Member postings for ronan walsh

Keep your eyes open at secondhand book stalls and shops for old engineering books, i have picked up some real bargains over the years. I bought a banana box full of 1950's/60's engineering books a few years ago, and i think i paid about the equivalent of £25 for them. Not knowing that i would find them, i had no way of carrying them home, so had to lumber them to the bus stop. Did not care though, it was like christmas come early.

Lovely steel the two of them. I bought a slab of p20 last year for a job, its a nice fine grained steel, not the easiest to machine. I also used en24t a few years ago to make a central flywheel for a norton motorcycle crankshaft. Again really nice steel, found it slightly easier to work than the p20.

A bit of a shame using either to bash on imho. For an anvil, i was able to find a foot of railway track, its a ready made anvil.

My Senior's horizontal arbours are 30 int. The vertical spindle is 2mt. Info is hard to find on this make, but then again info is usually hard to find most machines over 30 years old.

I heard an old saying recently, "He that governs least, governs best". I have to say there are too many people, that think, that any problem that arises in society, can have a piece of legislation passed, and the issue is solved.

You can see the lack of wisdom in this, with the sale of blades being banned online, that will do absolutely nothing to stop knifings.

They did, i think it was during tony blairs time, and never happened. The idea of restricting and licencing machine tools, is like something out of Orwells 1984, or communist Russia, simply impossible unless the UK became a police state.

Well filing went out of use really in the engineering, anywhere i worked anyway. No one was going to pay you to stand at a bench and file metal components. You either milled it, ground it, or chucked it away and got something that fit better in the first place.

A real pity, i was taught to fit using files, and enjoyed it. If its good enough for Holland and Holland, Purdeys etc, i will persevere with it.

I do love motorcycles, but they are dangerous bloody things.

Edited By ronan walsh on 08/07/2018 18:13:11

Aren't they called magneto files ? May help in your search.

Thanks Clive and Roy. Its a laminated steel barreled gun, hammerless. Thats whats stamped on the barrel bottoms. There is a proof mark on the barrel flats, but cursed if i can make them out, Ireland was part of the uk when this gun was built, so proof would have been compulsory, unless there was a special clause otherwise. Someone told me to use M4.5, as its so close it will make no odds, we'll see. Its odd that the gun trade never standardised threads as the cycle industry did for instance.

I was given a lovely old Dublin made side by side sidelock shotgun a few years back. Being busy i never did much with it, but now want to shoot it. One of the things i noticed however was the pin (screw) that holds the rear of the lockplates together, had stripped. Luckily the threads in the lock are ok.

Measuring the screw i get 0.1695 inches thread diameter and what i think is 36 tpi. I naturally assumed it would be a BA screw thread, but it seems not to be. The closest i can find is No.8 UNF.

Anyone happen to know what thread forms were used by gunmakers in the late victorian/early edwardian period ? Was it a case of using whatever taps and dies you could find, or coming up with your own thread cutting tools ?

I would suggest you send the to Alpha bearings in Dudley, but sadly Max Nightingale passed away recently and i don't know if the company is going to continue. They certainly could have adapted the bearings for you.

Right then, where is Glenn Miller ?

Thanks for the replies, i'll look into the clock and watch oil, its difficult to buy any oil near me, no more bicycle shops, engineers suppliers or decent hardwares. Thank gawd for mail order.

I have been given by people retiring, and bought over the past few years, quite a few mitutoyo micrometers, which i adore to use, I really like them.

Some are imperial, and while i use them reasonably often, the larger sizes don't get used as much. Taking a 4-5 inch mic out the other day i noticed it has seized slightly and was stiff.

When i get a mic, i normally wash the dismantled parts in acetone to get rid of the fluff and grit, dry them, and then oil the screws and barrels with some light oil like 3-in-1.

Its obviously is not good enough, what are you using ?

This is like most other knee jerk legislation, it will do nothing other than inconvenience decent people who have legitimate uses for these substances. It has gotten to ridiculous proportions, you can not buy Kasenite anymore because it supposidily contained cyanides, paint stripper that may make a good face cream, but it won't strip paint, paints with certain components no longer permissible, such as hammerite, which are not a patch on the originals, the list goes on.

The lowlife who chuck acid in others faces, will simply move onto other substances, really obscure and rare chemical compounds, like petrol.

They have also gone out of their way to ban .50 bmg rifles. To the best of my knowledge, no .50 bmg rifle has ever been used in a crime in the Uk. I believe you have a much higher chance of dying by a leopard/lion/tiger attack, a golfball, lightening bolt,  than being struck with a .50bmg bullet.

Edited By ronan walsh on 22/06/2018 21:44:48

Thanks Brian. I got another quote today from simplybearings in Lancashire. They gave me a price of £130 + Vat, for a total of £157. These bearings though are the FAG brand which may or may not be better than the Nachi's. I don't know, i have some experience with FAG as we used to use them in work. They were good quality, but if they are better than Nachi is unknown.

Right, so i emailed about half a dozen bearing factors this morning in a hunt for these Nachi bearings for the Bridgeport mill quill. Only three came back to me, one said they will try to find them for me in the future.

Another local to me here in Dublin said they could get them in 2-3 days (i always take that with a pinch of salt), and quoted me a price of 140 euros+VAT, which i though reasonable.

But Kelly at Bearing Boys in Norfolk, came back to me with a quote of £89.91 for the pair plus £17.98 VAT, for a total of £107.89, plus the postage which i have yet to ask for, but i guesstimate at a tenner.

So very reasonable compared to the £300-£400 i assumed i had to pay to get this head back up to spec and in good order.

Pays to shop around, and thanks to all who helped.

If you do a sketch, two lines joining the holes top and bottom, and two semi-circles going around the circumference of the holes, and then do push/pull, would that not do what you require ?

I had several ARC catalogues, but they seem to walk in this house for some reason. Anyway browsing online is as much fun.

No real inconvenience Ketan, just odd it won't work for me. Anyway, you are the very person i wanted to talk to. I am overhauling a bridgeport 2j varispeed head, and i am not happy with the state of the spindle bearings.

Doing a google search of the subject, i came across a thread on this very forum, in which you say your company can supply a quality Japanese made bearing of the exact spec needed for this application, that were substancially cheaper than the replacement bearings from bridgeport etc.

As the thread was about 5 years old, i wanted to ask if you can still supply these bearings, how much they cost, delivery etc.

No particular rush on my end, but if you could get back to me that would be excellent.