seen some of the shops where these units come from you would walk out.On those low end machines there scrapping is done for show, it's to hide the milling cutter marks etc ,nothing more.
What do you think about putting turcite or rulon on the sliding side of a gib? I guess with the friction lock it would not be ideal in your situation, but curious what you think.
Strange, I'm having the exact same compound slide and the gib is off 0.3mm just like the one in your video. I'm trying to get my head around how I can improve it with my limited skills.
Hi Stefan, do you still offer this type of service? I have a Schaublin 70 that I would love to have refurbished.
This has been very helpful to me. Thank you.
"DIRESTA Style" LOL
Great Video Dude. Tons of good info.
First I've heard of Rulon tm. Not cheap, but maybe.......?
Oh dear, i bought an import 9 x 20 lathe to supplement my colchester, i knew that would need some work but i wasn't prepared for just how much work, nothing fitted correctly nothing lined up. without my other lathe and mill it would have been a £1200 boat anchor. months of off and on work machining and scraping and it is now what it should have been when made. my Colchester although as old as i am is still a far more accurate lathe
As said, they are a kit. Also if an equivilant lathe built to the same quality standard was manufactured in the US, UK or the EU it would easily be 6 to 10 times too much. Even if the importers in the West were bringing in lathes of significantly better quality it would come with a stiff price increase. If Warco in the UK, Grizzly or Precision Matthew's in the US or any of the other importers* decided they wanted more features and better quality the price would go up. In reality the prices of a small lathe or milling machine are cheap in terms of their potential life vs some other non essential things people may have for their own pleasure. Sadly the price of used equipment here in the States has skyrocketed. A small Clausing 8520 or 8530 mill is pushing 3,500 bucks now. I fail to see why when one can get more capacity in an RF-45 or othe slightly smaller mills.
*not all importers have the same quality standards they want the product built to.
was wondering why they treaded the holes on the one two three blocks .... now i know
Thanks for the effort doing the great video
I remember the 1970's we Americans were lamenting the loss of our precision machining to country's of Europe. Now the European Union has felt the sting from the Chinese Economic engine, I suppose WCAGA is the operative principal here.
everybody else getting their compounds done i wanna send you mine lol
ok im pretty new to this machining hobby thing, and im a little confused here, he says .02 mil but that would be like .00005 inch, thats tiny, is there something im missing here? because half a ten tho is within any part ive ever seen
0.02 mm is roughly 0.001 thou
Stefan” that music gives me the Wiley’s can you change it. ☠️
From russia with love? No! Thats my trademarkintrosong :D
Stefan Gotteswinter from Russia with a death wise💀😂😂😂😂
"Chinese machines are great for what they are", I 100% agree, they are great hobby project parts kits, that with some skill and a lot of effort, can be turned into an actually usable instrument! :))
Also that scraping is there to hide the mill marks, what seems to be the case is that they didn't want to invest the time to surface grind the sliding surfaces, so they simply scraped them to hide the mill finish and provide somewhat smooth surface - it has nothing to do with precision, it is done simply to create an illusion of what should have been done. No amount lubrication makes those compounds feel like they glide on an oil film, not to mention the gib adjustment, where it can be tight in one spot, then you move 15mm and it suddenly gets loose.
here are couple horror pictures of what I had to deal with - imgur.com/a/xA7Mi , used an angle grinder to get the geometry roughly where it should be (they were too far off to take that amount of material off with a hand scraper, that cross slide was rocking nearly 0.2mm, there was that much twist in it), then hand scraped to get them somewhat even, unfortunately I didn't take the pics of the "after"
I would be really surprised if the scraping is from the factory. I have one of the Chinese lathes and the compound is by far the worst part of the machine. Like you say some spots it is tight and others is loose.
they seem to be from the factory like that, so far I've had to deal with 2, a 250/550, and 280/750, both where from different vendors/factories, but the finish on the sliding portions was pretty much the same, and then there was the mill, it was one of the larger ones of the type Stefan has now, it is the "50" model, iso40 spindle, geared head, power feed on X, weight around 600kg, with a base, bought it straight from the factory, together with shipping just under 2k euros, and for that price you get extras like rocking axes, gears in gearboxes that will cut your hands, couple kilos of casting sand that wasn't cleaned off, etc, took around a week to get it in shape, couple annoying things left to fix, like spindle magazine that has too much play in the head, rocking if the brake is not tightened (will fix that with hard chrome buildup on the OD of the magazine, grinding, lapping etc to get the fit just right), the brake itself is sticky, which makes using boring heads very tricky, but for that price you simply cannot get anything with 40 taper that will fit in a small one room shop, the added bonus is that you learn how the machine is made, you'll know the weaknesses, and will notice things going wrong with it before they turn into an expensive disaster, plus all the bearings and spares are standard off the shelf sizes, which can be replaced easily.
jz1199 4
jz1199 - I am currently working on the tailstock of a late '80s Taiwanese ENCO 1340. Looks like it was scraped in with a side grinder. Started to remove the paint, so I could repaint, and removed a good 1/8" of body filler. LOL Roughest castings I've ever seen.
