Patriot faceting machine table dop issue

thomas.adamas · **Posted:** Sat Jul 20, 2013 10:23 pm

A student of mine owns a Patriot faceting machine manufactured by Jersey Instruments. Yesterday, the quill stem loosened and detached from the faceting dop holder. Note that the quill stem is clean as it came out of the bore.

He called me and I went over to his place of business to inspect the defective part. I noticed that the stem bore had what appeared to be one or two drops of smeared and cured epoxy on the bore wall. I confirmed it was epoxy and not dop wax when I heated a piece of it.

You can see the small amount of epoxy by looking on the bottom of the faceting dop holder. Note that the wall of this bore appears relatively smooth.

There are four issues I see here:
1. Unnecessary helical pattern in the insertion end of the stem.
2. Smooth surface finish of the stem.
3. Smooth surface finish of the bore.
4. Insufficient amount of epoxy to secure the stem in the dop holder.

I have had to correct many issues with this machine, so rather than act as unpaid quality control and send it back, I repaired it myself by lightly sanding the surfaces to be mated with 180 grit silicon carbide sand paper and rinsing them with acetone. I then applied JB Weld to those surfaces, mated the parts together, oriented the stem and let the epoxy cure.

Gearloose · **Posted:** Sun Jul 21, 2013 6:17 am

Whoever wrote that tell-all disassembly page had an entry of it from some one who showed one assembled with dop wax.
I guess this was an improvement of sorts.
Science Marches On!

FWIW, my stainless ones for the XS3 were silver soldered...but I wonder why if they used brass, they didn't just use a good tin/lead solder like 63/37. It would have worked fine, and never failed, and only taken a minute.

AlBalmer · **Posted:** Sun Jul 21, 2013 10:26 am

Unfortunately, gembug's omnifaceter.com website is no more, but it's on the Wayback Machine, at http://web.archive.org/web/20120520120224/http://www.omnifaceter.com/

Allan, is it gone, or just moved?

maialetto · **Posted:** Sun Jul 21, 2013 1:21 pm

The 45deg dop on my OMNIe is glued with some black-ish stuff. It could be some sort of "plumber's epoxy", but I seriously doubt about it. It's some other kind of glue.

I agree with Jon: this could be the famed "technical improvement" they claimed: the discovery of epoxy (hopefully they've also got aware of sealed bearings...). Now they just need to discover decent craftmanship...

I really like some features my OMNIe (es. I love its angle reader system), but there are some serious craftmanship issues (and a few technical ones as well). That said: I'm now happier with my "new" machine. Old, beaten up, but rock solid. :mrgreen:

I use my OMNIe only when I'm in Italy on vacation (that is: basically never...

)

Allan website was a great resource for all us OMNIe owners. But now with the new version all the issues (not acknowledged at that time...) have been fixed. Maybe... :?:

thomas.adamas · **Posted:** Mon Jul 22, 2013 4:06 pm

Gearloose wrote:

Whoever wrote that tell-all disassembly page had an entry of it from some one who showed one assembled with dop wax.
I guess this was an improvement of sorts.
Science Marches On!
FWIW, my stainless ones for the XS3 were silver soldered...but I wonder why if they used brass, they didn't just use a good tin/lead solder like 63/37. It would have worked fine, and never failed, and only taken a minute.

The two parts could have been fixed together with 8 laser spot welds which would have taken about a minute to do and cost a few bucks.

thomas.adamas · **Posted:** Mon Jul 22, 2013 4:28 pm

maialetto wrote:

Allan website was a great resource for all us OMNIe owners. But now with the new version all the issues (not acknowledged at that time...) have been fixed. Maybe... :?:

I believe Charlie Musitano fixed the bearing seal issues, but many other issues remain:
5 1/2" diameter aluminum platen that has up to a 0.008" (0.2 mm.) vertical runout.
Ramifications: No means exists to make the mast parallel to the platen because of the runout, you cannot use it to preform saw, and cutting and polishing takes longer because of less facet-lap contact.
The drip tank spout is 1/2" too low.
Ramifications: The stone and dop can hit the spout during the faceting process.
The motor power is about 1/15 h.p.
Ramifications: At low speeds, you can halt the lap spin by putting pressure on the dop, thus stopping the cutting/polishing process.
The index gears are silk-screened rather than engraved.
Ramifications: The ink chips off after several months from water splatter.
The dops measure 7.62 mm. in diameter and Musitano's stock is limited to that diameter if he can spare to sell it.
Ramifications: You cannot obtain any stock metal rod to machine dops for other shapes, nor are dops from other manufacturers adaptable to the Patriot.

maialetto · **Posted:** Mon Jul 22, 2013 7:24 pm

I should have use the "irony" tag on the phrase you quoted. :lol:

I'm sure there are many issue left. When people clearly have no pride in making a quality product, there's no way they can make one.

