Sieg X3
Sine of 45
I know most of my readers like action shots. Here are a few to keep the juices flowing. It’s just one very tiny step in the making of parts, but there is a bit of interesting machine set up going on here.
I had to cut a 3/32″ wide x 45 deg. chamfer on the one end of both of the two brackets I made for the tender steps. That doesn’t sound like much of a job, does it?
I priced 45 degree end mills and after I got back off the floor, I decided that wasn’t the least expensive way to run this job. At least for the two tiny cuts I needed to make. A file might work but it would look like… well you know, the smelly stuff.
I dusted off the sine vise and although it seemed like massive overkill, it wasn’t all that hard to set up. The fun part was I was able to do a little math and I actually like math. The reason it is called a sine vice is the height of the spacers (called sine blocks) is the sine of the angle desired times the distance away from the hinge.
Here I wanted 45 degrees, and the sine of 45 is sin(degrees(45)) = 0.70710678. I used o.707 as close enough. I have a 4 inch sine vice so the stack of blocks needs to be 0.707 x 4 = 2.828 inches. You can see that number on the top of the pink notepad in one picture. I rounded to 2.830 just to make it easier to build the stack and still be plenty (over) accurate for this task.
Two 1.000 inch, one .700 inch, and one .130 inch block does the job. The actual machining seemed trivial as it usually does. 🙂
Metric Thinking
I have been selling some metric tools (Proxxon) and actually using them too. I have discovered it is actually quite easy to work in either metric or SAE (inch) standards. There is no evil in either. I (almost) hate to admit I enjoy metric.
Of course the U.S. general prejudice to metric stemmed from our indoctrination, from what I now view in retrospect, to be a very lame educational system of the time. Post WWII there was a push for the USA to go metric. The requirement was to teach young children to exactly convert through (then) seemingly complex formula from one system to another. Remember, there were no calculators in those day. I could derive the equivalent answer but it made no sense why we would want to do this. The same thinking was crammed into our brains about temperature conversion.
In those days a student was not permitted to question the process but only to do as instructed.
As in learning a new language, it is very cumbersome to convert every word from one language to another. You only become efficient when you start thinking in the other language without the conversion. That is how metric should be understood.
I learned Morse code as a radio amateur. All radio operators will tell you that you do not become proficient until you stop counting dots and dashes and start “hearing” the sounds of letters. The really good can hear words. The very best hear Morse as a conversation.
When using metric hand tools I do not think of what millimeter is equal to in inch measurement. A good mechanic looks at a bolt and can say it is ½ inch or 12 mm, not stopping to think they are almost the same. When cars started using a lot… Continue reading
X3 Mill Digital Readout
Here it is! The full install of the DRO PROS (brand) DRO on the Sieg X3 small mill. Go to The Hobbyist Machine Shop web site to see all 80 photos and all the details on the digital readout installation. It is currently at the top of the menu list under WORKSHOP. Just click on “DRO PROS – DRO for the Sieg X3“.
The cold weather had been holding me out of my shop for awhile but outside temps up around freezing with two heaters going and some persistence, I got the job done in about four full days of work. I was also doing a lot of documentation and photos.
This conversion will make looking at rotary scales a thing of the past for me. The computer built into the DRO provides a lot of functions that will alleviate some of the layout work.
This review is of only the install process of getting the three axis scales installed. Later I plan to show how the DRO is to be best used. I may make a video for that.