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This weeks followed me home...Kennedy box, and Excello right angle head.

D

Dan Dubeau

Ultra Member
New coworker was getting rid of his old kennedy. As much as I hate them, it's a much better fit for the hutch above my workbench, so I bought it and swapped it out for my 2 drawer mechanics kennedy.
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I also picked up a right angle head for my Excello. Saw it advertised last week for $225, and drove up to get it. The guy had bought it for his taiwan b-port clone, and it didn't fit (Excello's have bigger diam quills). Owner before him had turned the r8 adapter down to a straight shank for some reason (and was just using the drawbar thread to drive it apparently....), and it also felt really tight, so I offered $100 with these issues in mind but he didn't take it. We chatted for a while about machining, jobs etc, and he mentioned he needed some cad work done so I offered to do the modeling in exchange for the head for $100. He said he'd think about it, then contacted me this week and said sure, so I whipped up the parts he wanted modeled, and drove up after work to pick it up. I'll know more when I get inside of it, but I'm not the first one inside of it obviously.... It's very tight spinning, but I'm hoping it's just a preload problem, and that nothing is damaged inside. I'll also have to make an r8 shank for it, but that shouldn't be a problem. For $100, I'll take the issues in stride.
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It's not a pretty show piece, but neither is my mill. I think they look good together :D. Didn't plan on buying anything this week, but that's the way she goes.....

Now I need to get back to some other projects this weekend after a few weeks doing other things. So much to catch up on...
 
I picked one up a couple of years ago. Here is my thread on it.

canadianhobbymetalworkers.com

Ex-Cell-O Right Angle Attachment

I just picked up an Ex-Cell-O right angle attachment from an auction. They came to fit either an R8 spindle machine or a #40. My Ex-Cell-O 602 is a #40. I was hoping, in fact praying, that the attachment was for my machine. Well, not so lucky. So I'll have to figure something out. Either...
canadianhobbymetalworkers.com canadianhobbymetalworkers.com

Hopefully, there might be some useful information on it.
 
thestelster said:
I picked one up a couple of years ago. Here is my thread on it.

canadianhobbymetalworkers.com

Ex-Cell-O Right Angle Attachment

I just picked up an Ex-Cell-O right angle attachment from an auction. They came to fit either an R8 spindle machine or a #40. My Ex-Cell-O 602 is a #40. I was hoping, in fact praying, that the attachment was for my machine. Well, not so lucky. So I'll have to figure something out. Either...
canadianhobbymetalworkers.com canadianhobbymetalworkers.com

Hopefully, there might be some useful information on it.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I remember reading your thread when you posted it. Just going over it again now, and your head is different than mine. Do you still have the r8 arbor you swapped out? Wonder if it would fit mine, even though they are different.
 
After spending the last couple weeks winding yarn in all my free time to get ready for the wifes first show last weekend it was nice to get back to some shop stuff. I hung some more Led strips over by the mill and lathe (and a bunch in the basement), filled the new Kennedy up a bit, moved some tools around into some different drawers, and then had a look at the 90 head. It was pretty tight and a bit "coggy", so I pulled it apart afraid of what I was going to find.....
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Aside from being absolutely PACKED full of grease (I'd already knocked a bunch off before the pic), the gears looked in great shape. Bearings felt great as well, and the seals looked in decent shape too. Cleaned of a pile off grease to have a better look, and everything seems fine inside. Reassembled it clean to give it another check and it's MUCH easier spinning now.....Stuck it on the mill, and gave it a quick whirl. Only ran it up to 500rpm because it's just the drawbar thread doing the driving, but it's fine. A bit noisy, but nothing too concerning. I'll give it a proper cleaning and relube once I get the proper r8 arbor.

I think I did alright on this one. It being really tight and coggy had me worried, and I still don't know why it was. Assembled wrong when I got it maybe? In my scouring of the internet this morning I have not come across another excello head that looks like this with the 2 piece body. All the other ones I've seen are like Stelster's. That style looks a bit heavier duty so I wonder if it was a later style and they beefed up the design from the ones like mine? If I'm reading the serial # right this is the 574th head they made. The 2 piece body might come in handy for me, as I might see what it would take to make another clamp to fit the spindle nose of the Tormach. I just thought about that while typing this out, might be handy someday.
 
@Dan Dubeau said:
After spending the last couple weeks winding yarn in all my free time to get ready for the wifes first show
Click to expand...

