Thread: Forays to Shepparton and Newport

While visiting Melbourne a couple of weeks ago I took up the invitations to visit of both Ray Gardiner and Christian Groves. Josh was in Sydney installing artwork for his brother, so, sadly, I missed his infectious enthusiasm. Fortunately for me, we had caught up a couple of day's earlier at Greqory Q's home.
The work I saw at both Ray's and Christian's was stunning. All three blokes are woodies. For me, the following photos capture the essence of their work... Some refurbished Varnamo components. Then Josh's unfinished blanket chest dovetails. The matchbox size circuit board is one of 5000 FM tuners Ray designed for the Linzer Klangvolke, an open-air multimedia musical event held in Linz, Austria. The graphics, the bright red board and the components all work together. A piece of jewellery. (Love the ELMO)

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Christian used his CNC Tormach mill to cut the teeth on the collection of plane floats. Then there's his pair of purfling cutters and a veneer stripping (?) tool. And the wonderful product of those tools. I was hoping to see Christian's little Macson suface grinder assembled and running. Alas, it was disassembled, nicely primed for painting and not running.

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BT

wow.....

Hi BT,

Your pictures always make things look better .... I enjoyed your visit, always good to meet someone with similar sense of humor... I'm looking forward to the next visit,...

I've seen Christian's work first hand, and it's very impressive. I love the inlay and stringing.

I hadn't seen the floats before however.. and I'm curious about a couple of things, they look heat treated? if so how do you stop warping during the heat treatment process with that profile, the float I made, bent like a banana when quenched..

Regards
Ray

Hello Bob,

It was good to have you over and hang out in the workshop. I reckon you should also post pictures of your "woodie" related stuff that you sent me. Pretty impressive also. Unfortunately I still haven't finished painting the surface grinder. I don't like spraying in the workshop and it hasn't exactly been the weather to do it outside. I'll update the macson surface grinder thread when I'm done with the painting.

I can't take credit for the designs of the tools they're pretty much copies of what is available from a tool maker with the initials LN. The veneer cutters still need to have a knurled brass knob added to the pentagon post....

Ray: The floats have been heat treated. I still need to clean, sharpen and add the handles. The best way to keep them flat is to include a note to the heat treater, "please flatten!" ). I used Hills heat treatment and was very happy with the job. I couldn't imagine trying to do them myself. Even the stress of cutting the teeth made them bend. As the cutter became less sharp the more they bent.


Regards, Christian

Thanks Christian,

We used Hills for the forum M2 chisels and plane blades, and they did a great job, very minimal distortion and clean finish, the previous heat treatment mob was surface technology ( a sutton subsidiary ) but they were too busy with in house sutton work to take on outside jobs, and in any case they used a salt bath treatment which left a pretty ordinary surface finish.

Nitriding and Heat Treatment anyone for nitrided plane floats?

I can't get the Hills Heat Treatment web site to come up, but I did find a youtube video, for anyone looking to get some heat treatment done..



Regards
Ray

Hello Ray,

I was near one of Hills regular pickup/deliver routes so they even picked up and delivered the floats. Given how fiddly the job was and that they picked up and delivered I was surprised how reasonable the price was.

I don't know about nitriding plane floats but after the machinery expo I've got a serious crush on those seigmund nitrided tool steel welding tables:

Bernd Siegmund GmbH- ( EN ) Endurance test Professional Extreme - YouTube

Although given my lack of space something like these ones would have to do.
BuildProâ„¢ Welding Tables Homepage

I was thinking that making something like those wouldn't be too hard. I reckon if you wanted a heat treatable top something like Xyler plate K1042 might be the go. http://steelproducts.bluescopesteel....August2009.pdf

Something to add to the long list of projects...

Christian

Originally Posted by CGroves

I don't know about nitriding plane floats but after the machinery expo I've got a serious crush on those seigmund nitrided tool steel welding tables:

Bernd Siegmund GmbH- ( EN ) Endurance test Professional Extreme - YouTube


Christian

Impressive, I like the bit where they strap explosives to the bench! every workshop should have a bench like that.

Regards
Ray

Christian,

I love those tables. Jodie from welding tips and tricks on youtube is a big fan of the strong hand table.

The car I am building requires a lot fabrication work so I built myself a table. As a base I bought from grays a 1170x750 welding table with a 50mm thich slab of steel for a top.

I then made a jig to drill the holes by hand. The jig is 50x25 ally section with 19mm holes drilled at 100mm centres. I then turned up some bushes to guide a 5mm pilot drill and tap size drill for M12x1.25. I picked this size as it is the same as my mill clamp kit, so I can use all it's rods and nuts.

To stop weld spatter sticking I give it a quick spray with some home brand canola spray.....

I have attached a photo of the table with a few set ups that I commonly use mocked up and my drilling jig. If you do a lot of fabrication work having a good table is really nice.

The only improvement I plan to make is to drill and tap more holes, as I find the 100mm centres too far apart. This means I need another 77 holes.....

Cheers

Piers

Hello Piers,

It looks like a very handy setup. At 50mm thick you won't have to worry about distortion. Doing 77 holes in 50mm thick steel will take some patience although I reckon 50mm would be a better spacing. The thing I like about the tables is that they have grid lines milling/engraved on them. I reckon that would be handy when setting up things as it would allow you to get pretty close first time.

I like the strong arm tables as they allow you to get a standard g/f-clamp pretty much anywhere on the table.

BTW, what sort of car are you building?

Christian

Hi Christian,

When I add another row of holes it will definitely be with a mag base drill.

The car I am building is a replica Lancia 037 group B rally car. The 037 was originally built using the cockpit of a road going Lancia Montecarlo which they cut the front and back off and replaced with a tubular space frame, with a kevlar body on top.

So to build my car I am fabricating all the space frames, suspension arms and front and rear firewalls.

You can see some good photos of the 037 here:

ConnectingRod.it

I have attached a photo of my project.

I should probably start a thread for the build.

Cheers

Piers

P.S prior to a tree change I was just up the road in Seddon...