Thread: xZakt Engineering - the 22 year old shop owner. what!!???

Originally Posted by Ox

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????
Ox

Via Wikipedia:

Illawarra is a region in the Australian state of New South Wales.

So yeah, location listed isn't town, but he gave it anyway

All you 20-something-business-starters are making me feel inadequate! Stoppit!

Originally Posted by mausli

Nice shop we should meet up and talk shop sometime I am 20 and on my way too Nowra to play in my shop

Yeah for sure mate, Andre from the aussie forum right?
I ride mx down at the Nowra Motoplex sometimes so ill stop in if you are around. PM your number and ill let you know when I'm down there next, see if you are around and I can come have a look.

Bit of an update, gonna try do something like Adam Booth ( Abom79 ) did, as his videos and thread are awesome! ( Weekly updates etc, for anyone whos interested )Learnt heaps off Abom and his work is very interesting.

Been busy this past week with a few jobs. Mostly just stuff for the workshop this week, but a couple customer jobs.

First was a guy wanted a forged steel anvil resurfaced. Before putting it up on the mill, I had to make some sort of cutter to skim the top. I didn't want to use a normal insert cutter, due to the cutting forces involved would of possibly thrown it off the table ( worst case scenario). So settled on making a big fly cutter ( I know I know, I don't like fly cutters much either ) from a bit of 55mm diameter K1045 and an old SECO 20mm shank turning tool. Kinda copied Don Bailey's Suburban Tool idea of cutting a shallow slot along the top of the turning tool so it can be adjusted and the tool doesn't fall out. Smart thinking Don, your a legend mate and your videos are great!

So, a couple work hours we had this



Also had to make up a couple weird angled clamps to hold it down ( no lugs to clamp down on ) Didn't get a picture of them, they are nothing special.

Well, it took quite a while to resurface the top, but it ran on auto feed and I just carried on with other stuff. Customer was stoked!




Lastly, made a few of these front-wheel-holder-thingamajigs for a mate of mine at the mx track. I've been thinking of making a couple for my ute, but sometimes I take just my bike, and sometimes dad's RMZ goes on with it, sometimes my little bro's KTM85 goes on with mine, sometimes another brother's KX250f gets piled on, sometimes a combination of bikes so its not really practical, and we get along just fine as is, so no point really. This was a bit of a love job, but made a bit of $$$ on it, but he's a riding buddy so I was just happy to help him out. Basic fab job, a couple hours work.



As for workshop related stuff, I'm making a couple more milling arbors, one is an adjustable chamfering tool for large bores, sort of like a fly cutter looking thing. Also making a 1" slitting saw arbor. It's a pretty neat design I've come up with and I'm keen to see if it works. I'll post up later this week with the result.
Tonight I also knocked up 8 hardened washers for my slotter clamp set. I was just gonna buy a clamp kit, but it was $200 for something that I almost had all the materials for anyway. Found some clamps, had the nuts, had a few metres of M12 threaded rod. All I needed was Tee Nuts and some washers, and I opted to go a step further and made some hardened washers. Made the washers from K1045 and just flame hardened and tempered them, then ground them ( grinding wasn't really required but I wanted to see what the grinder was capable off in terms of making all the washers flat and the same size. All within 0.002mm of each other, so I'm very happy with the grinder).
With not having a job at the moment, I'm trying to do things on the cheap like the old fellas did
Tee nuts will be K1045

Will post up later this week Thanks for reading!

Hey fellas, bit late to reply here. Had a busy week.
Finished all the parts for the clamp kit for the slotter.
Here's the m12 Tee Nuts as I was tapping them in the mill. M12 yellow ring spiral tap, clamped in a ER25 collet holder. Worked beautifully! Material was K1045



Here's a few pics of the NT30 slitting saw arbor. Uses friction between the arbor and bolt to drive the thin slitting saws ( I have plans for a proper 1" plain arbor with a key slot for the thicker saws )
Material is K1045 for both arbor and nut. I will probably harden and temper the nut.



A few pics of some work I did for my girlfriends dad. He is building a supercharged VW Beach Buggy. So he is needing all sorts of weird stuff made up ( extreme love job here!!!! haha )


This is a crank pulley nut cover. He didn't want a hold in it so he could crank the motor using a socket.






And this is a Oil Bypass manifold, made out of 250 Grade plate. Its just a cross hole type set up, with some funky holes to accept a funky seal. I also ground it for a better seal against the motor, as there is no gasket used I believe, just the stepped rubber seals in the holes.



This is one of 6 hubs I'm making for the Jones and Shipman Grinder.





I have also just picked up a big purchase order from a local hydraulics company. Stainless manifolds and stuff! Ill post these up next week!!!!

