What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

The punch would be just that- 1/4" x 4", tapered and knurled and used for
driving out stuck pins. I figure it's easy enough to make and will be
useful.

On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

The punch would be just that- 1/4" x 4", tapered and knurled and used for
driving out stuck pins. I figure it's easy enough to make and will be
useful

Since you haven't yet gotten a specific answer, I'll just point out
that C360 is a great deal harder and stronger than C932. The bearing
bronzes are pretty soft and, in the case of C932, kind of "mushy." I
don't know its work-hardening properties.

My guess is that C360 is a better material for your application. Some
bearing bronzes would be similar to ordinary brass, but C932 is pretty
soft.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

The punch would be just that- 1/4" x 4", tapered and knurled and used for
driving out stuck pins. I figure it's easy enough to make and will be
useful

Since you haven't yet gotten a specific answer, I'll just point out
that C360 is a great deal harder and stronger than C932. The bearing
bronzes are pretty soft and, in the case of C932, kind of "mushy." I
don't know its work-hardening properties.

My guess is that C360 is a better material for your application. Some
bearing bronzes would be similar to ordinary brass, but C932 is pretty
soft.

Thanks for the answer. This is the info I as looking for.

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

The punch would be just that- 1/4" x 4", tapered and knurled and used for
driving out stuck pins. I figure it's easy enough to make and will be
useful

Since you haven't yet gotten a specific answer, I'll just point out
that C360 is a great deal harder and stronger than C932. The bearing
bronzes are pretty soft and, in the case of C932, kind of "mushy." I
don't know its work-hardening properties.

My guess is that C360 is a better material for your application. Some
bearing bronzes would be similar to ordinary brass, but C932 is pretty
soft.

Went ahead and made it in brass, on a Sherline lathe. The taper was
guestimated with a compound attachment and blended with a file.

http://www.panix.com/~presence/brass-punch.jpg

Knurling got messed up on the left side, but only with one cutting wheel,
it may have clogged up. It has this odd pattern, but whatever, it's a
punch. Used it yesteday to knock pins out of a casting.

On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 16:56:03 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

The punch would be just that- 1/4" x 4", tapered and knurled and used for
driving out stuck pins. I figure it's easy enough to make and will be
useful

Since you haven't yet gotten a specific answer, I'll just point out
that C360 is a great deal harder and stronger than C932. The bearing
bronzes are pretty soft and, in the case of C932, kind of "mushy." I
don't know its work-hardening properties.

My guess is that C360 is a better material for your application. Some
bearing bronzes would be similar to ordinary brass, but C932 is pretty
soft.

Went ahead and made it in brass, on a Sherline lathe. The taper was
guestimated with a compound attachment and blended with a file.

http://www.panix.com/~presence/brass-punch.jpg

Knurling got messed up on the left side, but only with one cutting wheel,
it may have clogged up. It has this odd pattern, but whatever, it's a
punch. Used it yesteday to knock pins out of a casting.

That's a beauty. If you don't bash it up too much, you could make a
pendant out of it. g

Doncha love the way brass takes to knurling? It's beautiful.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 16:56:03 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

The punch would be just that- 1/4" x 4", tapered and knurled and used for
driving out stuck pins. I figure it's easy enough to make and will be
useful

Since you haven't yet gotten a specific answer, I'll just point out
that C360 is a great deal harder and stronger than C932. The bearing
bronzes are pretty soft and, in the case of C932, kind of "mushy." I
don't know its work-hardening properties.

My guess is that C360 is a better material for your application. Some
bearing bronzes would be similar to ordinary brass, but C932 is pretty
soft.

Went ahead and made it in brass, on a Sherline lathe. The taper was
guestimated with a compound attachment and blended with a file.

http://www.panix.com/~presence/brass-punch.jpg

Knurling got messed up on the left side, but only with one cutting wheel,
it may have clogged up. It has this odd pattern, but whatever, it's a
punch. Used it yesteday to knock pins out of a casting.

That's a beauty. If you don't bash it up too much, you could make a
pendant out of it. g

May try to make another one in a different size to get it right.

Doncha love the way brass takes to knurling? It's beautiful.

The only problem is how much it flakes and clogs up the knurling wheels.
Cutting fluid like Relion seems to make cutting easier, but makes also
binds the flakes into the teeth. May need to setup some tubes, old
toothbrush heads and the shopvac to suck all the flakes out of the wheels
as they rotate. The wheels I have are 25TPI and 1/2" dia so it doesn't
take much material to fill them up.

On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 18:32:07 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 16:56:03 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

The punch would be just that- 1/4" x 4", tapered and knurled and used for
driving out stuck pins. I figure it's easy enough to make and will be
useful

Since you haven't yet gotten a specific answer, I'll just point out
that C360 is a great deal harder and stronger than C932. The bearing
bronzes are pretty soft and, in the case of C932, kind of "mushy." I
don't know its work-hardening properties.

My guess is that C360 is a better material for your application. Some
bearing bronzes would be similar to ordinary brass, but C932 is pretty
soft.

Went ahead and made it in brass, on a Sherline lathe. The taper was
guestimated with a compound attachment and blended with a file.

http://www.panix.com/~presence/brass-punch.jpg

Knurling got messed up on the left side, but only with one cutting wheel,
it may have clogged up. It has this odd pattern, but whatever, it's a
punch. Used it yesteday to knock pins out of a casting.

