Power drawbar, curtains and swarf guards sorted

Finally got round to opening an account with BOC on Wednesday. If you want to make use of the Volkzone offer (Y size cylinder at a low rental for hobby users), you can't do it at a BOC agency or over the phone. However, the Docusign form from Stu Anderson (bus dev mgr) was quick and easy. The credit check(!) was completed this morning and I got my account number. So I called in at CPK Welding on the way home this afternoon and picked up my first cylinder of Pureshield. That's 100% argon for TIG welding. For MIG welding steels you generally have some CO2 added. Technically this should be referred to as "MAG" welding (Metal Active Gas), as the CO2 is not inert during the welding process.

Hardly anyone uses the Y size cylinder these days, which is presumably why BOC have come up with the Volkzone offer. Better to have them lying about gathering dust in hobby workshops earning rental for BOC than sitting unused at the BOC depot gathering dust!

I really don't need to connect up the gear selection solenoid yet, as I will be doing mostly high speed work, so for now I just need the power drawbar engagement solenoid to be connected up. This brings the electric impact driver down onto the splined (top) end of the drawbar. It shouldn't require much pressure, as it only has to work with the weight of the impact driver to overcome the return spring. My cunning plan was to use the argon cylinder to operate the pneumatic solenoid instead of using compressed air. I need argon anyway at some point soon, so it's possibly a cheaper solution for now, until I can get my hands on a small, quiet, used compressor.

Connected up the solenoid ("air" line and electricity), then ran a line to the back of the machine. At this point I had to swap over the brass fittings on the argon regulator. When I took my stuff to Canada in 2010, I found that the regulators didn't fit the N American gas bottles. However, I was able to buy the appropriate brass nuts and swap them over. The tricky bit was figuring out if the stub poking out of the regulator had right or left hand threads. None of the thread was visible, so it was a question of trial and error at the time. At least I remembered today that they are left hand threaded.

iCloud Photos app for Windows is infuriating. How they can have come up with something so counterintuitive and downright inconsistent is hard to comprehend. Anyway, out of the 15 or so photos I took this afternoon, 4 of them simply refuse to be downloaded, including the regulator pics. Bloody Apple. I'd love to meet the knobs who were (are?) responsible for this, just to understand what makes people  behave like that. Are they arrogant, stupid, ignorant, deliberately obstructive - or all of the above? If you've used iCloud Photos you will know what I mean.

I used the dual dial regulator that I normally use with the TIG welder. The first gauge indicates the pressure in the cylinder and as argon does not liquify under pressure, that is a handy indication of how much is left - it reads 230 bar when freshly filled. The second gauge is supposed to indicate the gas flow rate, although with no gas flowing it seems to indicate pressure, so as you wind the regulator knob in and out, the needle goes up and down. 

I also half inched the first few inches of the MIG gas hose and spliced it onto the end of the 1/4" Nylon hose. Job done, now to try it out. I set the regulator to a fairly low setting. I haven't bothered trying to measure what the actual pressure is but it works fine, so little point increasing it any further.

Heheh, that's better! Now on with the curtains:

3mm neoprene is pretty heavy stuff when you have to hang a 80cm wide piece of 1.4m sheet in 3mm thickness. But it's done. Forgive the Brown Stuff in the workshop - it is holding the top of the sheet up and gives another 20-25cm of height.

The slideway cover on the front of the saddle is clearly not a "genuine" replacement and is too long so that it hangs over the front of the chip tray. Any coolant and/or swarf  will end up on the floor, so it seemed a good time to shorten it and anchor the front end. Fitted a piece of loominum angle section using 2 of the bolts that secure the cover on the Y axis drive belt, then fixed the front of the cover with M4 stainless button headed screws. 

The slideways are chrome plated and seem to be in good nick. I think generally, one of the (cast iron) surfaces is chromed and the mating surface is scraped and unplated.

This the curtain work completed:

Finally, time to get round to refitting the machine guard, as much for swarf control as personal safety. This is a Nelsa system. Seems they still sell it - or something very similar. It's called the "slide and swing aside" (SSA) system. It's in reasonable condition, considering. The main downside of this (not having actually used it yet, mind), is that it limits how high you can raise the knee before the top of the guard hits the bottom of the head / console / support arm. If I find that I have to use the quill near full extension, I may refit the machine vise on its swivel base to raise it up an inch or two. As it was, I moved the vise 2 slots closer to the rear of the table so that the tightening screw clears the sliding door.

So that's it - power drawbar operational, curtains fitted and machine guard refitted. Bargain buckets.