Member postings for Alexander Smith 1

If you do a search on this site for a thread titled "Pultra headstock help" there is a line drawing of the Pultra headstock. If that's no good, let me know- I'm sure I have a copy of the manual somewhere.

Sandy

Discussion of the change from imperial to the metric system always reminds me of my father in law- a mason and builder in the north east of Scotland. When his familiar 3 foot folding rule finally broke, he had to buy a new one and only metric folding rules were available -hence the "Nicolson" system was developed. Measure the wall or foundations in number of full rule lengths, add on anything extra in feet and inches and the rest as fractions of an inch I.e. 4 metres, 2 foot 6 and a 1/4 inches plus (for anything left over and extreme accuracy, a"thoughtie" which the Scottish readers will understand.

I had my own problems with the "new" system when ordering ready mix for the kitchen extension. All carefully worked out in feet and converted to cubic metres rapidly when the company insisted that it had to be metric. The Lorry started to discharge it onto the front drive for barrowing and it was only when it reached the hedge on one side and the flower bed on the other that the penny dropped - to convert cubic feet to cubic yards (or metres) you divide by 27, not the 9 I had used. Father in law wasn't phased - "Bung it in the hole- it will save on blocks". We could have put a tower block on those foundations!

Sandy

Picked up one of these years ago and took it along to the club(Stockport) to find out what it was. Iwas told it's a jig borer chuck- centre the cross hairs on your mark then put in a centre drill and spot it. It must have been 20 years ago and I was told then that it would have cost £500-600 so don't drop it! Sandy

Thoroughly enjoyed the latest MEW including the article by Darren Conway on printing a nose protector for his lathe which has a L00 spindle nose. I have a Harrison 140 which is also L00 and wondered whether Darren could be persuaded to share the code for the 3D print. My daughter has just bought herself a 3D printer and it would solve the problem of what Santa should be asked to bring me for Christmas - she could get the little elves busy printing.

Thanks

Sandy

Reading all these posts reminded me about our very first car - a mini van with rear seat conversion back in the late '70s. It had the very long, floor mounted gearstick and when we bought it (very, very second-hand) the seller told us that the ball joint where the bottom of the gearstick joined the gear linkage was worn so he had drilled a hole in the locating plate and added a bolt which located into a groove in the ball and kept everything located. Everything was fine for months until, one day when I went to change gear - no gear stick!!! Moment of panic until I looked down to see the gearstick lying flat on the mini floor. A quick bit of scrabbling around with one hand while driving with the other (yes, I know I was an idiot, but I was young in those days) and I managed to find the gearstick and it happily changed gear. That was fine until I let go when it promptly landed on the floor again. An interesting journey home ensued, where I tightened up the bolt and everything was fine for a few months until it happened again and needed another tighten. Given the panic these days when anything minor goes wrong with a car, it's amazing the bodges and quick fixes that we all seemed to have no issue with in the days when you could actually do things to a car. Now I just lift the bonnet, sigh heavily and put it down again.

Sandy

There seems to be a bit of confusion here about the correct oil for the hydraulic spindle lock on the Hofmann dividing head.

The one I have is quite old and is a type UTH. The manual I now have has a diagram which matched exactly the dividing head I have and it clearly states that the hydraulic spindle lock uses BP HLP 50 oil. The recommendation Steve has received for Hofmann is for Kluberplex GE 11-680 grease. I had a look online and this is a high pressure adhesive gear tooth lubricant. So one is an oil and the other is a grease and, from my admittedly very limited experience, I would not have thought they would do the same job, so either something has been lost in translation or we are talking about 2 different types of dividing head. Any thoughts, anyone? Could Hofmann in Germany have meant to use the grease for the external or internal gears rather than the spindle lock?

Sandy

Just wanted to bring this one up to the top again so that I could thank all the people who contributed, sent me a copy of the manual or improved my knowledge of the basics of dividing head maths so that I might be able to work it out for myself next time. I don't know how we would manage without this site.

