Member postings for robjon44

Not a Pools Special, I have one, a Pools '38 Special which has a base under the headstock end & a foot under the tailstock & according to Lathes.co. uk is a special edition in that it has a hinged countershaft, the only one fitted with one as standard I believe, as a historical note, a lifetime ago paperboys used to frequent the housing estate where I Iived selling the Nottingham Evening Post newspaper which had an advert for Pools Tools at the righthand end of the banner at the top, if I remember correctly they were made by firm called Slack & Parr.

Bob H

On an allied topic I have worked in places where Noga blades were used (& misused) & when they became blunt the blades would be thrown away, I have in my private collection literally dozens of these discarded blades picked up off the floor, in my working life I kept 2 sets of diamond files, one at home & one at work, there is a set next to my elbow as I write this, one side of the Noga blade is flat the other angled, place with flat side uppermost on piece of corrugated cardboard secure with thumb & first finger of your preferred hand (I'm a lefty myself) adorn with a black felt pen so you can see what you're doing, then use flat file to sharpen, a prize every time, in fact my granny could do it (she worked in an armaments factory during WW1 making aero engine components round the corner from our ancestral home), most blades of good quality can be sharpened 3 or 4 times.

BobH

Hi all, many years ago I made spiders & double ended nut runners based on cap screws of the appropriate sizes in metric & imperial sizes & with hindsight they lasted for decades & are now parked in screws on my small lathe poised & ready to spring into action, ( unlike me), fit like a glove & really only a few minutes work to make.

Bob H

Hi all, I would go with ega's drawing above, on the rare occasions I have needed small bored soft jaws I have 2 sets lovingly hand crafted from nuts with 1" diameter threads, one with the corners inward & one with the flats inward, grip a small piece of hex bar, then skim the o/d to clean up, dot punch, remove, drill & tap for securing (cap screws) & Bobs your uncle or lazy person (your choice), tie up on piece of string & hang up in plain sight ready for the time they are required again & yes I know its a little crude we are not making fings for Mr Rolls & Mr Royce but in a previous lifetime I have done.

BobH

Back in the dark (literally)days of the miners strike our night shift supervisor took the opportunity to curb the noise emanating from our meal break card games by switching off the lighting in a bid to stop the National Grid collapsing (or somefink) our machine shop was some 200 yards long by 100 yards wide, just how much noise can 6 men who have drawn the short straw that week generate? anyway one of our number drew on the technology of times long gone by & made an oil lamp from a small bottle of paraffin with a wick which was secured in the middle of the table by double sided tape & surrounded by 3 larger bottles of water giving out a quite astonishing amount of white light, this allowed our card games to continue & we saluted the ladies of long ago who used this method to enable their evening embroidery sessions.

BobH

Hi chaps, I had just such a call quite recently, apparently the president of the USA had discovered that they owed me several million dollars, I sent a reply telling them that they should keep it as I did not want to be held responsible for the collapse of their economy, did not even get a thank you text.

BobH

Hi all, yesterday 24/06/2022, upstairs, windows open, I should point out that I am the son of a WW2 Merlin engine fitter & that sound is embedded in my dna, I heard one approaching and sure enough moments later a Hawker Hurricane came directly towards me, low down flying North, South, I bathed in that magnificent roar & as soon as it passed over I shot into the front bedroom & watched it until it disappeared, I always say an unexpected sighting is a bonus!

Bob H

Mick B1, not a criticism but spiral flute propels swarf upward through finished thread whereas spiral point propels it downward out of back of thread, preferable no?

Circlip, I was one of those of whom you speak & always regarded my apprenticeship as the price I paid to learn a skilled trade, ie skilled manual turner, setter, chargehand, automatic lathe setter, operator of CNC lathe the size of a Transit van & the rest of my adult life setting & operating every shape, size & sort of CNC machine, back in the day our mantra was " I'm not on the YTS ( Youth Training Scheme ) this is my expletive job "

call me old fashioned but I never wanted to wear a collar & tie for a living.

BobH

Just drew what appeared to my failing eyesight to be quite a fine line with a pentel techniclic G automatic pencil but it still says its a 0.4 lead so I'll throw my hand in.

BobH

Please sir, a very long time ago I was in a school metalwork classroom ( yes that long ago! ) engaged in horizontally milling a block of steel to a particular size at the request of the teacher, lo & behold we were blessed by a visit from both the principal & vice principal of the technical college that I attended in those days, the principal a small rotund man wearing very thick glasses came to me & said "now you do know that you must never wear a tie in the workshop don't you?" now at this point I must confess I have hated neckties since schooldays when they were part of the uniform, it was a rite of passage at my secondary school that on the last day there one would tie the tie & impale the cap on the school railings, so I peered round the workshop in an exaggerated manner & said " and do you know that of the 40 odd people in this room you are the only one wearing a tie?" he did not have response to my query, these days I only own one tie & that's a clip on reserved for weddings & funerals. Hence the expression, I used to be a top gun but now I'm just a loose cannon.

Bob H

I have to agree with Andrew Johnston's comment above about people who insist on living in the past where slavishly adhering to ancient practices on the off chance someone might award you some brownie points is a complete loser, there is no real way to shift some peoples mind set out of the single furrow they insist on ploughing. Having served an apprenticeship as a skilled manual turner from 1960 I moved up through the ranks of automatic lathe setter & eventually Programmer Setter Operator of CNC lathes the size of a Transit van, all along the way this mind set was evident, even though change gears, flat belt drives & putting chalk marks on the moving parts had been consigned to the dustbin of history. One day, not long before he retired my dear old dad who had served his apprenticeship as a Fitter/ Turner prior to WW2 & was now the Chief Planning Engineer of the company where we both worked was in the machine shop, he looked through the armoured glass window where it was all happening & said "bloody hell boy, I wish we'd had all this in 1938" So I can keep internal & external CCTV cameras, 3D graphics when running simulations of new programs & my own personal favourite Iris Recognition then, if that doesn't keep meddlers out nothing else will.