Nice work there ,I am intrigued by the screw in the saw arbour ,how are you turning that? peg spanner in a couple of holes perhaps.

I am concerned about the wheel hub ,isn't that a RH thread when it should be a LH?

fuck me sable your right! haha what a doozy!
wondering if they are still ok to use? I think it will be ok, but what does everyone reckon?
my print says LH, I cant believe I did that, fuck

and yeah arbor just has two holes for a peg spanner

what a dickhead ey!! my drawing clearly stated LH

Ill rethread them all tomorrow morning. Ill sleep better at night knowing they are LH and there wont be a chance of throwing the nut off. The OD of the thread is 31.60 ( a tad under 1.25" ) with a 1.5mm pitch ( thread depth ended up at 1.01mm radially )
So ill make them probably 29.5mm diameter and maybe a 1.25mm pitch instead.

I am making the nuts too, so making a weird diameter thread is not a problem

You have a keen eye Sable!!

Definitely better to do it right ,I have used grinders where the nut is the wrong way ,they certainly do come undone and usually at the worst moment ,glad to hear that there is room to put another thread on.

Originally Posted by Themanualguy

what a dickhead ey!! my drawing clearly stated LH

Check out the "Kan't git and keep good Help" threads on the other boards.



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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

All good, re cut LH threads. Plenty of meat - LUCKY!!!

Hey fellas, been a while. Been pretty busy lately!
Haven't had much work for the shop, still getting my Public and Product Liability Insurance quotes so haven't advertised the shop as of yet.
I've picked up a couple casual gigs as a shutdown fitter (millwrights as you call them over there??) and I really love doing it! It will be a nice income supplement to the shop, provided the shop doesn't get too busy ( which isn't a bad thing!)
So I've been doing a bit of that lately, we work primarily on paper mills, changing rolls, valves,umps, gearboxes etc. Very interesting! Especially to someone who was chained to a machine during my whole apprenticeship.

So the grinder hubs are working perfectly!
(Good help is definetly hard to find Ox, especially when you aren't much help to yourself lol!)


Here's some work I did for the hydraulics shop. Mostly 316 stainless steel. Not a bad gig!



Coolant tank for the saw.



And that's all I've got for pics. Ill try get some shop pics in the coming week, haven't posted many of them yet!

Have a good day fellas! I've got a moto to fix

You're not going to weld the lid on that tank are you?

Already have Sable, whys that? Difficultly in cleaning?

Excellent, cool thread.
You seem like a really nice guy, with lots of "go".
+1

Originally Posted by Themanualguy

Already have Sable, whys that? Difficultly in cleaning?

Yep ,it is really useful to be able to get in there and scrape the crap out of the bottom and give it a good clean ,then there is less chance that the next batch will go off ,I have built similar units to replace the idea of using the base of the machine as the sump (which can't be properly cleaned).

Originally Posted by Themanualguy

Hey fellas, been a while. Been pretty busy lately!
Haven't had much work for the shop, still getting my Public and Product Liability Insurance quotes so haven't advertised the shop as of yet.
.....

i thought about such insurance for my own product also.
I've never got any quotes 'cause i figured it would bankrupt me before a product launch.

Crikey Dunny rat!
i couldn't tie my own shoes at 22

Originally Posted by mkd

Crikey Dunny rat!
i couldn't tie my own shoes at 22

I hear even astronauts use Velcro

Nice!! I just purchases a victor lathe and a bridgeport seriesI mill. Quite nice. I haven't landed any jobs yet, still working on getting set-up also. How did you find your work?

Originally Posted by Themanualguy

Yep you read correctly haha. 22 years old
Hey everyone, my name is Zak Anderson and Im a machinist from Kiama, all the way down here in Australia. Beautiful place here, 16 acres of farmland and 10 minutes from town and beach - perfect!
I've been lurking here.......
<snip>
.....few talks with the boss about why the crapp work wasn't shared with the other 2nd years ( I had just started 2nd year ) or even with the new first years, they were reluctant to let me have a break from this job, so I moved on.

Next shop - big old school manual shop. Heavy engineering and weld reclamation was the name of their game. Man we did some cool shit in there......

Whoop, there it is! I added the italics to "so I moved on". Only skilled labor can really do that with confidence. Cubicle monkeys don't have anything unique, so they're always in a sweat.
When a company goes under g'forbid, then you see residual value; used machinery, tooling, material, pending jobs, real estate, even scrap. And twenty years later in some widows' garage, it still does.

What's in that outdated PC, reams of paper, and drawers full of candy wrappers...

Young master Anderson is clearly one of our clones.
Zak, your introduction is not exactly unique, but increasingly rare. By that measure, 1000's here will tell you this path is the most rewarding of all occupations.