August 2007 MDMC Newsletter

Metro Detroit Metalworking Club

August, 2007

President’s message: I have returned from the Philippines where I installed and commissioned my CNC punching machine. It was a fine adventure where almost everything went right. My hosts were gracious and showed me around metro Manila . With their help, I was able to find my Grandfather’s name on the tables of the Missing in the American Cemetery . He was killed in action near the end of WWII. He was a medical doctor who managed to find a boat when the Japanese were invading and get the nurses to safety. He was captured. Our sub sank the unmarked transport ship (later referred to as “hell ships”).

The machine installation went fine. The staff was really sharp and caught on to the machine and the programming right away. 4 or 5 of us collaborated on some tooling for the punch that will reduce part completion time by half. Everybody spoke some English and they were very polite, calling me “Sir John.” They get all our TV shows, hear our music and get bombarded by all our advertising.

See you at James’ place, Wednesday, August 8^th, 7:00pm for a fine evening.

NEWSFLASH FROM JAMES HOWARD: As I mentioned at the July meeting, my plans to provide an evening of pottery techniques fell through due to lack of an affordable presenter. Perhaps next year. But Rick Chownyk has offered to demonstrate a simple lost foam casting process here in the back yard, to my great delight. I hope to have him to make me a mushroom dolly for copper bowl raising. I will have my knife sharpener out and ready to go for any person or spouse who would like to have a good quality carbon steel (only) kitchen knife fully restored and then sharpened to a super fine edge. I have acquired 4 or 5 lengths of 3/4" pipe from a neighborhood home restoration and will make them available to anyone who wants to have one of the fencepost tools I demonstrated a year or so ago at a club meeting. Anyone interested need only bring a 3/4" to 1/2" reducer and a 1/2" tee and I will supply everything else. Anyone else who may wish to demonstrate any portable technique of interest to this group is most welcome to bring it along and call me if any special bits and pieces are required. My wife and I welcome all spouses and women friends and we will look after them and make them comfortable in every way. I have acquired a pair of 6" steel panels rusted to a beautiful color and previously grooved by truck tires into great curves along the edges, a poor man's Richard Serra. I see them as great garden art and my wife sees them as just one more piece of junk around here. I wish to consult with the mechanics of the membership on mounting techniques and with the gardeners on where to place them. Looking forward to seeing all of you again. My house is very easy to locate. We are two short blocks east of Livernois Avenue and two short blocks south of 7 Mile road, at xxxxx, Detroit , with a brightly lighted house number. Livernois in that area is around two miles west of Woodward Avenue .

Minutes: John Osborne called the meeting to order at 7:30pm . The Treasurer, Ken Hunt, indicated a treasury balance of $xxxx.
Don Foren reviewed details of his extensive collection of machinery DVDs and VCRs obtained from suppliers at Netflick.com. He indicated that certain of these could be copied and supplied to interested members and that John Osborne had a copy of the list.
Rick Chownyk presented an oral review of the techniques and materials involved the the fabrication of a lost foam casting. He and Don Foren displayed several samples and failed samples of castings using this technique, a one-off process similar to the lost wax process, but with less complexity and expense. Mr. Chownyk presented samples of the closed-cell styrofoam used in the process and indicated that common insulating sheet stock used in the building construction industry was acceptable material for this process. He indicated that the blue insulation foam was superior to the pink, it being heavier and better adalpted to the common carving techniques. He reviewed some additional materials such as textured ceiling compound, available from Ace Hardware and Home Depot.
A member reviewed HGR Industrial Surplus in Ohio as a fine source of a wide variety of used and new machinery and bit and pieces of machinery. The website for this company is hgrinc.com.
Another member announced that the Buckley, Michigan Old Engine Show would be held during the third week of August.

Here are Don Foren’s videos. Contact him to view one.

Building a Stirling Hot Air Engine Kououpt / New Life 1993 VHS 2

Hot Air Engines Bailey 1995 VHS

Drilling, Reaming, Tapping and Milling Kouhoupt / New Life 2001

Common Machine Shop Practices Prentice Hall 1999 VHS

Using Layout Tools Kouhoupt / New Life Video 2000 VHS

Pin striping Made Simple Kouhoupt / New Life Video 2004 DVD

Flux Core Arc Welding Wall Mountain Co VHS

Common Machine Shop Practices Prentice Hall 1999 VHS

Basic Hand Scraping Michael Morgan 2000 VHS

Scraping for Alignment Metalworking Machinery MDM 2007 DVD 2

Greensand Casting Techniques Volume 1 Gingery & Bailey 1991 VHS

Mark Alfrey's Standard Molds and Castings VHS

Cnc Routers 6 minutes VHS AutoRout

Build a computer Controlled Chain Driven Routing Machine David Anthony VHS 2

How to Cut Spur Gears Kouhoupt / New Life Video Productions VHS

Making Gears the Easy Way VFR Video 1997 DVD

Professional Machine Shop Course Vertical MILL ATI DVD 6

Fundamentals of Milling Machine Operation Kouhoupt / New Life Video 1992 VHS

Advanced Aspects of Milling Machine Operation Kouhoupt / New Life Video 2000 VHS

Professional Machine Shop Course Lathe ATI Accelerated Training Institute DVD 4

Fundamentals of Machine Lathe Operation Kouhoupt / New Life Video 1992 VHS

Advanced Aspects of Machine Lathe Operation Kouhoupt / New Life Video 1999 DVD

Grinding Lathe Tools Kouhoupt / New Life Video Productions 1995 VHS

Operating a Shaper Kouhoupt / New Life Video Productions 1996 VHS

6 Projects for the Shaper Kouhoupt / New Life Video Productions 2001 VHS