Myford refurbishment continues – shaft competed
Today I only managed to complete the lever that releases tension on the countershaft/headstock belt. It is surprising to me still on how much I underestimate time required for each task.
No real problems were encountered and I had a chance to use my tailstock die holder for the first time, and it was great. One problem I did encounter however was the size of the aluminum ball for the end of the shaft. My ball turning tool I built to make the chess set was too small for the size of ball I wanted to turn so a compromise size had to be made. However it will do the job and I can make a larger one if I want to later on when I make a Mk2 version.
When fitting the shaft everything fitted nicely so it was a job worth doing. The next stage will be to carry on with the rebuild.
Stop press: The leadscrew has just been delivered so tomorrow I will start on making the new leadscrew.
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:43 pm
What did you estimate for this job and how long did it take? There’s approx 10 operations to make that handly, between 30mins and an hour a job? So between 5 and 10 hours would be my guess.
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Hello Andy, I must admit I don’t estimmate before I start. Maninly because i always underestimate and since I don’t need to account for my time its something I don’t need to do.
I will admit I am not a fast worker as I have to check and reheck everything because concentration goes….. In sessions, it took two, and my sessions vary between 4 and 6 hours. So your estimates are better than mine! Its a good job I don’t have to pay for my time, you could never afford to do it. If you said you earned say £20 per hour then this small job would be between £160 to £240 jsut for labour! Puts the cost of tooling etc. into perspective!
February 15th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I picked up some thoughts on estimation when I was at Dowty Aerospace as a trainee engineer. Typically setting up takes as long or longer than the machining so that’s where you can save time by ensuring as many machining operations as possible can be done per setup.