Member postings for Andrew Tinsley

Thanks for your responses,

Even if a cheap one expires in a few years of light use then it would look as though it is worth the gamble. I notice that the best warranty on UK reputable inverters is 5 years. For light use, I suspect that the cheap inverters will last that long. If they don't then buying another will still be cheaper than buying a reputable make.

Am I on the wrong track here, anyone with nightmare stories of cheap Chinese inverters?

Andrew.

I have been looking at single to 3 phase inverters, for a friend of mine. I was somewhat staggered to find 0.75 kW inverters at sub £90 prices.

Doing a search on the forum, turned up a few people that have used cheap inverters without any problems. Considering that the quality suppliers in the UK can be priced at near three times the cheapo prices, I am somewhat tempted. I don't have any problems with setting up an inverter, even if the manual is in poor Chinglish.

What are peoples opinions of such cheap inverters? More to the point, has anyone had any real reliability problems with such units?

Andrew.

Hello Peak4,

I have just checked my bellows and they look brand new, bright, shiny rubber. I cannot quite believe how good a condition this Centec is in. The brown paint on the cabinet and guards is more or less pristine and must be original. About the only thing I am not keen on is that most of the machine is painted black. I think I will repaint it in Myford grey. Looking at the odd scratch it would appear that grey was the original colour, unless anyone knows better.

Thanks again,

Andrew.

Thanks everyone for the information. Looks like have a choice! I can use the neat little dividing head and tailstock that (was part of the purchase) to make the missing gears. I will wait until I get the horizontal milling cutters and gear cutters that were again part of the deal. Maybe one of them has the correct DP (which I think is 20?). I left them all at the house where the mill was situated!

I will look at my collection of Myford change wheels to see if I have the appropriate gears. I may be lucky as I have some very odd non standard wheels!

Andrew.

Edited By Andrew Tinsley on 16/10/2017 12:44:43

Thanks to everyone. The mill was successfully dismantled and manhandled up the cellar stairs! The stairs had a right angle bend and was steeper than normal. Thanks especially to Chris Lane and his friend Phillip, I was not much use at all!

I now have, what appears to be, a virtually unused Centec 2B complete with Mk3 vertical head. All be it in 3D jigsaw format. Looks like! an interesting job in reassembly!

About the only things missing are two of the cross feed gear wheels. I also lost the shaft on which one of the pair rotates! It was there in the cellar, but disappeared somewhere on route! The two gears that I have are 23 and 32 teeth jobs which seem to be one pair. Can anyone tell me what the other pair should be? I recall a thread recently which talked of theses gears. But a search for "Centec" on the forum search facility didn't find it.

Thanks again to everyone who helped,

Andrew.

Hello Jason,

Thanks for your very reasoned comments. I have checked my stash of MT2 tooling and I do have a posilock chuck and collets, much to my surprise! Amazing what you find when you take a look! I may as well get some threaded blunt cutters and sharpen them and use them. Probably a lot cheaper than buying new plain shank cutters!

If I ever run into headroom problems then an MT2 chuck and ER collets are not overly expensive. so I could get the best of both worlds! Anyone got any blunt cutters?!

Andrew.

Interesting that someone says ER collets are a compromise. I was thinking of going the ER route for a milling chuck as everyone said that Posilock type cutters are on the way out.

I don't have a problem with throat depth, so I think I might go the route of threaded cutter. I am sure that you can get lots of blunt ones for not much money. I will then sharpen them and get in a supply of the dwindling threaded cutters, so I have enough to see me out!

Andrew.

Hello Neil,

I have been very happy with my cheapo carbon steel taps. The set I got, had 3 taps per thread and were very sharp. They cut as well as expensive HSS taps and only now, after maybe 20 years, are one or two showing signs of bluntness. They have been used quite often and I am really amazed at how good they have been!

I seem to break expensive HSS taps, but up until now, touch wood, I have never broken a carbon steel tap. Probably amateur's luck. I would guess that cost per hole tapped is less for carbon steel than HSS. So carbon steel taps are not all bad!

Andrew.

Looks OK to me. I just hope the holes on the plate give you the divisions you want, otherwise plate making can take a little time.

Andrew.

Hello Gordon,

Thanks for that. In my own defence, the handles were bent when I got them. I suppose I could use one vice to straighten out the other handle of the other and vice versa (excuse the unintended pun!). Might even be able to do this, without removing the handles!

I shall give it a try and report back.

Andrew.

Yes, just after I wrote the bit about Oxy-acetylene it dawned on me that it would probably ruin the temper of the bar!

Now how do I straighten them without taking them out and no arbour press? OK looks like another project. Build an arbour press!

This model engineering has a lot to answer for. Maybe I just take Neil's advice and leave them as they are, battle honours and all that.

Thanks again,

Andrew.

I don't yet have an arbour press. I was going to heat it up with an oxyacetylene flame and then persuade it to straighten with a little brute force. I suppose I could do that by leaving the handles in situ. Save the bother of getting them out.

Andrew.

Don't do that Steve, just give it to me and make some space for a really useful item under the bench!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Andrew.

P.S. I could watch power shapers for hours. I could watch hand shapers too, as long as someone else is doing the work.

Hello Neil,!

You could be right! I just wanted to smarten the vices up and give them a lick of paint. They work much better after you paint them!

Andrew.

Hello Carl,

Thanks for the caveat. I have some BSF spanners on order!

Regards,

Andrew.

Thanks gentlemen!

That will save me buying BSF spanners. Probably not as easy to do these days!

Andrew.

Am I correct in assuming that the spanner sizes for Whit and BSF are the same.? I realise bolt O/D will differ!)

I have plenty of AF and also Whit spanners. I must have used these on BSF size bolts without realising. A quick check on a couple of BSF bolts seems to indicate that the head sizes are the same as Whit, is this generally true, or have I just been lucky?

Andrew.

Now that sounds interesting! No wonder I have never been able to get the damn things off! I might just as well make up new handles, rather than bothering with straightening the old ones out!

Thanks both,

Andrew.

I always make my rings the same diameter as the bore. I then split them, emery the gap, to give the correct ring gap I then wedge open the ring and heat to 500 degrees Centigrade. This gives the rings the necessary spring to push against the cylinder bore. Otherwise you don't get compression and one needs an electric finger to start the blighter. The performance is very poor as well, as the ring is effectively worn out.

Now I am talking about racing .60 cubic inch engines. I have NO experience of any other engines! There are some weird ideas that the compressed gas gets to the back of the ring and expands them. There are other complaints that the rings made as I explained above will have serious friction problems and thus give a reduced power output. NONE of these gripes are true, in the size of engine that I am talking of.

Other styles of engine and sizes may give these statements some credence. But in these 10 cc racing engines, they don't hold. So it depends on what engines you are talking about. As far as the ring width to depth is concerned. I simply use the original manufacturers sizes. Unless I have to make new pistons and then I am not too fussy about dimensions.

There is a lot more to getting rings to work than stated above. I usually hone cylinders to ensure circularity. I also use fine diamond paste to bed down the assembly. The latter improves some aspects of the engine and it can be run at full power straight away without "running in" (I use cast iron pistons for this and then swap to aluminium pistons, for obvious reasons.

Andrew.

I now have two Record vices which have S shaped tightening bars! Not, I hasten to add, of my doing.

I am puzzled as to how these handles have been assembled. I assume at least one of the end caps must have been screwed or pressed on. It would be much easier to straighten these handles if I could remove them.

So how is this done please?

Andrew.