Here is a list of all the postings Howard Lewis has made in our forums. Click on a thread name to jump to the thread.
Thread: simple loop alarm for exhibits |
03/10/2023 17:31:52 |
Hopefully the battery would only be required to deliver current when the circuit is broken and the alarm activated.. I didn't phrase it very well. Howard |
Thread: Small (20mm 10mm bore pulley) - source of? |
03/10/2023 17:29:56 |
Sorry to be Job's comforter. A 20mm OD pulley with a 10 mm bore will only have 5 mm wall thickness into which the belt groove can be cut. What section round belt will the pulley be for ? This suggets that the belt will need to be a pretty small section, say 6 mm max. This would allow a half round groove 3 mm deep, leaving only 2 mm wall between the bottom of the groove and the bore of the pulley. Howard |
Thread: simple loop alarm for exhibits |
03/10/2023 14:35:37 |
Michael, I don't reaslly understand details of the alarm, (The club bought it), so tend be a user rather than knowing much about it. If the circuit is broken for any reason, the alarm sounds is about the extent of my knowledge, so assumed that it relied on a switched 3.5mm jack socket. Howard |
Thread: *Oct 2023: FORUM MIGRATION TIMELINE* |
03/10/2023 11:20:49 |
A week without the Forum! WHAT a deprivation! But it will be worth the wait Howard |
Thread: simple loop alarm for exhibits |
03/10/2023 11:13:05 |
Fortunately, our club has only experienced one instance of theft. My wife fund raises for a charity and has had lots of stuff stolen, that has to be really low! Eventually, you get a sense of who to watch, groups of youngsters, in particular. The worrying thing is that sometimes workshop tooling, as well as models, might be stolen, and then abandoned because the thief has no idea what it is, or is for. But the owner is still deprived of the item and the material, time and effort put into making it. As Stewards, you have to keeps your wits and eyes about you. As you say. be aware of distractions! Howard
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Thread: RIP record no 24 |
03/10/2023 11:01:42 |
It may be possible to braze the two parts back together, for moderate use. I grew up with a vice that had suffered in exactly the same way, that my father had had brazed, and we used it (more carefully )for years, certainly until I left home. Welding would need the parts to be preheated and cooled slowly. Not impossible, but more difficult I was lucky, just before retiring found a new Record that had been left boutside and was rusty, at work. Got it for a song, but the rust cleaned up, and it has served well, despite my abuse, for many years. Checked, and it was a top of the range, so glad that I didn't buy it new! Howard |
Thread: Help wanted |
01/10/2023 18:33:06 |
Take a look at Trent Valley Model Railway Society, Sutton Coldfield Model Engineering Society, or Lichfield Model Railway Society. Hopefully, you will find someone who has the equipment and the preparedness to tutor you. Buy some books, and study them, you will, at least, have some theoretical knowledge before you start putting some of it into practice. If you want some suggestions, PM me. There are quite a few to choose from, some of which may be written specifically about your lathe. Tell us what lathe you have, and you should, be able to, get some "wrinkles" from users. Do not be over ambitious. make simple tools, which you can use in the fure, as learning projects. In this way, you will become familiar with measuring equipment, drilling, tapping and using Dies, as well as lathe tools . Make your mistakes on relatively cheap readily available material rather than expernsive castings! Howard
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Thread: Optical bore guage |
01/10/2023 18:19:53 |
My understanding is that WS40 contains mostly paraffein (kerosene) and very little oil. The objective is to free off the plungers. Once that has been done the correct lubricant can be applied in small doese. |
Thread: simple loop alarm for exhibits |
01/10/2023 18:17:16 |
If someone cuts the wire, the circuit is broken and the alarm sounds |
01/10/2023 17:28:13 |
Our club alarm is acontinuous wire loop, but if the loop is disconnected from the battery box, (connector removed or wire cut ) the alarm sounds. So it sounds like it might be a switched socket, probably 3.5 mm, so that when the plug is inserted, the connection between the battery and the alarm is broken One side of the battery is connected permanently to the alarm, and the other side is fed through the jack plug to the loop where the far end s are joined.. The alarm wire does not actually carry nany current, but if it is broken in any way, the alarm is activated HTH Howard |
Thread: Optical bore guage |
01/10/2023 17:12:49 |
The plungers may be stuck because whtatever lubricant was used, has congealed, through lack of use, and poor storage. In which case, a small squirt of WD40, or somthing similar, MIGHT do the trickmto free off the plungers. Hopefully, it will be no more than this rather than mechanical damage. If this does then trick, and you want to relubricate them, you could try, literally, a spot, of watch nr clock oil. HTH Howard |
Thread: Odd bolt size |
01/10/2023 16:49:42 |
You do not face the ends of the nut, you face the raw material to produce a hexagon. IF no hexagon bar of a suitable size is available. Remember, 100 miles out to sea you may have to be innovative, and ships do not always carry a milling machine. The drilling and screwcutting, or tapping can come later. Once thre faces have been faced, at 60 degrees to each other, they can be be used as a datum to face the opposite side. So if you have a nut of a size for which no spanner is available, each face can be machined to produce a size across flats for the tools available. |
30/09/2023 08:30:07 |
