Metal Milling

First day back at Uni after the break. My first class was MM2 (maths) and we had a new lecturer. Well, it turns out he wasn’t actually “new” to most of us because he lectured us last year in our programming course, Peter Bier. This time though he was going to be teaching us Multi-variable Calculus, whatever that is. The thing I really enjoy about Peter Bier is that he makes lectures interesting by entertaining us mid-lecture. Last year he showed us his prowess at uni-cycling as well as impressive juggling tricks, so I was excited to see what he had in store for us this time round. Half way through the lecture he showed us how to juggle – with one ball. But it wasn’t your usual juggling. It was more like ball rolling from hand to hand. I think it’s called “contact juggling”. It took him 3 months to learn apparently, and it looks pretty cool too!

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The milling machine looked pretty complicated at first

Tonight I continued my workshop practice at AUT. I had already spent two sessions previously on bench work and ended up constructing a dill gauge. Today it was time to change over, so our group moved to milling and lathe workshop. We were split up into two groups; half on the milling machines and half on the lathe machines. I had never used a milling machine before so everything looked pretty complicated to me at first. Our teaching assistant Paul showed us how to assemble and attach a drill bit to the milling machine, which required multiple pieces. He then showed us the basic controls of a milling machine and demonstrated how to shave off some metal to make it smooth. It was a very slow process but it didn’t look too hard.

All the pieces needed just to attach the drill bit

All the pieces needed just to assemble the drill bit

We were then sent away to our own machines to begin our project. The people on the milling machine, like me, are making a level (you know, one of those things you put up against an edge and it has the little bubble to tell you if it’s properly horizontal etc.) We were given a metal bar an we had to mill it down to the right width and height (25mm square) before we could continue. As we were milling the bar, we had to constantly spray this watery/milky stuff on the drill to help keep the metal cool (I think?). As you can see below, milling a piece of metal takes ages, especially if the bar is moving past the drill very slowly!

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It took nearly two hours, but eventually my metal bar was pretty close to being 25mm square, given the fact we were only taking off fractional millimetres at a time! Next week I think we’ll be adding the little level bubble to complete our project. Exciting stuff!