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Eyup peeps, back at turning the pivot for the arbor, this blue steel is so damn hard. My gravers barely touch it, i thought it might have been my sharpening of them but brass rod is streaming curls of swarf. I dont have carbide gravers so it looks like I'm going to have to make one from a carbide drill.  Who likes my new watch chair, ive had to raise it up because of shortarsedness on my part ( bench is actually too tall ) .

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On 6/13/2024 at 1:32 PM, nevenbekriev said:

One way is to file it by hand. Good file with sharp edge is needed.

Another way is with the aid of milling attachment.

Then the nice thing about the typical watchmaker's lathe is it comes with its own indexing fixture. I found a nice picture online the show this they usually a Pin that's used to stop the head from rotating it goes into a circle of holes which you can use for indexing to make things like squares.

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On 6/14/2024 at 4:31 AM, Neverenoughwatches said:

The alum attacks steel parts only, my thoughts were if the alum solution could be localised to the inside hole only it may break up the screw before it damages the arbor threads.  Just a thought.

This is a really interesting idea that definitely would never work. First off are talking about a really tiny place that you're supposed to put this I'm not sure how you'd ever get it in there it only in there. Then when it's busy dissolving away no guarantee of exactly the pattern it will take and if it ever touches the threads of course will dissolve those at once it makes it to the threads conceivably it might leak all over the place and dissolve everything. Nice fantasy plan but it's purely a fantasy

On 6/14/2024 at 12:57 AM, Neverenoughwatches said:

Not sure if the square steel i have is carbide but the round is from a carbide drill bit.

Carbide drills are interesting in how some of them are made. Some of them actually have only carbide drills and the rest of the base is not carbide others are solid carbide. If there's solid carbide the other part the base works really good for cutters but if it's not solid then you basically Have steel of some kind.

If you get desperate you can buy carbide gravers

https://www.eternaltools.com/carbide-gravers

 

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16 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

Carbide drills are interesting in how some of them are made. Some of them actually have only carbide drills and the rest of the base is not carbide others are solid carbide. If there's solid carbide the other part the base works really good for cutters but if it's not solid then you basically Have steel of some kind.

If you get desperate you can buy carbide gravers

You're right john , i tried to make one this afternoon from a carbide bit,  everything except the fluted drill itself was soft. 

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1 hour ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

inserts

To get you started I have an image. One of my friends was starting to make a watch before his eyesight took him out so he never finished unfortunately. But I did get to see some of the tools that he had made for the watchmaking. His fun was really designing and making tools to solve problems.

So on one occasion I saw how he was going to cut his pivots it worked really really nicely and I was very impressed with the little tiny carbide insert. I carefully wrote the number down looked it up and suitable for us properly labeled an image so I know exactly what it is.

Jazz UNC carbide inserts come in all different sizes this is just the beginning. What makes the inserts nice is they are precisely made and have very nice radius is I will make very nice smooth cuts. Then normally these are for inside pipe cutting or inside whole cutting or you do need really tiny cutters but they work really nice as a tiny cutter. Then somewhere around here I probably the catalog as you can see they come in a whole bunch of grades basically there's a heck of a lot to choose from.

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1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

To get you started I have an image. One of my friends was starting to make a watch before his eyesight took him out so he never finished unfortunately. But I did get to see some of the tools that he had made for the watchmaking. His fun was really designing and making tools to solve problems.

So on one occasion I saw how he was going to cut his pivots it worked really really nicely and I was very impressed with the little tiny carbide insert. I carefully wrote the number down looked it up and suitable for us properly labeled an image so I know exactly what it is.

Jazz UNC carbide inserts come in all different sizes this is just the beginning. What makes the inserts nice is they are precisely made and have very nice radius is I will make very nice smooth cuts. Then normally these are for inside pipe cutting or inside whole cutting or you do need really tiny cutters but they work really nice as a tiny cutter. Then somewhere around here I probably the catalog as you can see they come in a whole bunch of grades basically there's a heck of a lot to choose from.

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Thanks John, i will definitely look into those for future turning . As a temporary measure to keep me going today i reshaped and sharpened a carbide drill used on  porcelain tiles. It cuts the blued steel perfectly.  As always appreciate the information John. 

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59 minutes ago, nevenbekriev said:

Thanks Nev, i seen these on Ebay thought they would be too cheap to be any good. I thought about pulling the tungsten from circular saw blades and router worktop bits.

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2 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

I use them 15 years, have figured nothing beter. Just a pieces entirely made of tungsten carbide. I thought small price is not bad feature at all...

Thanks nev, i will give them a try.

2 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

Hi @nevenbekriev, can you share what you use for a parting tool.

No doubt he will make it, but i also would like to see if it is a conventional shape.

I managed to make a new pivot for the arbor using a combination of a homemade carbide graver, a diamond file and a degussit stone. Then broke the pivot inside the arbor when trying the fit 😪. Looks like i will find out if plugging a hole to drill a larger hole will work.

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14 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

Hi @nevenbekriev, can you share what you use for a parting tool.

Hi Hector, actually I don't use such thing. When I need to cut something, I use dremel with thin cutting disk or jewellers saw. Sometimes, for example for stems channel, I use this kind of cutter shape

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It is made of carbide drill bit

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Thanks @nevenbekriev. I've been using a mini hacksaw to cut off my work pieces. 

I see you mounted your cutters on their own holders, made of angled steel. Clever! 

I bought the smallest quick change tool post available but when mounted on the cross slide, it is much too big. 

 

How did you drill through the head of the bolt?

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All the holes on the cutter holders are drilled on the lathe. The drill bit in the chuck on the spingle, the holder in place. The holes in the bolt heads are drilled after the bolts are tightened in place, the holders are mounted in order to hold the bolts perprndiculat to the drill bit. After drilling, the heads of the bolts are turned on their down side as to alow tightening of the cutter when the nut is tightened. Height position of the cutter tip is adjusted by slight turning of the bolt head by force. The cutters are preset and ready to use, and sharpenning them practically doesn't change height adjustment.

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