That's a beauty. If you don't bash it up too much, you could make a
pendant out of it. g

May try to make another one in a different size to get it right.

Doncha love the way brass takes to knurling? It's beautiful.

The only problem is how much it flakes and clogs up the knurling wheels.
Cutting fluid like Relion seems to make cutting easier, but makes also
binds the flakes into the teeth. May need to setup some tubes, old
toothbrush heads and the shopvac to suck all the flakes out of the wheels
as they rotate. The wheels I have are 25TPI and 1/2" dia so it doesn't
take much material to fill them up.

I haven't done it for a long time, but when my uncle was teaching me
how to run his (now my) lathe, he told me to use heavy machine oil, or
even motor oil, on knurling tools. I always have, and I don't remember
any clogging problems with brass. But that was decades ago. I don't
think I've knurled brass for 25 years. Maybe I just forgot about it.

--
Ed Huntress

On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 18:32:07 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 16:56:03 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

The punch would be just that- 1/4" x 4", tapered and knurled and used for
driving out stuck pins. I figure it's easy enough to make and will be
useful

Since you haven't yet gotten a specific answer, I'll just point out
that C360 is a great deal harder and stronger than C932. The bearing
bronzes are pretty soft and, in the case of C932, kind of "mushy." I
don't know its work-hardening properties.

My guess is that C360 is a better material for your application. Some
bearing bronzes would be similar to ordinary brass, but C932 is pretty
soft.

Went ahead and made it in brass, on a Sherline lathe. The taper was
guestimated with a compound attachment and blended with a file.

http://www.panix.com/~presence/brass-punch.jpg

Knurling got messed up on the left side, but only with one cutting wheel,
it may have clogged up. It has this odd pattern, but whatever, it's a
punch. Used it yesteday to knock pins out of a casting.

That's a beauty. If you don't bash it up too much, you could make a
pendant out of it. g

May try to make another one in a different size to get it right.

Doncha love the way brass takes to knurling? It's beautiful.

The only problem is how much it flakes and clogs up the knurling wheels.
Cutting fluid like Relion seems to make cutting easier, but makes also
binds the flakes into the teeth. May need to setup some tubes, old
toothbrush heads and the shopvac to suck all the flakes out of the wheels
as they rotate. The wheels I have are 25TPI and 1/2" dia so it doesn't
take much material to fill them up.


Brass work hardens quickly and then starts to flake, as you have
noticed. So spend as little time as possible knurling. This means
plunging the knurling wheel into the work quickly and then traversing
as fast as possible. Try not to run the knurl back and forth. Of
course with a small lathe this might be tough. Flood with oil to wash
any chips out. From your photo it is obvious that the knurl is double
tracking. So there are actually two knurled patterns, one not as deep
as the other. Try reducing the diameter to be knurled a little on the
next part, that may help. And once agian, plunge the knurl wheel as
fast as possible into the work.
Eric

On 2016-04-21, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 18:32:07 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 16:56:03 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

[ ... ]

Went ahead and made it in brass, on a Sherline lathe. The taper was
guestimated with a compound attachment and blended with a file.

http://www.panix.com/~presence/brass-punch.jpg

Looks pretty nice -- at least from this side.

Knurling got messed up on the left side, but only with one cutting wheel,
it may have clogged up. It has this odd pattern, but whatever, it's a
punch. Used it yesteday to knock pins out of a casting.

How were you holding it? A 4-jaw chuck by any chance? Slightly
off center? With a push type knurler, that could result in one side
being light or unknurled. A scissors style would tend to follow the
workpiece, even if slightly off-center, since the force comes from a
knurl above and one below the workpiece.

Otherwise, knurling between centers makes sense -- and then turn
the needed features (striking end and punch end) after the knurl is done
nicely.

And a Sherline seems rather lightweight for a push knurl. A
scissors knurl would make the job easier on the machine.

[ ... ]

Doncha love the way brass takes to knurling? It's beautiful.

The only problem is how much it flakes and clogs up the knurling wheels.
Cutting fluid like Relion seems to make cutting easier, but makes also
binds the flakes into the teeth. May need to setup some tubes, old
toothbrush heads and the shopvac to suck all the flakes out of the wheels
as they rotate. The wheels I have are 25TPI and 1/2" dia so it doesn't
take much material to fill them up.

I haven't done it for a long time, but when my uncle was teaching me
how to run his (now my) lathe, he told me to use heavy machine oil, or
even motor oil, on knurling tools. I always have, and I don't remember
any clogging problems with brass. But that was decades ago. I don't
think I've knurled brass for 25 years. Maybe I just forgot about it.

I knurl brass moderately often. I use Vactra No.2 Waylube during
the knurling, and then spritz it with WD-40 to clean the lube and the
flakes off.

But I usually do it on a 12x24" Clausing with a BXA series
knurler which has a pair of arms off a dovetail on the tool holder, and
a knob which moves one arm up as the other goes down. Set it once
lightly clamped on the top and bottom of the workpiece, and set the
height nut on the tool holder block and then it is just a matter of
adjusting for the diameter. Move it into place for the start of the
knurl, crank down the knob which brings them together until you get a
good bite, start the lathe spindle, and keep squirting Vactra No.2 onto
the knurls.