I could show you the cast splash pan with a part where the casting is really faulty (similar to what Allen showed in a different, cast, piece). In my case it's mostly cosmetic (in Allen's was a moving part...): a grainy part on the splash pan is not affecting how the machine works, but it's there and really visible. Clearly the manufacturer didn't care about it because it's impossible not to see it. This is just an example, the most evident to the eye.

Is now the hole for flowing out the cutting water a bit larger, at least? In my machine was getting clogged relatively often, with the risk of flooding the bearings. Not the most pleasant happening for that machine.

thomas.adamas · **Posted:** Mon Jul 22, 2013 8:14 pm

maialetto wrote:

Is now the hole for flowing out the cutting water a bit larger, at least? In my machine was getting clogged relatively often, with the risk of flooding the bearings. Not the most pleasant happening for that machine.

The splash pan is now a stainless steel stamping with a larger drain hole. Those are no longer issues. I guess Jeff Graham gave Charlie some poor advice before he kicked the bucket.

G_Madison · **Posted:** Mon Jul 22, 2013 9:12 pm

that seems so cheeply made for the money :shock:

,so this is normal for this brand? "sorry newbie question"

maialetto · **Posted:** Mon Jul 22, 2013 9:43 pm

Well, happy to hear at least a part of the issues have been fixed. (no irony here

)

I think it could be a nice machine, especially the 6" (which is no longer manufactured, I think), once most of the problems are fixed (no machine is perfect) and some reasonable quality control on the product is enforced.

Uh, it's almost 2400$ now, I see. Hmmm... you'd need to convince me really well that most of the issues are now fixed. For about that amount you could buy a polymetric Xristal-tek “99” or a Facetron, both machines with quite a solid, positive, reputation... Or spare some bucks and get a Graves Mark 5XL.
Just thinking loud: I don't want to start a machine war...

Still, good that they are improving the old OMNIe. It was needed.

thomas.adamas · **Posted:** Tue Jul 23, 2013 12:20 am

G_Madison wrote:

that seems so cheeply made for the money :shock:

,so this is normal for this brand? "sorry newbie question"

My answer is yes.

gembug · **Posted:** Tue Jul 23, 2013 1:28 am

Unfortunately eNom has kidnapped and hijacked my Omnifaceter.com domain for well over a year now, otherwise the site would still be up for others to see what my table dop was held together with - PITCH instead of epoxy, and mine failed similarly. The difference is that mine was not threaded, so perhaps this is one of the many "improvements" the manufacturer has claimed to have made since my site went live.

Unfortunately Alldops.com is not around any more, but I had a superb replacement made by him as pictured below. It's made from a single piece of brass with extremely high tolerances - it's a perfect friction fit with the dops that were made by Alldops. If anyone has access to some good CNC equipment, please start manufacturing these!

By the way, Omnifaceter.com will return to the intertubes as soon as I get my domain back... which at this stage may require legal action. I can't stress strongly enough to avoid using eNom for your domain registrar.

-Allan

AlBalmer · **Posted:** Tue Jul 23, 2013 10:29 am

I just entered "enom complaints" into Google. Wow.

I'm beginning to think that the BBB's rating system means nothing. They give it an A+, then insert a paragraph about many complaints of enom ripping off their customers.

Gearloose · **Posted:** Tue Jul 23, 2013 1:50 pm

Quote:

By the way, Omnifaceter.com will return to the intertubes as soon as I get my domain back... which at this stage may require legal action.

Just spell "Omnifaceter" using the numeral 0 as the first letter and ignore the issue, passing it over with contempt.

Gearloose · **Posted:** Tue Jul 23, 2013 2:00 pm

Quote:

I'm beginning to think that the BBB's rating system means nothing.

By many accounts, the rating for sale. I got a cheerful sales call from a pleasant BBB marketer some time ago. When I told them much of my business was B-to-B, they abruptly hung up in my face.
Same thing the D&B's new spinoff. Just a boiler room.
Anything you used to trust is different now.

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