Just a little bit more about using eyeglasses as eye protection (I have had to deal with this at work). In the US, there is an ANSI spec for safety glasses. If I recall correctly, it is surviving a 1/4 inch steel ball at 150 feet per second. It so happens that my prescription bifocals meet this requirement and I had the test sheet from the optician to prove it.
So I didn't have to wear goggles over my glasses. But… regular eyeglasses do not have top or side protection. In our shop, top protection was not required (I guess not much risk of something falling down into your eye). But side protection WAS required. Various clip on plastic side protectors are made that you can snap onto regular glasses.
However, since I feel these side protectors mainly protect against some activity being done by somebody else at your side, I have never worried about them when working alone at home. This is the sort of thing you can "what if" however. Such as "what if" you happen to be turning your head for some reason at the moment something comes flying out of a machine? "What if" there is a ricochet?
So at some level, at least at home, it becomes a personal choice. But completely naked eyes would be an exceedingly poor choice in my view.
UVEX is used a lot where I worked. Here is one that can be used with or without glasses.
Trivia: The little diamond mirror in the lid of machinist's tool chests is generally accepted to aid in removing an errant chip from your eye. Hopefully you would never need to use this with todays eye protection. The other explanation is that early shops had no lavatory facilities and someone could check there appearance before seeing the boss or going home.
Chuck K.
Sent from Windows Mail
From: barryjyoung@yahoo.com [GrizHFMinimill]
Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2015 3:36 AM
To: barryjyoung@yahoo.com [GrizHFMinimill]
Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2015 3:36 AM
To: barryjyoung@yahoo.com [GrizHFMinimill]
Hi Troppo,
I'm late in replying to your original post and almost everything I can say has already been said by others, but I'll add my comments to those already posted:
First priority - join an engineering club - you will get loads of first hand advice, get the chance to see (and use) other people's equipment, etc. Do this before you even start to think about spending significant amounts of money. Also (for the same reasons) enroll on a course at your local college - I teach engineering apprentices and we run the course in the link below - I'm sure your local college does (or can do) something similar:
Get eye protection. If you wear glasses normally and do not wish to use contact lenses (I do not understand how someone can wake up and stick their finger in to their own eyes every morning....) have a word with your optician. In the UK any opticians can supply safety glasses ground to your prescription very cheaply (there is some sort of government ruling or requirement for them to do so) but be warned - the frames are not very 'stylish'
Read (and unders! tand) your nation's workshop health and safety regulations - most of them probably do not apply to you as a hobby user, but they are all there for a reason. Text books aimed a engineering apprentices, etc will give you the information you need in an easily digestible and non-threatening manner. You will come across people on forums and discussion groups who will make statements along the lines of "The chuck guard on my machine was always getting in the way - I removed it and bypassed the safety interlock and I've never had a problem..." If you meet such people, turn round and run away from them as fast as you can. Always remember that you are the softest, most easily damaged thing in the workshop, and your little bench top lathe/mill/drill/grinder/linisher/etc with quite happily tear pieces off of you without even slowing down.
Get a bench grinder and some high speed steel tool blanks. Go on an 'off-hand grinding' course and get taught how to setup, use and maintain a grinder and check and change the wheels. The courses are cheap and usually only last half a day (You would not think of driving a car without being suitably qualified and using a grinder is just as potentially hazardous as driving, plus you end up with industry recognised certification). Grinding lathe tools is easy and the angles are not critical. To get a good idea of the sort of tool profile you are looking for, look at some of the old machining books on www.archive.org - many small lathes in the early 1900s were treadle powered and the tooling was designed to cut on low power (foot power) machines and foot power is a good approximation to the low power motors on hobby machines. By modern standards the angles shown seem very steep, but tool profiles from modern text books and tool manufacturers ! are optimised for industrial production use on high power machines.
Don't bother with a QCTP (too late I know). Unless you are involved in production and are using your machine as part of a business most of your work will be 'one offs' and rapid tool changing and setting will not be an issue. This comment is based on personal experience - I reckon I spend about 5% of my time in the workshop actually machining parts. Most of my time is spent working out how I'm going to machine a part (the sequence of operations, mounting methods, etc), marking out parts, finding that piece of brass I put in a 'safe place' because I knew it would be useful one day.... etc, etc. In fact I often spend 15 minutes sitting down, drinking a cup of coffee and admiring a particularly nice surface I've just finished machining....
Invest in measuring equipment - it does not need to be "ultimate top quality" - but avoid "very cheap". Buy good quality tools and they will last you a life time (but I'm sure I do not need to tell you that). Vernier calipers (6 inch/150mm) are a good general purpose wide range tool, but micrometers are more accurate. Electronic calipers are cheap, but a vernier scale is simple to read and you will never have any issues with batteries, doubts about precision and accuracy. A vernier height gauge and an angle plate are worth having too. A dial indicator (DI) is very useful and a dial test indicator (DTI) is even better.
If you can get a surface plate it will be of great value (a piece of float/plate glass is a good substitute). Cast iron plates are the best, but granite is fine for most works! hop use, less easily damaged and cheaper.
Drills: Do not buy sets - you will not use most of the sizes as almost all holes tend to be standard tapping or clearance sizes. Buy what you need as you need them, within a short time you will have all the tapping and clearance sizes that you routinely use. With your tapping drills, keep them for drilling tapping holes only - when they become blunt, sharpen them and then use them for general use but replace your tapping size with a new (professionally ground) drill.
Taps/dies: As above, do not buy sets - if you buy a set you will find you probably do not use half of them. Get second and plug taps - do not bother with taper taps, you will never use them (using UK terminology - taper, second, plug rather than the American terms taper, plug, bottoming). Get carbon steep taps and dies rather than high speed steel. CS wears better than HSS and so stays sharp longer. In the UK, CS taps and dies are half the price of HSS. When you break a CS tap in a piece of steel you can heat the steel part and anneal the tap which can then be drilled out - you cannot do this with HSS.
Have fun - there is no substitute for getting on the machine and 'making stuff'.
All the best,
Ian
From: "troppolad@yahoo.com.au [GrizHFMinimill]" <GrizHFMinimill@yahoogroups.com>
To: GrizHFMinimill@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, 7 November 2015, 22:12
Subject: Re: [GrizHFMinimill] Beginner questions
Well i`ve just ordered a QCTP for my little lathe, so i think i`ll need to get a few things for my mill so i can make some more tool holders for it. Untill that arrives i have a couple of end mills and shall start trying to get my cutting and feed speeds sorted. It looks like i`m going to have a lot of research to do and a lot of questions for you guys in the near future so i will say sorry for being a damned nuisance now.
Cheers guys
Troppo
Cheers guys
Troppo
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Posted by: <ckinzer@att.net>
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