To answer Nigel McBurney's question above about the hydraulic spindle lock, the manual specifies BP HLP5 oil but I found another thread on this site (Dividing Head Help - Steve Garnett) where it was discussed and apparently any modern hydraulic oil with a viscosity of 32 will be OK - just need to find out where to put it now as it's not exactly clear from the manual.

Thanks also to the organisers of this marvellous site.

Sandy

I've just bought a lovely Hofmann 4" centre height universal dividing head. It came with one plate and the gear banjo so I'm looking for a manual to identify the hole numbers for any other plates and any information on the gears normally supplied with it. The only source for a manual I've identified is METools online who sell a CD with the manuals for 4 or 5 different dividing heads including a Hofmann but they seem to have stopped trading.

Any information gratefully received or, miracle of miracles, a source of plates or gears. Many thanks.

Sandy

This site is wonderful- you post a query, go off and have your tea and a couple of hours later it's mostly answered. We're the Clarkson compound or the Stuart Turner boiler feed pump ever serialised in Model engineer. I've just found a build log for the fed pump but nothing for the compound mill engine. Also are plans available anywhere? Thanks again for all the help. Sandy

As a long time viewer of this site but mostly in the background I'm aware of the huge depth of model engineering knowledge out there and I'd be grateful for some help in identifying some unknown castings. They came in a box of bits from my favourite scrapyard and looked too useful to just leave there!

Photos in my album (I'll try to attach them but not sure how that will go). They seem to come in 4 groups: there's the back and 2 front castings for a Stuart Turner lancashire boiler (at least I knew that one); there's a very nice cylinder with end caps and two "brackets" (the green ones); what appears to be a set of castings (painted in red oxide) for some type of twin cylinder stationary engine; and a few miscellaneous gunmetal castings which may be linked or may be completely separate.

I'd be very grateful if anyone recognises any of this stuff or could point me in the right direction.

Thanks to the editors of this wonderful site.

Sandy

Apologies for the delay in responding to all the helpful advice. Unfortunately, we had a leak in the kitchen on Friday (at least I became aware of the effect of a long term slow weep from a joint under the sink when the parquet under the lino started to swell and buckle up). You wouldn't believe how far water can spread!

Anyway, many thanks for all the comments - I am always amazed by the breadth of knowledge on this site. Ingemar (I'm guessing from Sweden) identified that Oberg are now Spintec and the site gave lots of information. They still make a VM17 spindle which fits all my information on mine so the die grinder is a 3 phase induction motor powered from a converter. I'm guessing that the power packs they supply will be well out of my price range so I was very interested to read Neil's comment that it may be possible to power it using a BLDC motor controller designed for a brushless DC motor - I can certainly go for a £10 solution (long Scottish heritage). I knew nothing about the technology of brushless motor control but when you read a bit about it, they do appear to be pretty similar to a low volt 3 phase motor although I certainly don't understand all the stuff about different waveforms etc. I did see that brushless motors appear to have Hall effect sensors to feed back motor performance data - will that be a problem here since presumably there won't be any on my spindle. I will probably contact Spintec to see if they can provide any more information but thanks again for all the help.

My friendly scrap man recently handed me a nice wooden box which he thought might be "interesting". Inside was a beautifully made, high speed Oberg die grinder (VM17 Nr 202) with collets and cable but, unfortunately, no power supply. Not a problem you might think - however, it's 38V, 400W and 900Hz to give a top speed of 54,000 rpm.

Oberg were a Swedish engineering company who made high quality files but I can find very little about the die grinder or its power supply. Has anyone ever used one of these or have a manual or circuit diagram or can anyone suggest what I might need. The plug has 3 pins (I presume the casing is earth) and I wondered whether it is low voltage 3 phase which I might be able to supply from an inverter somehow?

Any suggestions welcome

Put some pictures in an album but can't get them in the query.

thanks