Beware of trying to lube with an acid brush, It will grab the
bristles and pull them in. Makes a mess. :-)

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | (KV4PH) Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2016-04-21, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 18:32:07 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 16:56:03 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:27:51 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

What if any differences might I notice when making and more importantly
using a 1/4" punch made of C360 brass vs C932 bearing bronze? The brass
will work harden, but I can only guess bearing material is not supposed to
harden up under use.

[ ... ]

Went ahead and made it in brass, on a Sherline lathe. The taper was
guestimated with a compound attachment and blended with a file.

http://www.panix.com/~presence/brass-punch.jpg

Looks pretty nice -- at least from this side.

It's symmetrical from all sides, just had the double tracking on the left
side from one knurl.

Knurling got messed up on the left side, but only with one cutting wheel,
it may have clogged up. It has this odd pattern, but whatever, it's a
punch. Used it yesteday to knock pins out of a casting.

How were you holding it? A 4-jaw chuck by any chance? Slightly
off center? With a push type knurler, that could result in one side
being light or unknurled. A scissors style would tend to follow the
workpiece, even if slightly off-center, since the force comes from a
knurl above and one below the workpiece.

Otherwise, knurling between centers makes sense -- and then turn
the needed features (striking end and punch end) after the knurl is done
nicely.

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

The OD was turned down to 0.369" (to give 29 multiples of 0.04" from the
25 TPI wheel). I did some test knurls on the punch side which was facing
the livecenter. Seemed OK.

I turned that to 1/4, added the taper and then cut the groove by the
striking side. It seems easier to cut knurls from a taper than just
cranking down on the holder for the wheels and then trying to start the
lathe.

The sherline knurling attachment is just two blocks with pins for the
wheels that are clamped towards each other with two screws. Their bases
are held into the crosslide T-slots but must be left loose so both sides
can slide around and cut evenly.

And a Sherline seems rather lightweight for a push knurl. A
scissors knurl would make the job easier on the machine.

Their attachment is more similar to the scissor type ones in that the
cutting forces other than required torque are not put on the lathe itself.

The torque requirements seem to push the limits though.

[ ... ]

Doncha love the way brass takes to knurling? It's beautiful.

The only problem is how much it flakes and clogs up the knurling wheels.
Cutting fluid like Relion seems to make cutting easier, but makes also
binds the flakes into the teeth. May need to setup some tubes, old
toothbrush heads and the shopvac to suck all the flakes out of the wheels
as they rotate. The wheels I have are 25TPI and 1/2" dia so it doesn't
take much material to fill them up.

I haven't done it for a long time, but when my uncle was teaching me
how to run his (now my) lathe, he told me to use heavy machine oil, or
even motor oil, on knurling tools. I always have, and I don't remember
any clogging problems with brass. But that was decades ago. I don't
think I've knurled brass for 25 years. Maybe I just forgot about it.

I knurl brass moderately often. I use Vactra No.2 Waylube during
the knurling, and then spritz it with WD-40 to clean the lube and the
flakes off.

But I usually do it on a 12x24" Clausing with a BXA series
knurler which has a pair of arms off a dovetail on the tool holder, and
a knob which moves one arm up as the other goes down. Set it once
lightly clamped on the top and bottom of the workpiece, and set the
height nut on the tool holder block and then it is just a matter of
adjusting for the diameter. Move it into place for the start of the
knurl, crank down the knob which brings them together until you get a
good bite, start the lathe spindle, and keep squirting Vactra No.2 onto
the knurls.

Beware of trying to lube with an acid brush, It will grab the
bristles and pull them in. Makes a mess. :-)

I learned about the brush the hard way. Just had fun with a paper towel
getting pulled onto a chain drive this week too. Will try the vactra 2,
have a gallon of it anyways.

On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

Gunner

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

On 2016-04-23, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

Common phrase in dimensioning electronics layouts and some other
fields. one "mil" is 0.001". (We are more likely to call it a "thou".
:-) Just depends on in which field you have worked in the past.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | (KV4PH) Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 23 Apr 2016 23:40:48 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2016-04-23, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

Common phrase in dimensioning electronics layouts and some other
fields. one "mil" is 0.001". (We are more likely to call it a "thou".
:-) Just depends on in which field you have worked in the past.

Enjoy,
DoN.

Common, also, in working with thin sheet materials -- especially
plastics.

--
Ed Huntress

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc

On 23 Apr 2016 23:40:48 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2016-04-23, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

Common phrase in dimensioning electronics layouts and some other
fields. one "mil" is 0.001". (We are more likely to call it a "thou".
:-) Just depends on in which field you have worked in the past.

Enjoy,
DoN.

Ah! Never done electronic layouts. Thanks!

Gunner

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

--

Cheers,

Schweik

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.

Here's a little history of how we express "thousandth of an inch":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch

--
Ed Huntress

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".


Here's a little history of how we express "thousandth of an inch":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch
--

Cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:21:21 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".

When they're that old, you should sell them to interior decorators for
use as foliage planters. They look nice with a Wandering Jew twined
around the bedways, standing between a miniature palm and a ficus
tree. d8-)

In 1977, I was one of the writers for American Machinist's 100th
Anniversary issue. For a year, we all poured through the old AM
archives, going back 100 years. The term "mil," for thousandth,
appeared all of the time in the old volumes, as a slangy shorthand,
like the way we use the term "tenths" today.