Not perhaps a weaver? Many decades ago I was my wife's partner making handwoven clothing and doing the craft fair circuit. Made a bunch of bobbin winders (machined tapered spindles) powered by recycled sewing machine motors for other weavers. Actually left my job at the machine shop to be able to do that (the weaving, not the winder making!) and work at home while the kids were little.
 

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mickeyf said:
Not perhaps a weaver? Many decades ago I was my wife's partner making handwoven clothing and doing the craft fair circuit. Made a bunch of bobbin winders (machined tapered spindles) powered by recycled sewing machine motors for other weavers. Actually left my job at the machine shop to be able to do that (the weaving, not the winder making!) and work at home while the kids were little.
Click to expand...
Not a weaver, Just a prolific knitter and Dyer of self striping yarn. Her instagram can explain the severity better than I can....https://www.instagram.com/yarn_therapist/?hl=en. Although She does have a loom in the basement, we've never set it up. It's a 4' Leclerc she got for free (that I had to move...) She's more into knitting, knitting machines and spinning. At last count I think she has 12 knitting machines?

What started so small from nothing about 12 years ago has grown into quite the adventure now. She does the major Yarn shows in Ontario and a couple in Vancouver/Quebec and wholesale orders in between. We went to PEI last fall for a 2 week tour doing a couple shows along the way, with a big one in Charlottetown, and are heading to Alberta in August (maybe...). I have not got sucked into helping full time yet, but do help when and where I can. I've also made her a big skein winder, and a few other tools and things to help out. She does most of her dying for the years shows in the winter, so our house from nov/dec to the end of feb/march has yarn hanging to dry all over the place and in various stages of processing.


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This is my view in the living room as I type. The winder has gone through a few different iterations and upgrades. I initially designed and built it thinking I could tack onto her booth and maybe sell a few, but I have way too many other irons in the fire of my own to get around to it. Maybe someday. I have a half built skein twister somewhere on the bench in the basement too. She prefers doing it by hand, so I never finished it. This winder pretty much lives in the living room now....

I like the bobbin winder, I can see that being very handy for weaving and loading shuttles. I initially used a sewing machine motor for this winder, but it didn't have enough power to swing both arms winding 6 skeins from cones (only one arm on right now). Ended up using a 12v wiper motor I pulled from my old G6 before scrapping it. It's about 4-5 years old now and still going strong, and it's wound a lot of yarn. Blown a couple PWM control boards, but they're cheap. The aluminum fingers are new, as the old 3d printed ones finally broke after a couple years use. I have a couple more upgrades planned for it If I ever get around to them......

It's fun coming up with stuff to help her process. She had a major problem with twisting after one of her reskeining operations, and I'd designed and got about halfway through prototyping a new fancy bobbin holder with bearings that could spin and hold tension but let the twist spin out while she wound. But when I started winding it myself, noticed that if the yarn came off the ball a certain way it didn't twist up. We ended up changing another part of the process and saved 5-7 minutes per skein of not having to deal with the twisting. A bit bummed that I didn't need/get to finish my twisty bearing bobbin, but that's all part of the problem solving fun for me. If I don't post shop projects or anything for a while, it's because I'm usually wrapped up in stuff like this....She keeps me busy, theres always a list.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
Not a weaver, Just a prolific knitter and Dyer of self striping yarn. Her instagram can explain the severity better than I can....https://www.instagram.com/yarn_therapist/?hl=en. Although She does have a loom in the basement, we've never set it up. It's a 4' Leclerc she got for free (that I had to move...) She's more into knitting, knitting machines and spinning. At last count I think she has 12 knitting machines?

What started so small from nothing about 12 years ago has grown into quite the adventure now. She does the major Yarn shows in Ontario and a couple in Vancouver/Quebec and wholesale orders in between. We went to PEI last fall for a 2 week tour doing a couple shows along the way, with a big one in Charlottetown, and are heading to Alberta in August (maybe...). I have not got sucked into helping full time yet, but do help when and where I can. I've also made her a big skein winder, and a few other tools and things to help out. She does most of her dying for the years shows in the winter, so our house from nov/dec to the end of feb/march has yarn hanging to dry all over the place and in various stages of processing.


View attachment 46156

This is my view in the living room as I type. The winder has gone through a few different iterations and upgrades. I initially designed and built it thinking I could tack onto her booth and maybe sell a few, but I have way too many other irons in the fire of my own to get around to it. Maybe someday. I have a half built skein twister somewhere on the bench in the basement too. She prefers doing it by hand, so I never finished it. This winder pretty much lives in the living room now....

