Member postings for jonathan heppel

Dual dials are used exactly like single ones. You release the lock, then rotate to zero. You never seperate them to set both zeros together because you're using one or the other. Yours should be eg circlipped together. The master rotates with the screw and the slave consists of dial, gear and stator. It looks like your stator shoud register on the protruding fixing screw as in your clip. If that knurled piece doesn't have a hole to register it is either not original or there are more pieces missing. It seems you are missing your fiiducial also, which is probably of the window type.

Check out stuck chuck threads. The gear is part of the back gear arrangement. Do not use it to lock the spindle under any circumstances.

There is one caveat I can think of. Hydrochloric acid gives off highly corrosive fumes that will rust any ferrous metal they land on- particularly in damp air.

General advice is to use it out of doors or at least outside the workshop, A safer alternative is phosphoric acid, either from the net or a farm shop.

No worries mate. I should say that I've no personal experience with mini lathes, just some with bearings. Providing it's not too conflicting, perhaps the info on a dedicated site may help more.

You need to cope with axial clearance (end float) also. Cylindrical rollers aren't adjustable for radial preload either, so angular contacts are really the only choice. I'm not sure why you need C3 clearance- could be that they are the most common cheap bearings. Best choice anyway is precision grade but it looks like they're out of your price range . Check the contact angle you need cos they vary. You may well find that just better quality deep grooves do the job, though they have fewer balls.

Have you tried countersinking a nut and migging it to the bust stud? The heat breaks the bond and you just wind it out.

It's the economy, stupid! Or perhaps:

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Don't blame Rotagrip. Their prices just represent the true cost of pro grade industrial kit, though I wouldn't be hugely surprised if the Pratt screws come from the same factory as the cheap ones.

As for using a chuck key to remove a chuck, well..............

Fact is, people have a natural though unfortunate tendency do defend what they own regardless of the limitations. The 11mm difference can be circumvented with soft jaws and a scroll chuck.

All systems have strengths and weaknessess so it's back to what work is being done to take advantage of the former and mitigate the latter.

It's worth mentioning that most of the "great" toolroom machines were fitted for spring collets, more often than not 5c

It depends on the collets you want, and the work you do. Multisize are very good but the ones I've used can't hold short pieces.

The cheapest and probably most accurate collet holder would be a spindle taper adaptor, probably to 5c. You could even make your own soft one. The drawbar is easy, if you're happy with a simple screw type.

You are limited to 27mm/1 1/16" bore with 5c but it is an industry standard and there's loads of stuff like larger step collets, squares and hexagons too. If you buy sets in bar stock sizes plus fill-ins to suit the work you should be fairly well covered. Remember that in emergency you can make collet liners if you don't have the dead size. Be warned that quality varies hugely, so buy carefully.

Then there's the ER series, which being size tolerant may end up a bit cheaper overall, but probably less accurate and versatile. It's worth remembering that ER is primarily a toolholding system in industry, though obviously can hold work also.

Is it definitely case hardened? If a file touches it then EN24T would save heat treatment and any finish grinding

The 50 quid coaxial indicators are a great deal faster (and obviate neck craning and mirrors.) They are used with the spindle running so both hands are free for the handwheels.

Has anyone noticed a creeping misspelling of arbor as arbour? I think there's a misconception that it's the "british" spelling as in colour.
The hobby suppliers are the worst offenders, and then people follow suit.

Whatever, I always wince when I see a post about someone fitting a garden feature to his milling machine.

Your liner will compress, so probably best to keep your planned interference, push it all in at once without stopping with eg an arbor press.

Snap gauges and telescope gauges are called what they always have been - google them. I suspect someone had a brainstorm and the misnomer has gone viral in the hobbyist community.

This sort of mistake makes all of us look ignorant.

How about using a foot on the caliper? You can buy them but they are easy enough to make, though mics are better.

A

The tweezers have a reason. Insulated obviously better,though not necessary if you hold the cell properly. Don't use bare hands- clean tissue will do.

You really shouldn't be rude about tradesmen unless you know the whole story and they really ARE being stupid.

I wouldn't bother with a one shot system, just a high pressure oil gun on new nipples. Nobody's mentioned it, but of course get a manual. Not sure, but I think you had to move the table to a particular position to oil old Bridgeports.

Machines of that vintage in my experience have at least a few blocked oilways, as well as the hardened oil and grease, which will result in the oil following the path of least resistance causing starvation in places. I regret to say that to do a proper job you must strip and clean it. I believe many oldtimers did this as a matter of course during the life of a machine.

The best cleaner that I've found is good old white spirit. Brass wire and nylon brushes, stainless steel swarrf style kitchen scrubbers, and a scraper made from copper tube. Scotchbrite contains abrasive so I avoid it. Poultices from tissue, spirit and eg foil are useful. Once degreased, beware flash rust. Consider using a small ultrasonic tank for ball races, though I never have. Good luck and have fun!

I second the inverted tool suggestion. Also if you're feeding with the topslide, make sure it's adjusted well, including backlash on the screw if fitted, because self feeding is more of an issue when trepanning. Easy on rake angle too for the same reason.