Member postings for Andrew Tinsley

Thanks Peak 4,

As there is no identifier on the chuck, I would think it is probably Chinese. I must make a backplate for it and see if it is any good.

Regards,

Andrew,

Thanks Diogenes,

I did wonder if it might be a TOS chuck. I have a conventional 3 jaw TOS chuck which came with an almost identical box?

However I would expect a TOS chuck to have the manufacturers name on the chuck. I would also doubt that TOS would make such a chuck, unless it was for a very special application.

It seems to be quite well made, I expect it will stay a bit of a mystery.

Regards,

Andrew.

Like Dave Halford, I too have a 5" chuck with a single pinion. It must have come with a job lot, because I only spotted it 3 weeks ago when I decided to clean my chucks, I was very much surprised at this! No name on the chuck and it was in a light blue box with a German language print saying 3 jaw chuck. Looks unused to me, still in makers greased condition.

Anyone know the origin of these oddball chucks?

Regards,

Andrew

Michael,

I do not have any experience with either sander. My adverse comments about the Ferrex machine came from feedback published by Aldi. It was said that the extraction system wasn't good. The quality comments came from another customer who purchased the Ferrex machine . It was returned because of quality issues and the Schepach machine was then purchased. The comment was that the build quality was much better on the Schepach.

Not sure if you can take all the feedback as gospel.

Regards,

Andrew.

Edited By Andrew Tinsley on 10/06/2022 21:40:33

There seems to be some confusion, there are two belt sanders being sold by Aldi, at the moment A Ferrex one for £90 and a Schepach one for £100 The £100 version is the one I am referring too. Apparently the cheaper Ferrex is not so good and I think the dust extraction on this one is suspect.

Andrew.

Aldi are selling a belt sander for £100. It is the same as one sold by Clarke (£138) and Axminster (£150).

Aldi don't specify what you can sand, Axminster say for wood only, while Clarke say it can be used for wood, some plastics and non ferrous metal.

Now I often sand ferrous material on my belt sander plus the odd HSS lathe tool.

Anyone wise as to why the vendors place restrictions on materials, is it because of belt speed? Or is there some other reason?

Just curious,

Andrew,

I have now got the suds pump up and running. I eventually used a 2 microfarad cap because it was small enough to fit inside the pump and did away with external boxes. Not quite a balanced three phase, but close enough. Yet another 30 plus years round tuit project done at last!

Thanks everyone,

Andrew.

No problem Larry, I thought there was something more to your post, that I had missed! Washing machine pumps tend to have a higher flow and maybe a larger head than a suds pump, but throttled down they seem a reasonable solution. I have used one in the distant past, but had some trouble with the higher pressure when throttled back to give a reasonable volume. It was however a pump off a commercial Bendix, so the average domestic item should be better in that respect.

Andrew.

Larry,

Why on earth should I go looking for a scrap washing machine pump that will require at least a tank, when I have a perfectly good, professional suds pump and tank, that simply required a change from star to delta and the addition of a capacitor?

I really have difficulty in understanding the logic behind your reply, what am I missing?

Regards,

Andrew.

Sorry, slip of the brain, I should have said series NOT parallel! Thanks for picking up my error!

Andrew

Found another 6 microfarad cap so using both in parallel gives 3 microfarads. This works a treat, so thank you Andrew Noyes! It gives almost perfect balance, using my scope (unearthed for this measurement!)

The tank and pump are stand alone items, to be switched to whatever machine is in use, so single phase is the best bet.

Thanks everyone for their input.

Andrew.

Thanks both, looks as though a 6 microfarad or thereabouts will do the job.

Andrew.

I have a Myford tank and suds pump. The pump was made by MG Electrical of Colchester.

At the moment it is connected for 3 phase 440 Volts, Star. The motor can be easily be rewired for Delta and 240 Volt 3 phase. It will take 0.22 Amp in Delta.

It is hardly worth using a VFD for this application. I know that other folk have connected up the motor using a single phase supply (live and neutral) and a capacitor feeding the 3rd phase. I can play about with the capacitor size, but that mean buying in a selection! I have a 440 volt rated 6 microfarad capacitor which will probably work.

If anyone has done a similar conversion, then what size capacitor did you use? There is probably a way of calculating the required size, but I am too lazy to start that , if someone has a working value!

Regards,

Andrew.

I have also had this problem recently. I needed to thread some silver steel 2BA. I used a die holder in the tailstock. First three were fine,then one like the OP's photo. The following four were just fine.

I can only think that the material was somehow faulty, accounting for the poor threading. A bit of a mystery!

Andrew.

Well I am interested! Keep up the good work and the postings!

Andrew.

After some sage advice from another owner. I scrapped the ridiculously complicated belt set up and fitted a 3 phase motor with VFD drive. It finished up like Neils' set up. I would have gone for it,if it had been available at the time Once you have sorted out the drive system. You will then find that the whole cross slide top slide arrangement is rubbish.The tool is about as steady as a stiff jelly. There are mods you can do, the simplest is to dispense with the top slide and use a Gibraltar style tool post. There are lots of mods that can be done to bring the lathe up to a reasonable level of usefulness. Google "Tricking out an Asian 9 x 20" and other similar topics on the 920 lathe.

Don't get me wrong, the lathe can be turned into a useful machine, but it does take a fair amount of work to get there. The Gate's belt can be expensive and you need to know that there are two possible belts x10 and x20 I forget the value of x.. You can get the Gates belts from the US, if you have any US contacts, they are much cheaper there!

Andrew.

I am told that RR Merlin engines have the steel camshaft running directly in the aluminium block. The cams wore far more than the block for the reason Nick gives. It was said that the block could wear out half a dozen camshafts before the block became too worn for further service.

Andrew.

Interestingly enough, when I asked RDG what the run out was on their ER32 collets, their response was we don't quote run outs. This was the same answer that ARC gave me.

I finished up buying a set from Zoro at about £80 and found them to be good.

Andrew.

Can't work out what the fuss is about, as far as units are concerned, I am ambidextrous,

Andrew.

Hello again,

Just to report that SIF bronzing a replacement piece into the screw worked a treat. A little filing and a quick skim in the lathe and it looked perfect. I started to reassemble the screws and jaws and noticed that there was room for a sleeve to go around the weak area. I turned a couple up and loctited them in place. So that won't break again!

Repair was better than new despite SOD's pessimism. I actually took heed of SOD's tongue in cheek suggestion that I buy £15,000 worth of kit from Ebay to analyse the material of the screw. I remembered that one of my ex collegues had access to a scanning electron microscope with EDX analysis (SEM-EDX). I gave him a small piece of the screw, which I had to remove to square up the joint. Results were that it was steel and not cast iron. It seems that the fatigue crack produced a surface that looked like cast iron, as SOD said (with picture) in one of his replies.

Regards,

Andrew.