tools, materials & knowledge for model makers
Whilst fitting the DRO I realised that I had created a space for a Sieg SX2.7 stiffening bracket. A bracket that could link the column and the base adding significant stiffness to the machine overall. Whilst fitting the DRO I had to move the power supply case on the machine back 22mm. This was required to … Read more
The Sieg SX2.7 DRO installation has not been straight forward, but all of the work in the end is very worthwhile. Therefore, I thought I should share my experiences warts and all. The kit I’m fitting is supplied by Machine DRO and is the 3 Axis M-DRO Mill Digital Readout Package including 350mm, 450mm and … Read more
Really simple mechanical Stops for the Sieg SX2.7 milling machine. Sometimes on a manual milling machine it is useful to travel to a hard stop on the main axis. This allows you to create a simple repeat of an operation such as machining a grill pattern where the grooves all start and stop at the … Read more
My workshop is quite small and bench space is at a premium, the length of the milling machine table can have quite an impact. So, do you go for a long table or a shorter table? My Sieg SX2.7 milling machine has a table that is 595 x 140 mm. This is the standard table. … Read more
Sieg SX2.7 Angel Eyes is all about giving this machine a light source that wraps around the tool and fully illuminates the workpiece. I’ve been using the Sieg SX2.7 for some time on a range of projects and it is working really well. However, as I get older I struggle to get really good light … Read more
The front wheel hubs are quite small, 18mm in diameter, considering the features that are machined into them. This is my excuse then for having to machine 5 of these hubs before getting a pair that were correct. I don’t want wobbly wheels on my miniature Burrell traction engine. The front wheels rotate independently on … Read more
Very soon after buying a milling machine I can guarantee you will be looking at rotary tables. A rotary table feels like a must have. Use it to machine: arcs flats on bolt heads and nuts rotate a part to be drilled at precise divisions or angles large circular parts that cannot be machined in … Read more
The rear wheel hubs for the miniature traction engine that I’m making need to be indexed with eight spokes each side of a single wheel. The trick is that the spokes are out of “phase” and so the hub needs to have this out of phase feature. This post talks about how I went about aligning … Read more
My first go at machining a rear wheel tread pair for my miniature traction engine was not that successful. That meant I needed another go. The rear wheel tread pair are handed and the tread grooves are 4mm wide and machined at 7 degrees with a depth of 0.75mm, 35 grooves in total. The rear … Read more
The rear wheel treads on these 97mm diameter wheels are just 0.75mm thick and so after some consideration were designed as a machined feature rather than a riveted tread. The rim itself is just 2.75mm thick, designed to give a 2mm thick rim and 0.75mm thick tread. The two wheel rims were machined from stock … Read more