Then, I'd say roughly in the late '30s, the term "mil" all but
disappeared. Universal use of gage blocks, sub-thousandths accuracy,
aircraft and military specs combined to add another decimal point to
required accuracies. American Machinist adopted a style point of using
numerical values to express accuracy, with a zero before the decimal
point for metrics, and with no leading zero for inch-based dimensions.
Written out in English, we used "thousandths," "ten-thousandths," and
"microinches." Metrics were a problem child, as we first used
"micron," and then, when SI came in vogue, "micro-meter."

Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.

BTW, don't get me started on "gage" versus "gauge." That one has a
history, too. There used to be an important distinction, but that
distinction has been lost in time.

--
Ed Huntress



Here's a little history of how we express "thousandth of an inch":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 08:48:57 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:21:21 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".

When they're that old, you should sell them to interior decorators for
use as foliage planters. They look nice with a Wandering Jew twined
around the bedways, standing between a miniature palm and a ficus
tree. d8-)

Well, this was when I was in High School and the shop was at least 2nd
generation in the same building. It was owned and operated by two
bachelor brothers who didn't talk to each other. The entire shop
except for some bench grinders operated from a single electric motor
"out back" driving an overhead shaft system. Strangely I don't
remember thinking it was an odd place to work :-)

One of the brothers had an absolutely like new Henderson 4 cylinder
motorcycle that he used to ride to work occasionally which certainly
was interesting.

As a summer hire apprentice I wasn't doing any high tech stuff, they
had me making nuts on the old lathe. Even then, making 50 cents an
hour, I can't see how the finances worked. 12 ft of hex stock in an
antique lathe, Drill, tap, part off, advance the stock a bit and do it
again. Sort of a human screw machine :-)

But they paid every Friday afternoon at quitting time. Cash in the
hand.


In 1977, I was one of the writers for American Machinist's 100th
Anniversary issue. For a year, we all poured through the old AM
archives, going back 100 years. The term "mil," for thousandth,
appeared all of the time in the old volumes, as a slangy shorthand,
like the way we use the term "tenths" today.

Then, I'd say roughly in the late '30s, the term "mil" all but
disappeared. Universal use of gage blocks, sub-thousandths accuracy,
aircraft and military specs combined to add another decimal point to
required accuracies. American Machinist adopted a style point of using
numerical values to express accuracy, with a zero before the decimal
point for metrics, and with no leading zero for inch-based dimensions.
Written out in English, we used "thousandths," "ten-thousandths," and
"microinches." Metrics were a problem child, as we first used
"micron," and then, when SI came in vogue, "micro-meter."

Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.

BTW, don't get me started on "gage" versus "gauge." That one has a
history, too. There used to be an important distinction, but that
distinction has been lost in time.
--

Cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 20:12:37 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 08:48:57 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:21:21 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".

When they're that old, you should sell them to interior decorators for
use as foliage planters. They look nice with a Wandering Jew twined
around the bedways, standing between a miniature palm and a ficus
tree. d8-)

Well, this was when I was in High School and the shop was at least 2nd
generation in the same building. It was owned and operated by two
bachelor brothers who didn't talk to each other. The entire shop
except for some bench grinders operated from a single electric motor
"out back" driving an overhead shaft system. Strangely I don't
remember thinking it was an odd place to work :-)

One of the brothers had an absolutely like new Henderson 4 cylinder
motorcycle that he used to ride to work occasionally which certainly
was interesting.

As a summer hire apprentice I wasn't doing any high tech stuff, they
had me making nuts on the old lathe. Even then, making 50 cents an
hour, I can't see how the finances worked. 12 ft of hex stock in an
antique lathe, Drill, tap, part off, advance the stock a bit and do it
again. Sort of a human screw machine :-)

At least he didn't have you start with round bar stock...


But they paid every Friday afternoon at quitting time. Cash in the
hand.

When I hear stories like that, I wonder how the United States, and the
West in general, ever managed to produce anything that anyone could
afford.

Just before wire EDM came into use, I started covering tool and
diemaking, and visited a lot of t&d shops. I watched diemakers rough
out blanking dies with a bandsaw, breaking the blade, threading it
through the work (they milled out a really rough hole first, but it
usually was nowhere near the final size), and then re-welding the
blade back together. Then they'd break the blade to remove the die
from the saw, and they'd go to work with diemaker's chisels, cutting
close to the line and chiseling in some die relief. Then, possibly, on
to the die-filer. Next, hand-filing with files down to jeweler-file
size. After that, the die would go out for heat-treating.

When it came back, out came the slips and stones, trial-mating the die
with a punch, re-stoning to fit, over and over.

That was for simple diesets. Anything complicated was likely to
require a multi-part die, which had to be fitted together in pieces
that were dowelled to the die base. My God...



In 1977, I was one of the writers for American Machinist's 100th
Anniversary issue. For a year, we all poured through the old AM
archives, going back 100 years. The term "mil," for thousandth,
appeared all of the time in the old volumes, as a slangy shorthand,
like the way we use the term "tenths" today.

Then, I'd say roughly in the late '30s, the term "mil" all but
disappeared. Universal use of gage blocks, sub-thousandths accuracy,
aircraft and military specs combined to add another decimal point to
required accuracies. American Machinist adopted a style point of using
numerical values to express accuracy, with a zero before the decimal
point for metrics, and with no leading zero for inch-based dimensions.
Written out in English, we used "thousandths," "ten-thousandths," and
"microinches." Metrics were a problem child, as we first used
"micron," and then, when SI came in vogue, "micro-meter."

Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.

BTW, don't get me started on "gage" versus "gauge." That one has a
history, too. There used to be an important distinction, but that
distinction has been lost in time.

On 04/24/2016 8:12 AM, John B. wrote:
....

As a summer hire apprentice I wasn't doing any high tech stuff, they
had me making nuts on the old lathe. Even then, making 50 cents an
hour, I can't see how the finances worked. 12 ft of hex stock in an
antique lathe, Drill, tap, part off, advance the stock a bit and do it
again. Sort of a human screw machine :-)

Can't help but wonder what size these would've been and who was the
customer? All except the most unusual would seem to have been bulk
items long before then...

But they paid every Friday afternoon at quitting time. Cash in the
hand.
....

JC Penney paid my (then future) wife in cash in $2 bills and change
every week in those days, too, when J. C. himself was still around. In
his 90s, he remembered meeting her in the hometown store a couple years
earlier when visiting the store in Manhattan where we were in school at
the time and she worked in that store...while not metal-working, there
were metal coins in the pay envelopes...

--

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 8:49:03 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.


--
Ed Huntress




Sorry about that, but I and Cydrome Leader both remember mil as being the same as a thousandth. We are not all as young as you.

Dan

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:06:12 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 8:49:03 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.


--
Ed Huntress




Sorry about that, but I and Cydrome Leader both remember mil as being the same as a thousandth. We are not all as young as you.

You know, I knew some old fart would pop up with that, as soon as I
wrote it. g

What I should have said is that it all but disappeared in *print*. It
migrated over to the sheet-material field, where it eventually became
concentrated in plastic materials. I wrote a few articles for _Modern
Plastics_ and _Plastics Technology_ (on moldmaking) in the '70s and
'80s, and I noted it was being used by them.

I've seen it used for sheet metals, too, but only very rarely.

--
Ed Huntress


Dan

On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 12:06:15 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 8:49:03 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.


--
Ed Huntress




Sorry about that, but I and Cydrome Leader both remember mil as being the same as a thousandth. We are not all as young as you.

Dan

I do too, but that was in a shop that was run by people well into their 70s, back in the late 1970s.

The problem was that mil was used universally for thousandth of an inch, millivolt and milliamp.

wrote:
On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 8:49:03 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.


--
Ed Huntress




Sorry about that, but I and Cydrome Leader both remember mil as being the same as a thousandth. We are not all as young as you.

I've been trying to figure out where I learned mil from. While I do have
an electronic-ish background, it's not really a unit you'd use when
repairing something. It's likely from an an older designer or engineer
friend.

Circular mils are still common enough when it comes to electrical guages,
such as a 500MCM cable, even though that's sort of a weird unit- "thousand
circular mils." Pretty sure that's the same as a 1/2" copper rod.

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 19:57:48 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

wrote:
On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 8:49:03 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.


--
Ed Huntress




Sorry about that, but I and Cydrome Leader both remember mil as being the same as a thousandth. We are not all as young as you.

I've been trying to figure out where I learned mil from. While I do have
an electronic-ish background, it's not really a unit you'd use when
repairing something. It's likely from an an older designer or engineer
friend.

Circular mils are still common enough when it comes to electrical guages,
such as a 500MCM cable, even though that's sort of a weird unit- "thousand
circular mils." Pretty sure that's the same as a 1/2" copper rod.

A circular mil refers to the cross-sectional area of a wire with a
diameter of 0.001 inch. The formula is A = d^2, where A is the area in
circular mils and d is the diameter of the wire in mils. So a 1/2 inch
rod is 250,000 circular mils.

It keeps you from having to use pi to calculate the cross-sectional
area of a wire; if you know the current-carrying capacity in circular
mils, you just use the A=d^2 formula to calculate the current-carrying
capacity of a wire of any diameter.

--
Ed Huntress

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 19:57:48 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

wrote:
On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 8:49:03 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.


--
Ed Huntress




Sorry about that, but I and Cydrome Leader both remember mil as being the same as a thousandth. We are not all as young as you.

I've been trying to figure out where I learned mil from. While I do have
an electronic-ish background, it's not really a unit you'd use when
repairing something. It's likely from an an older designer or engineer
friend.

Circular mils are still common enough when it comes to electrical guages,
such as a 500MCM cable, even though that's sort of a weird unit- "thousand
circular mils." Pretty sure that's the same as a 1/2" copper rod.


its been used a lot in miltiary parlance, generally visa vis maps and
artillery fire

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 19:57:48 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

wrote:
On Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 8:49:03 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.


--
Ed Huntress




Sorry about that, but I and Cydrome Leader both remember mil as being the same as a thousandth. We are not all as young as you.

I've been trying to figure out where I learned mil from. While I do have
an electronic-ish background, it's not really a unit you'd use when
repairing something. It's likely from an an older designer or engineer
friend.

Circular mils are still common enough when it comes to electrical guages,
such as a 500MCM cable, even though that's sort of a weird unit- "thousand
circular mils." Pretty sure that's the same as a 1/2" copper rod.


You sure about that???
Comes out to more like a 3/4 inch copper rod (actually 0.8" diameter)

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:53:34 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 20:12:37 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 08:48:57 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:21:21 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".

