I have been posting in another section that was not quite the right topic so I am picking it up here.  I have been working on a Miser Stirling engine.  Most of the hard to make steel parts are done.  Today I made a connecting rod end.  I made everything on my converted Hardinge CHNC and converted Yamazen mill except for drilling the connecting rod end.  It required a .020" drill for an oil hole.  I did not have anything on my CHNC small enough to hold the rod end or the drill.  I moved it to my watch lathe.  The .020" drill is still 5 sizes larger than my smallest collet, which is .010".
(the picture of the finished miser is just to show what it will look like, I have a ways to go).

Vince

Very nice Vince !
Thanks for posting,
RC

That is just plain neat Vince. Looks good. 

Brett

Super job there Vince.
When do you find the time ?

Ed

Super job there Vince.
When do you find the time ?

Ed

Unfortunately, I am on a reduced work week, I'm down to 1 day a week.  The company I work for is up for sale.  If is sells, I should get back to full time, if not, I start looking for work.  I should know in a couple of weeks.  (I sold over $1,000 worth of stuff from my garage on eBay in the last month to pay for my projects).  I am trying to make one part a day.  I am also trying to work on my lathe and mill.  I need to add the smooth stepper to my lathe and I am going to change the BOB and speed control on my mill (I ordered all that stuff before the work slow down).  Then I have to move my MPG to a modbus board so I can get some more inputs for my probe.  It never seems to end, but since it's my hoby, I don't know what I would do if it did end.  I just ordered a bunch of parts to convert my watch lathe to CNC.  That would make 3 CNC lathes and 2 CNC mills at my house.  I guess you just can't have too many.

Vince

Vince,

 sounds like you got enough equipment to start your own shop. Do you have a Yamazen mill also?
 How did you make out with the cribbage board?

Ed

Vince,

 sounds like you got enough equipment to start your own shop. Do you have a Yamazen mill also?
 How did you make out with the cribbage board?

Ed

Yes, I have a Yamazen.  I wrote up the conversion here:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31601

I am still working on the G-code for the board.  I was trying to use LazyCam to generate the code.  I spent a couple of days hitting my head against the wall because LazyCam would not put any of the holes in a decent order.  I found out I had an older version.  When I downloaded the newer version it worked.  I may look into finding someone around here with a router table that is 4x4 to do all the drilling.  I think I could do it on my Yamazen, but it would take at least two set ups and I would have to take the enclosure off that I installed to keep the coolant neater.

Vince

I finished the rough draft of the G-code for the cribbage board.  I used the default feed rates for my mill and the cycle time for the entire board would be 3 hours.  There are 1434 lines of code.  If I were to use a router table I'm sure the time could be cut to under an hour.

Vince

Vince,

 Did you check out my Yamazen enclosure in my photobucket links.
The doors and the end panels are removable. No tools required. 
Is your Yamazen running on Mach?

Ed

Vince,

 Did you check out my Yamazen enclosure in my photobucket links.
The doors and the end panels are removable. No tools required. 
Is your Yamazen running on Mach?

Ed

I guess you didn't see the link above.  Yes, it is running on Mach.  I kept the Servo Dynamics drives and fed them with Pixie cards.  I now can get 450 IPM rapids.  With the original AB control system I was limited to 100 IPM. 

I thought about building an enclosure like you have, but I could not figure out how to seal the bottom and still have the knee move up and down.  I am changing from a water soluble coolant to an oil based one because of rusting so I think I will have to close it up even better than it is now.  Do you have any pictures of the bottom of your enclosure?  It looks like you installed a separate support structure for it.

Vince