First cuts on the Tree - pawn porn!

Well the time has come finally to cut first chips on the Tree. Once I'd corrected the wiring on the spindle VFD, having moved the FWD / REV / Clear control lines from the Acorn expansion board to the ETHER1616 (to keep all HV wiring on the expansion board and LV on the ETHER1616), we are good to go.

I have a LH Kennametal toolholder for VCMT inserts that came with the machine, so I got this fitted with a VCGT (ground edges aka "aluminium cutting") and set up the stock. Previously I've used some mystery 1" brass stock to make my pawn test pieces on the Bantam but I've either misplaced any that remains or there is none left. Luckily(?) I have some 28mm acetal bar that can stand in instead. This stuff will doubtless be a royal PITA to machine due to its tendency to produce ribbons and clog stuff up but I can always stop the machine and clear up any birds nests.

Don't talk, just do it
Here we are, ready to go. "What could possibly go wrong" etc etc.

I thought I'd mount my camera (Samsung phone) on this tripod thingy but of course it's too heavy and simply droops.  

Hand held it is. And here's the proof. Yes, I had to stop several times to clear the ribbons. It is also wobbling like Fook but I guess that's acetal for you.

Parting off

Now to part it off, 'cos it's stuck on the end of a long piece of rod about 1m long. My other tools are 20mm, not 3/4", so I need to skim one of them down. This is a KGT holder, so takes the 2mm parting / profiling inserts. I can use that for parting and also for general profiling. So let's skim off 1mm from the base - 3/4" is 19.05mm.

Lots of sparks of course:

Not too bad, 0.2mm per pass. Could have been more aggressive - too shallow a cut actually makes it rub and shudder.

 That will do:

Onto the turret at position #2:

...and off with the pawn:

And?

Looks pretty reasonable, although it clearly had a bit of a wobble. Certainly looks better than the Bantam pawns.

I'm happy with that for a first trial.