When they're that old, you should sell them to interior decorators for
use as foliage planters. They look nice with a Wandering Jew twined
around the bedways, standing between a miniature palm and a ficus
tree. d8-)

Well, this was when I was in High School and the shop was at least 2nd
generation in the same building. It was owned and operated by two
bachelor brothers who didn't talk to each other. The entire shop
except for some bench grinders operated from a single electric motor
"out back" driving an overhead shaft system. Strangely I don't
remember thinking it was an odd place to work :-)

One of the brothers had an absolutely like new Henderson 4 cylinder
motorcycle that he used to ride to work occasionally which certainly
was interesting.

As a summer hire apprentice I wasn't doing any high tech stuff, they
had me making nuts on the old lathe. Even then, making 50 cents an
hour, I can't see how the finances worked. 12 ft of hex stock in an
antique lathe, Drill, tap, part off, advance the stock a bit and do it
again. Sort of a human screw machine :-)

At least he didn't have you start with round bar stock...


But they paid every Friday afternoon at quitting time. Cash in the
hand.

When I hear stories like that, I wonder how the United States, and the
West in general, ever managed to produce anything that anyone could
afford.

Just before wire EDM came into use, I started covering tool and
diemaking, and visited a lot of t&d shops. I watched diemakers rough
out blanking dies with a bandsaw, breaking the blade, threading it
through the work (they milled out a really rough hole first, but it
usually was nowhere near the final size), and then re-welding the
blade back together. Then they'd break the blade to remove the die
from the saw, and they'd go to work with diemaker's chisels, cutting
close to the line and chiseling in some die relief. Then, possibly, on
to the die-filer. Next, hand-filing with files down to jeweler-file
size. After that, the die would go out for heat-treating.


When I was at Edwards AFB they had an "Electric Spark Machine". I was
there for about a year and saw it used just once. A guy made a set of
dies to punch out counterfeit quarters for the Coke Machine.

Interestingly he tried a number of alloys for his counterfeit quarters
and the Coke Machine rejected them all :-)


When it came back, out came the slips and stones, trial-mating the die
with a punch, re-stoning to fit, over and over.

That was for simple diesets. Anything complicated was likely to
require a multi-part die, which had to be fitted together in pieces
that were dowelled to the die base. My God...



In 1977, I was one of the writers for American Machinist's 100th
Anniversary issue. For a year, we all poured through the old AM
archives, going back 100 years. The term "mil," for thousandth,
appeared all of the time in the old volumes, as a slangy shorthand,
like the way we use the term "tenths" today.

Then, I'd say roughly in the late '30s, the term "mil" all but
disappeared. Universal use of gage blocks, sub-thousandths accuracy,
aircraft and military specs combined to add another decimal point to
required accuracies. American Machinist adopted a style point of using
numerical values to express accuracy, with a zero before the decimal
point for metrics, and with no leading zero for inch-based dimensions.
Written out in English, we used "thousandths," "ten-thousandths," and
"microinches." Metrics were a problem child, as we first used
"micron," and then, when SI came in vogue, "micro-meter."

Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.

BTW, don't get me started on "gage" versus "gauge." That one has a
history, too. There used to be an important distinction, but that
distinction has been lost in time.
--

Cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 08:56:26 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 04/24/2016 8:12 AM, John B. wrote:
...

As a summer hire apprentice I wasn't doing any high tech stuff, they
had me making nuts on the old lathe. Even then, making 50 cents an
hour, I can't see how the finances worked. 12 ft of hex stock in an
antique lathe, Drill, tap, part off, advance the stock a bit and do it
again. Sort of a human screw machine :-)

Can't help but wonder what size these would've been and who was the
customer? All except the most unusual would seem to have been bulk
items long before then...

It was a LONG time ago but as I remember it they were normal sized
nuts. Nothing that you couldn't buy off the shelf in the local
hardware store.

But "back in the day" apprentices did not argue with the Boss, so I
never asked :-)


But they paid every Friday afternoon at quitting time. Cash in the
hand.
...

JC Penney paid my (then future) wife in cash in $2 bills and change
every week in those days, too, when J. C. himself was still around. In
his 90s, he remembered meeting her in the hometown store a couple years
earlier when visiting the store in Manhattan where we were in school at
the time and she worked in that store...while not metal-working, there
were metal coins in the pay envelopes...

:-)

I was stationed at an airbase near Selma, Alabama and the local folks
didn't appreciate the Air Base people at all. The Base Commander
arranged for us to be paid in 2 dollar bills and silver dollars one
payday. There was a noticeable warming of the town's attitude toward
us thereafter.
--

Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:44:12 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:53:34 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 20:12:37 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 08:48:57 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:21:21 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".

When they're that old, you should sell them to interior decorators for
use as foliage planters. They look nice with a Wandering Jew twined
around the bedways, standing between a miniature palm and a ficus
tree. d8-)

Well, this was when I was in High School and the shop was at least 2nd
generation in the same building. It was owned and operated by two
bachelor brothers who didn't talk to each other. The entire shop
except for some bench grinders operated from a single electric motor
"out back" driving an overhead shaft system. Strangely I don't
remember thinking it was an odd place to work :-)

One of the brothers had an absolutely like new Henderson 4 cylinder
motorcycle that he used to ride to work occasionally which certainly
was interesting.