It can be frustrating when a machine contains mixed thread forms, or hybrid hardware. Whilst it may have suited the original manufacturer, knowing what is needed for servicing can be a nightmare. If the nut on the rear toolp;ost is not of Whit size, it could be mounted in a 4 jaw and faced down to a suitable size. An ex navy cha\p that I was mentoring showed me a nut that he had made, as a test piece, since only a lathe was allowed to be used., Howard |
29/09/2023 21:51:54 |
The taper is the draft angle of the forging, to allow the product to be removed from the die, for the same reason that castings have a draft angle on internal and external faces. Because of the age of the design (1947 saw the ML7 launched ) the fastener on the Myford is likely to be a BSF size. The stud for the front too[post is 7/16 BSF, from memory, so ithe rear one is likely to be something similar with a Whit form thread. Howard Edited By Howard Lewis on 29/09/2023 21:55:43 |
Thread: Upgrading from a Clarke CL300M, where to go? |
29/09/2023 21:34:58 |
For new machines, If it will do all that you want,a Sieg SC4 looks to be a good upgrade. If you want something larger you may need to look at Gear Head machines. If you are prepared to accept a used machine, a Warco BH600, Chester Craftsman, or rare bird, Engineers Tool Room BL12-24 (Look alikes) are versatile belt driven, 12 speed machines with a 5MT spindle bore, a Norton gearbox with 48 ratios with Back Gear.. Standard equipment with them were 3 & 4 jaw chucks, Faceplate and steadies. They are heavy rigid machines, 300Kg HTH Howard |
Thread: Speedo gear size |
29/09/2023 21:23:41 |
As an aside, it was standard practice for vehicles fitted with Eaton 2 speed axles to have a small two ratio gearbox inserted into the speedo drive, at the gearbox end, so that when the axle ratio was changed by the driver, a solenoid changed the ratio in the small gearbox. One ratio provided direct drive to the speedo, whilst the other compensated for the change in diff ratio. Getting the wiring for shift motor and speedo gear box out of phase produced some interesting speedo readings! Howard |
Thread: Pear projectile proof pitched parapets |
27/09/2023 17:50:31 |
Once the tree is down, you may experience some ground "heave" But at the very least, SEVERE pruning! Lets hope that no one has put a preservation order on it, or you'll have reams of paperwork to complete before you dare lay a hand on it. A good slate roof might be expensive but shoud be long lasting. The house in which I grew up had a slate roof dating from 1923, (before my time! ) but had caused no problems when I left it in 1958, nor for a cpouple of years after when my parents moved away. Our present house has a tiled roof, trouble free so far, for fifty years. Rather than corrugated iron, something like Kingspan would be a good roof, and provide insulation, as a benefit. HTH Howard.. |
Thread: Levelling my lathe - a build log |
27/09/2023 17:42:30 |
Hopefully, when the Tailstock end of the bed reads the same as the Headstock end, the bed should be free of twist, and the lathe should cut parallel. FWIW, my method of adjusting, if needed, would be to mount the lathe on short studs (with clearance in the holes in nthe lathe feet ) Each stud would be in a tapping in the steel plate, and locked into it by a nut. Above that nuty would be another on which the lathe feet sit. The lathe feet would be clamped by a further nut above each foot. having clamped the feet at the Headstock end, thje Tailstock feet bare adjusted mto remove any twist from the bed. Either by using the level, or using "Rollie's Dad's Method" as laid out in Ian Bradley's "The Amateur's Workshop" or his "Myford Series 7 Manual" The lathe may not be absolutely level Headstock to Tailstock (Unless it is imperative to have coolant drain in a particular direction ), but the bed should be free of twist. If using a level, even after checking with a rigidly mounted clock (You can't chase microns if the clock is waving about in the slightest breeze! ) I would feel inclined to check by machining, as that is the object of the exercise. Howard |
Thread: 9/16 nut help! |
27/09/2023 17:03:28 |
You cam't beat having sets of Thread Gauges to discover what this "new" thread is, in terms of size, pitch and thread form. Can't guarantee covering every possibility, there will always be some unusual "Specials", but Whitworth, Metric and Unified gauges will cover most of what you come across., even odd ball such UNEF, or Metric extra fine, such as 12 or 14 x 1 ( For Emco lathes in particular ) I haven't got BA, but experiment using known nuts or setscrews, as gauges. A relatively small expenditure to provide answers to many queries. Howard |
Thread: Odd bolt size |
27/09/2023 16:53:20 |
I did say friction conditions, for that very reason! Often torque settings are qualified by specifying the lubrication, or otherwise of the fastener and its threads. Presumably after having investigated the results from a particular combination of materials and lubrication. If you want to know the clamp load applied, use a load cell, strain gauge the components being clamped, or after some experimentation, tighten the bolt to give a known extension. Forgot to mention Pilgrim nuts for large fasteners! The ultimate is probably tightening until the fastener just goes into yield, and takes a small, permanent extension. This is a most efficient use of a fastener, and should produce consistent tensile loads. I found that W range fasteners, into cast iron, would give consistent results, lubricated with soluble oil (Which we deliberately varied between 5 and 20% concentrations ). For a variety of reasons, it took six months before simultaneous yield tightening of 32 fasteners was considered safe to be allowed in high volume production. Thereafter problems were almost unknown, and gasket failures dropped to zero. Howard
Edited By Howard Lewis on 27/09/2023 16:54:17 |
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