g'day chris here and welcome back to clickspring if you spend a bit of time
in the shop making and using small mechanical devices then it's worthwhile
putting a bit of work into the tools required to look after them and one of
the most useful is an oiler the design is based on the classic stacked oiler
with two ruby reservoirs and a single pith would insert it's also an excellent
weekend live project with plenty of standard turning operations as well as
some fun creative work with form tools on the graver and whilst I've used brass
for the main components of the project they could easily be made from wood or a
wide range of other durable materials as suits your preference the design is also
intended to be fairly customisable and is a good combination of both precision
and freehand turning some features are best formed as precisely as possible by
for example to fit between each interlocking segment but other features
like the ornamental curves can be formed entirely according to taste so while it
is a precision tool there's still plenty of scope to have fun hand turning some
shapes and just seeing where the process takes you now a lot of the guesswork
about the curves can be removed by using the graver in combination with form
tools it's a process that I use often across the various projects because it
means that once I find a set of shapes that work I have a good chance of
repeating the result across multiple parts the shapes are very
straightforward to form freehand on the grinder or with smaller mounted grinding
wheels in the case of this concave cutter I used an abrasive wheel that I
happen to have on hand but the actual dimensions are not that important and a
wide range of diameters will work just fine
one interesting property of form tools is that every detail of the cutting edge
can't help but be printed upon the work so if the edge can be taken to a very
fine polish with say an oil stone or a belt sander and the cutter generates in
the workpiece ends up being very high-quality requiring only a quick tidy
up with abrasive paper once complete and of course all of this work is
something of an investment in the future of your shop with each cutting tool now
available for future projects or even repeats of this one now there's
considerable side force generated when using a form tool on the lathe so at a
minimum some sort of tail stock support is required and it's worth mentioning
that for most of us with the smaller benchtop machines this length of cutting
edge on a form tool is well over what our machines are usually designed to
handle so there will be a tendency for chatter but as always there are a few
ways to get around the problem one is to minimize the length of that cutting edge
as the cut proceeds to death by moving the tool ever so slightly from side to
side as the cut proceeds this limits the cut to one side or the other of the tool
and so reduces the tendency for chatter
the final cut is in taken with the machine turned off by simply pulling the
Chuck through by hand
okay so while it continued forming the component profiles I'd like to briefly
cover some points about oiling small mechanisms the main purpose of
lubrication of course is to minimize friction but it's rarely acceptable to
simply dump on some oil and then leave it at that at the most damaging end of
the scale are the aerosol based products to begin with the liquid itself isn't a
stable lubricant but more a solvent what oil it encounters it effectively removes
end of a first application to a mechanism tightly bound with old oil and
grime it might even give you the appearance of having done some good but
in reality it sets up the preconditions for future damage to the mechanism the
bearing surfaces are now essentially oil free replaced with a volatile material
that evaporates to a waxy coating within a few days and provides no meaningful
lubrication what it does very well though is attract and capture dust this
forms an effective grinding paste that starts to erode the bearing surface and
to add further insult to injury the aerosol application usually means that
the entire mechanism ends up getting a good coating so parts of the machine
that would never be lubricated in any circumstance and now coated attracting
dust and slowly being damaged now the situation is somewhat improved by
applying a good quality oil directly from a bottle nozzle but it's still very
difficult to avoid applying an excessive amount of oil too much oil and a cock
oil sink for example simply leads to it all trickling away drawing all of the
oil away from the bearing surface and again it ends up migrating summer it
shouldn't be and eventually causing a problem so the best solution by far is
to make sure that the correct amount and type of oil goes exactly where it needs
to be and to do that properly you need a precision oiler
now which all to use depends largely on the role of the component to widget
supplied a watch escaping for example requires a much lower viscosity oil
compared to say the center wheel pivot of a clock and this is the reason for
the multiple oil reservoirs two reservoirs provides capacity for at
least two grades of oil and reasonable compromise for most common mechanisms
the key to controlling the amount of oil apply for the oiler nibs which can be
formed to whatever size best suits the scale of your devices and the nips are
also a good example of how the stock that will eventually form the component
can also be used as a cutting tool in this case the harden pivot steel is
formed into a spade drill to open up the hole that will eventually be occupied by
the same material once it becomes a completed part
the nibs can be bonded into place with a modern adhesive or by using something
more traditional like shellac
the joules work well as a press-fit but again could be bonded into place with
shellac or a modern adhesive
the oil absorption properties of pith would make it most suitable for cleaning
dirt and oil from the nibs and for preventing cross-contamination between
the different oil grades
in use a drop or two of oil is transferred from the main oil supply the
smallest quantity can then be picked up and precisely applied to the mechanism
once the job is complete the whole stack can be reassembled sealing off each
reservoir from outside contamination and so protecting the oil within for future
use later in that session of work it's a great tool to have in the shop and makes
it that much easier to be sure that all you ever have how well-oiled machines
thanks for watching I'll see you later
you