A few technical comments :
The " scraping " on the ways of the original compound were only to disguise a poor surface finish, or for deception.
Before any remedial machining is done to the slide, the gib-angle itself should be used to measure the angle of the the gib-side of the dovetail.
Rather than adding a shim to the gib - better to remove (end milling) the dovetail side opposite the gib, and install a rectangular pc of iron or bronze and then machine the 30* to fit.
If found unacceptable - the gib can be mounted on a sine-plate to the correct the angle and surface ground. The gib should be held with double-faced tape to prevent distortion by a magnetic chuck.
The machining of the dovetail should be done on a miller with a quality 30* dovetail cutter, not a shaper.
Glass-bead blasting of a piece of metal leaves a glass residue, and as such is detrimental to adhesion.
Stoning CI is a bad practice. CI is quite porous and will retain the grit from the stone - thereby creating an abrasive charged-lap.
Since you employed magnetic-chucks in machining both components of the compound-slide - I'm SURE you de-magnitized both components. That's SOP. That procedure MUST be pointed-out in your video.
The quality of your videos is excellent.
You are quite accomplished Stefan.
I would like to know where you received your apprenticeship or training.
Cordially,
patrick
this surfaces are not scraped )
they are all just ground as precise as it gets and then factory workers put a "scraped finish" just for good look ))
I very much doubt that they are ground at all, and certainly not to a standard which is precise as it gets. They are just rough machined in many cases, but they are still amazing value for what they cost, as Stefan said, a compact Weiller lathe made in Grermany would be 20 to 40,000 Euros, not around 1000 Euros or less that the Chinese machines cost.
This is not a new phenomenon. The U.S. made hobbyist lathes from decades ago that are often highly regarded today also had "decorative" scraping on the ways and other parts of the machines to make them 'look' like they had been properly scraped. Then, as now, people thought that a properly scraped machine is a better machine, and that is correct. The issue is with "properly scraped."
nicht böse sein, aber es spricht sich surfis und nicht surfäs, zwinker
Ah right so import doesn't mean an import from Switzerland.
Haha, not in this case ;)
Stefan, those clamps you use when gluing up the gib - what are those?
I get them here:
www.hoffmann-group.com/DE/de/hom/Hand--und-Montagewerkzeuge/Zwingen/Parallelzwinge-%28Spannhand%29/p/861900-25
thanks Stefan, I've seen This Old Tony use similar ones but I have never seen them otherwise
:)
"Kan-Twist" is another manufacturer/known name for them.
That adhesive isn't available in the US is there an alternative?
Loctite 380 BlackMax
14:17: ". . . almost (pregnant pause) .3 millimetres (much longer, more fraught pregnant pause, as the utter perfidiousness of Chinese metrology and QC is ripped to shreds by German silence. Several planets may have collided in the interim, also.)" :)
I think it requires a more skilled machinist to make good work with the chinese machines. I am not so good so I set my sights on 2nd hand european machines. A deckel would be the dream machine, I keep saving....
link for rubberized super glue please.
Good Work
They most likely scraped that end for cosmetics, so it would show when the cross-slide is back out...
That handle on the surface grinder had me smiling
Haha, thats just temporary...for the last year-or-so ;)
I live in china and I love old German machine.HAHA
Soweit ganz OK aber was mich mega stört ist ein deutscher Titel des Videos und der gesamte Film ist dann in Englisch. Da braucht man auch keine Suche nach dt. Anleitungen machen wenn dann in Fremdsprache geleitet wird. Bitte nicht falsch verstehen, ich selbst würde mich nicht sattelwest in englischer Sprache sehen und wenn ich dann doch nach dieser Anleitung ein Versuch starten zu scrapen u. es läuft was schief weil ich etwas missverstanden habe wäre das nicht so schön. Einfach einen engl. Titel vergeben dann wird er für reine dt. Muttersprachler uninteressant und gut ist. Man macht doch auch kein dt. Video und stellt es in China zur Verfügung.
Glory to Arstotzka! xD
My machines are TAIWANESE not chinese.
In china they scrape with angle grinders 🤣
Soviel quasi amerikanisches Akzent - das klingt lächerlich und die 3 wird wie sri ausgesproche, dafür aber i have to thay und wörk. Mann hast du dich selbst gehört?
Lustigerweise beschweren sich Englischmuttersprachler nie darüber?
Was haettest du lieber? Perfektes Oxford Englisch?
I thought there wasn’t going to be any scraping.
An experienced machinist with quality tools/machines "correcting" a poorly made machine. A common thing in a machine shop.
However...
Your average hobbyist or mechanic has neither the skills nor the tools to do anything other than make a crooked part more crooked.
If you want to get from an average hobbyist to an experienced machinist, however, having such a good content certainly helps.
True.
Chinese stuff is rubish but you can buy it and spend a lot of time to make them good. If you not calculate your hours and see it as a hobby.
If you made new gib with higher angle than original and then mached wayswith shaper it would be less job than fixing chinese fuckups.