I like the bobbin winder, I can see that being very handy for weaving and loading shuttles. I initially used a sewing machine motor for this winder, but it didn't have enough power to swing both arms winding 6 skeins from cones (only one arm on right now). Ended up using a 12v wiper motor I pulled from my old G6 before scrapping it. It's about 4-5 years old now and still going strong, and it's wound a lot of yarn. Blown a couple PWM control boards, but they're cheap. The aluminum fingers are new, as the old 3d printed ones finally broke after a couple years use. I have a couple more upgrades planned for it If I ever get around to them......

It's fun coming up with stuff to help her process. She had a major problem with twisting after one of her reskeining operations, and I'd designed and got about halfway through prototyping a new fancy bobbin holder with bearings that could spin and hold tension but let the twist spin out while she wound. But when I started winding it myself, noticed that if the yarn came off the ball a certain way it didn't twist up. We ended up changing another part of the process and saved 5-7 minutes per skein of not having to deal with the twisting. A bit bummed that I didn't need/get to finish my twisty bearing bobbin, but that's all part of the problem solving fun for me. If I don't post shop projects or anything for a while, it's because I'm usually wrapped up in stuff like this....She keeps me busy, theres always a list.
Click to expand...
Instagram model too, huh?
 
Dan Dubeau said:
But when I started winding it myself, noticed that if the yarn came off the ball a certain way it didn't twist up. We ended up changing another part of the process and saved 5-7 minutes per skein of not having to deal with the twisting.
Click to expand...

Cool Dan.

Fishing fans learned long ago about line twisting and have developed ways to deal with it. It is worst with open and closed face spinning reels. The trick is to hold the spool in the same orientation as it came in. I learned to hold the original spool with a pencil and let it spill off the end instead of letting the spool rotate. You can see within a few turns if it's coming off the same way it's going on.

It's the same problem when coiling rope or extension cords. Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at reversing the coil for each loop.

Might be worth a little time researching what these fields have discovered about this age old problem.
 
Susquatch said:
Cool Dan.

Fishing fans learned long ago about line twisting and have developed ways to deal with it. It is worst with open and closed face spinning reels. The trick is to hold the spool in the same orientation as it came in. I learned to hold the original spool with a pencil and let it spill off the end instead of letting the spool rotate. You can see within a few turns if it's coming off the same way it's going on.

It's the same problem when coiling rope or extension cords. Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at reversing the coil for each loop.

Might be worth a little time researching what these fields have discovered about this age old problem.
Click to expand...
That's how I was able to solve it so fast lol.

She's had this problem for years, but honestly she was never that bothered by it enough to ask me to help :D. She just figured it was a byproduct of the way she warped, and wound. For this style, She dyes 2 skeins at a time wound together so the striping matches. Separating those two skeins at the end is where the trouble starts. She was in a major time crunch this time and finally asked me for help (she might be a bit stubborn.......). She asked me to make something to hold a ball of yarn that would allow it to spin, but still hold tension so I started down that road with a quick prototype out of a pop bottle and some fishing swivels. It worked, kinda. Well enough to tell me there was merit there, so I actually started designing something resembling a flytying bobbin holder, but that had a ball bearing swivel handle. I'd machined the tube and bearing mounts, and was in the middle of 3d printing the handle and other parts when I start actually winding myself waiting for the printer to finish, and within about 5-6 balls had solved the problem a different way. She looked at me like I was a genius, and was also pissed at the same time as she'd been struggling with this problem for many years.....Good thing too, as the new cat knocked the filament spool off the shelf before the print had finished and I would have had to start again......

Simple solution now, but essentially if the yarn comes off the top and unwinds in a counter clockwise direction it counters the twist she puts in in the previous operation. I got her to wind onto a spindle cone instead of a into ball to make it even easier and we got the reskeining down to under 4 minutes with no stopping for untwisting, vs the 12-15 minutes before as I was also able to crank up the speed of the winder significantly. Previously she was just letting the ball roll in a basket as the yarn came off, and that twist wasn't coming out. I just started holding it stationary and observing how it was coming off, and noticed the direction of the twist.

Here's the aborted bobbin holder. I'd actually still like to finish it though just because I'm about 70% there, and there are about 2.5 laundry baskets full of yarn wound into balls that need to be separated and wound.....
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For now it'll go in the unfinished projects list.....Or a coffee table fidget toy.
 
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