As a summer hire apprentice I wasn't doing any high tech stuff, they
had me making nuts on the old lathe. Even then, making 50 cents an
hour, I can't see how the finances worked. 12 ft of hex stock in an
antique lathe, Drill, tap, part off, advance the stock a bit and do it
again. Sort of a human screw machine :-)

At least he didn't have you start with round bar stock...


But they paid every Friday afternoon at quitting time. Cash in the
hand.

When I hear stories like that, I wonder how the United States, and the
West in general, ever managed to produce anything that anyone could
afford.

Just before wire EDM came into use, I started covering tool and
diemaking, and visited a lot of t&d shops. I watched diemakers rough
out blanking dies with a bandsaw, breaking the blade, threading it
through the work (they milled out a really rough hole first, but it
usually was nowhere near the final size), and then re-welding the
blade back together. Then they'd break the blade to remove the die
from the saw, and they'd go to work with diemaker's chisels, cutting
close to the line and chiseling in some die relief. Then, possibly, on
to the die-filer. Next, hand-filing with files down to jeweler-file
size. After that, the die would go out for heat-treating.


When I was at Edwards AFB they had an "Electric Spark Machine". I was
there for about a year and saw it used just once. A guy made a set of
dies to punch out counterfeit quarters for the Coke Machine.

I'm curious -- what year was that?


Interestingly he tried a number of alloys for his counterfeit quarters
and the Coke Machine rejected them all :-)

He was too early. Today, he probably could get away with any scrap
metal. g



When it came back, out came the slips and stones, trial-mating the die
with a punch, re-stoning to fit, over and over.

That was for simple diesets. Anything complicated was likely to
require a multi-part die, which had to be fitted together in pieces
that were dowelled to the die base. My God...



In 1977, I was one of the writers for American Machinist's 100th
Anniversary issue. For a year, we all poured through the old AM
archives, going back 100 years. The term "mil," for thousandth,
appeared all of the time in the old volumes, as a slangy shorthand,
like the way we use the term "tenths" today.

Then, I'd say roughly in the late '30s, the term "mil" all but
disappeared. Universal use of gage blocks, sub-thousandths accuracy,
aircraft and military specs combined to add another decimal point to
required accuracies. American Machinist adopted a style point of using
numerical values to express accuracy, with a zero before the decimal
point for metrics, and with no leading zero for inch-based dimensions.
Written out in English, we used "thousandths," "ten-thousandths," and
"microinches." Metrics were a problem child, as we first used
"micron," and then, when SI came in vogue, "micro-meter."

Anyway, the point is that no one here is old enough to remember the
use of "mil" for thousandths of an inch, but some of us who were
deeply involved in metalworking history have seen it used a lot in the
deep past.

BTW, don't get me started on "gage" versus "gauge." That one has a
history, too. There used to be an important distinction, but that
distinction has been lost in time.

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 21:50:30 -0400
Ed Huntress wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:44:12 +0700, John B.
wrote:

Interestingly he tried a number of alloys for his counterfeit quarters
and the Coke Machine rejected them all :-)

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:53:34 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

He was too early. Today, he probably could get away with any scrap
metal. g

The machines I looked at several years ago only took bills. I guess
they have them now that you can pay with your smart phone...

A different kind of counterfeiting required to bypass them

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 21:50:30 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:44:12 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:53:34 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 20:12:37 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 08:48:57 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:21:21 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".

When they're that old, you should sell them to interior decorators for
use as foliage planters. They look nice with a Wandering Jew twined
around the bedways, standing between a miniature palm and a ficus
tree. d8-)

Well, this was when I was in High School and the shop was at least 2nd
generation in the same building. It was owned and operated by two
bachelor brothers who didn't talk to each other. The entire shop
except for some bench grinders operated from a single electric motor
"out back" driving an overhead shaft system. Strangely I don't
remember thinking it was an odd place to work :-)

One of the brothers had an absolutely like new Henderson 4 cylinder
motorcycle that he used to ride to work occasionally which certainly
was interesting.

As a summer hire apprentice I wasn't doing any high tech stuff, they
had me making nuts on the old lathe. Even then, making 50 cents an
hour, I can't see how the finances worked. 12 ft of hex stock in an
antique lathe, Drill, tap, part off, advance the stock a bit and do it
again. Sort of a human screw machine :-)

At least he didn't have you start with round bar stock...


But they paid every Friday afternoon at quitting time. Cash in the
hand.

When I hear stories like that, I wonder how the United States, and the
West in general, ever managed to produce anything that anyone could
afford.

Just before wire EDM came into use, I started covering tool and
diemaking, and visited a lot of t&d shops. I watched diemakers rough
out blanking dies with a bandsaw, breaking the blade, threading it
through the work (they milled out a really rough hole first, but it
usually was nowhere near the final size), and then re-welding the
blade back together. Then they'd break the blade to remove the die
from the saw, and they'd go to work with diemaker's chisels, cutting
close to the line and chiseling in some die relief. Then, possibly, on
to the die-filer. Next, hand-filing with files down to jeweler-file
size. After that, the die would go out for heat-treating.


When I was at Edwards AFB they had an "Electric Spark Machine". I was
there for about a year and saw it used just once. A guy made a set of
dies to punch out counterfeit quarters for the Coke Machine.

I'm curious -- what year was that?


It must have been in the mid 1960's.

They also had a "tape controlled" machine there that would do things
automatically. It could even change tools, or so I was told. One guy
had been to school on the control system but it was never used while I
was there.