Bob H

I apologise as I have mentioned this before but once upon a time I needed a 2 jaw chuck as I was tasked with doing a large batch of very flimsy round items of aluminium & steel about 4" in diameter, so obviously needed an all enveloping grip & they don't come much more all enveloping than a 2 jaw with soft jaws clamped on a piece of 0.030" packing & bored to suit, I came upon such a thing on Ebay for sale from a gentleman who was a woodworker & had no use for it, long story short we agreed a price & he sent it off by Hermes, on the day it turned up the courier threw it up my drive, I was at home, the doorbell was working, I shudder to think what would have happened had the sender not built a custom crafted box around it fastened together with very large woodscrews, so no I wouldn't employ Mr Hermes ( & yes I know he has changed his name this very week ) even if I was able to pay him in bright steel washers as my dad was prone to say, or am I being judgemental?

Bob H

Hi all, removing gunge, model aircraft engines with baked on castrol R was removed back in the day with biological washing powder like magic, larger aluminium motorcycle castings came up like new when heated up in a bucket of water with some rhubarb leaves (Oxalic Acid) the red part left over may be made into a pastry covered pie colloquially known as Hydrochloric Acid Pie for good reason. ( if cookery of any kind is not within your grasp ask your mother or wife for assistance ) Motorcycle Exhaust Pipes & Silencers also respond well, after plugging one end & standing upright, to the boiling washing powder solution, you would not believe the sheer amount of gunge that pours out!

Bob H

Hi all, I have told this tale many times, I had a requirement for a 2 jaw chuck & found one advertised by a woodworker who got it in a job lot of woodworking equipment so I purchased it from him, when it arrived by Hermes I was at home, my car was parked outside, my doorbell was working & yet the courier threw it up the drive with such force that the elaborate box that woodworker man had constructed around the chuck was broken open, however being a man after my own heart he had fastened it together with very long woodscrews & maintained its integrity, so no, I wouldn't pay them in washers, not even if you gave me the washers.

Bob H

Hi all, Sunday 1st August, sitting on a bench at Grafham Water, as I am the son of a WW2 Merlin Engine Fitter it is programmed into my DNA to be alerted by the sound of V12 aero engines, a quick scan of the sky revealed a Spitfire & a Hurricane some distance away, climbing, diving, circling & being treated to the sound of that engine taking the load off the propeller in a shallow dive, this carried on for about half an hour, definitely was not expecting an air display out of the blue!

BobH

Hi all, not long before I retired, about 5 years ago, as the programmer setter operator of a Colchester Tornado CNC machine ( their only lathe ) I became a little disenchanted with people demanding that I break down a volume job on the auto to make some 1 off, it would in fact have been quicker for me to walk home 3 miles, do the job in my workshop & walk back again! However I did talk them into buying a Ward 3DB for this sort of thing, having found 1 on Fleabay that appeared to be in good nick,(£900) upon arrival its only fault was a small hole in the tray which I repaired with 2 tap washers 2 penny washers & a nut & screw, BUT imagine my astonishment to find that it was also fitted with a copying attachment! Of all the Ward 2,2A,3,3A &3DB models I have seen & or operated that was the only one. Eventually however I was called upon to tread the primrose path of CNC machining which I continued to do for the remaining 45 years of my working life, them campervans don't pay for themselves you know!

BobH

Back in the day we campaigned 80 degree rhombic turning tools using 12 16 & 19mm tips, we also had holders to use up the obtuse angled corners as well, these murdered things like square or other irregular shaped components in both steel & cast iron & saved the company vast amounts of money! If you are as tight fisted as I am it is perfectly feasible to make your own, don't ask me how I know, set out from positive rake tips in the home workshop.

BobH

Hi all, firstly my grandfather, a butcher by trade never picked a knife up without sharpening with a steel it in a ritual resembling a sword fight, moving on, during our aeromodelling days we stayed on top of scalpel & single edge razor blades by honing with a piece of wood with wet & dry paper (silicon carbide grit) stuck to it, a wizard wheeze I learned was used by bookbinders to keep their home made cutters up to snuff, these days I have certain blades such as deburring 'twirly' tool blades that I frighten with few stokes of a fine diamond file, sets of which are dirt cheap, it is a good idea to black the cutting edge with a felt pen so that you can see that you are aiming at the right place!

BobH

Hi all, a very long time ago my friend Jeff was given a Mamod steam engine by a workmate, as his son was pretty mechanically minded we set about giving the little engine a job of work, cue large wooden box to give it some height when standing on the dining table, followed by constructing a crane from Meccano before securing engine & crane on top of the box giving about 4 feet of lift from floor level, drive train by the beautifully crafted Meccano chain sprockets & chain, the little engine gave the young lad many happy hours & a lifetime later he still harks back to it even though he is approaching retiring age & I of course am older than dirt, happy times.

BobH

Hi all, in my last job before retirement there was a very large & old fangled electricity meter bolted to the wall behind my machine, on the adjacent exterior wall was a small bracket with an aerial just a few inches high, I enquired what it was for & was told it was so that the meter could be read from outside the building, a few days later a man turned up wearing the electricity company's uniform & proceeded to read the meter, upon asked why he was not using the remote facility he said "I would if the expletive thing worked!" Boom Boom as Basil Brush would have said.

BobH