I did ask the guy how it worked and it used a punched tape like a
telex machine. The left column was, say longitudinal travel, and one
punch was one increment of movement.
--

Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:26:16 -0400, Leon Fisk
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 21:50:30 -0400
Ed Huntress wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:44:12 +0700, John B.
wrote:

Interestingly he tried a number of alloys for his counterfeit quarters
and the Coke Machine rejected them all :-)

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:53:34 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

He was too early. Today, he probably could get away with any scrap
metal. g

The machines I looked at several years ago only took bills. I guess
they have them now that you can pay with your smart phone...

A different kind of counterfeiting required to bypass them

Once again, technology opens up endless entrepreneurial opportunities.
d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 19:38:27 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 21:50:30 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:44:12 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 09:53:34 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 20:12:37 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 08:48:57 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:21:21 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".

When they're that old, you should sell them to interior decorators for
use as foliage planters. They look nice with a Wandering Jew twined
around the bedways, standing between a miniature palm and a ficus
tree. d8-)

Well, this was when I was in High School and the shop was at least 2nd
generation in the same building. It was owned and operated by two
bachelor brothers who didn't talk to each other. The entire shop
except for some bench grinders operated from a single electric motor
"out back" driving an overhead shaft system. Strangely I don't
remember thinking it was an odd place to work :-)

One of the brothers had an absolutely like new Henderson 4 cylinder
motorcycle that he used to ride to work occasionally which certainly
was interesting.

As a summer hire apprentice I wasn't doing any high tech stuff, they
had me making nuts on the old lathe. Even then, making 50 cents an
hour, I can't see how the finances worked. 12 ft of hex stock in an
antique lathe, Drill, tap, part off, advance the stock a bit and do it
again. Sort of a human screw machine :-)

At least he didn't have you start with round bar stock...


But they paid every Friday afternoon at quitting time. Cash in the
hand.

When I hear stories like that, I wonder how the United States, and the
West in general, ever managed to produce anything that anyone could
afford.

Just before wire EDM came into use, I started covering tool and
diemaking, and visited a lot of t&d shops. I watched diemakers rough
out blanking dies with a bandsaw, breaking the blade, threading it
through the work (they milled out a really rough hole first, but it
usually was nowhere near the final size), and then re-welding the
blade back together. Then they'd break the blade to remove the die
from the saw, and they'd go to work with diemaker's chisels, cutting
close to the line and chiseling in some die relief. Then, possibly, on
to the die-filer. Next, hand-filing with files down to jeweler-file
size. After that, the die would go out for heat-treating.


When I was at Edwards AFB they had an "Electric Spark Machine". I was
there for about a year and saw it used just once. A guy made a set of
dies to punch out counterfeit quarters for the Coke Machine.

I'm curious -- what year was that?


It must have been in the mid 1960's.

Ah, OK, that fits. Sinker-type EDMs were pretty capable by then, and
you could use a quarter, say, as an electrode, to burn the end of a
punch or die.

But I think you'd go through a lot of quarters doing it.
Tungsten-silver was a premium electrode material, but I think that
plain silver would melt off pretty quickly.


They also had a "tape controlled" machine there that would do things
automatically. It could even change tools, or so I was told. One guy
had been to school on the control system but it was never used while I
was there.

I did ask the guy how it worked and it used a punched tape like a
telex machine. The left column was, say longitudinal travel, and one
punch was one increment of movement.

Um...that's how I learned lathe programming. We had a Sheldon 1710H
controlled by a Bendix 5 NC, and a teletypewriter to key in and punch
the paper tape. I could program straight cylinders and tapers, and
face them off, IIRC. g I never did any actual work with it; the real
machinists wanted to play with it and hogged the keyboard.

For anything complex, we used a telephone-connected time-sharing
system that did the programming by computer.

--
Ed Huntress

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:44:12 +0700
John B. wrote:

snip
Interestingly he tried a number of alloys for his counterfeit quarters
and the Coke Machine rejected them all :-)

Mid 70's... one of my fellow shop class students figured out that he
could re-size pennies using the 1 inch vertical belt sander. Schools
vending machines took them as dimes. He was caught a short time later
working at the belt sander

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:35:47 -0400, Leon Fisk
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:44:12 +0700
John B. wrote:

snip
Interestingly he tried a number of alloys for his counterfeit quarters
and the Coke Machine rejected them all :-)

Mid 70's... one of my fellow shop class students figured out that he
could re-size pennies using the 1 inch vertical belt sander. Schools
vending machines took them as dimes. He was caught a short time later
working at the belt sander

Imagine doing time in a federal prison for counterfeiting dimes. g

--
Ed Huntress

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:47:39 -0400
Ed Huntress wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:35:47 -0400, Leon Fisk
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:44:12 +0700
John B. wrote:

snip
[...]

Mid 70's... one of my fellow shop class students figured out that he
could re-size pennies using the 1 inch vertical belt sander. Schools
vending machines took them as dimes. He was caught a short time later
working at the belt sander

Imagine doing time in a federal prison for counterfeiting dimes. g

After reading John's story I wonder if the pennies material helped it
to be accepted. Some of those machines had pretty innovative means of
detecting real coins. The thing that tripped the kid up was using the
schools shop equipment. If he could have done the work elsewhere it
would have taken a lot longer to catch him.

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email