Member postings for Alan Waddington 2

Cheers Rod, i had looked at them prior to posting, but £50 a foot for 90mm diameter made my eyes water a bit too much

I don't suppose anyone has a spare length of 80mm diameter EN16T ( or similar ) that they would like to sell ? I need to make 2 new steering arms for my TVR and need either two pieces approx 200mm long or one piece 400mm long. Alternatively if anyone can point me in the direction of somewhere that will sell small quantities or half lengths.

With 14' x 8' to play with and permission granted I would be out shopping for a Bridgeport !

on a more serious note, the biggest part of many millers is the chip tray, I've seen Tom Seniors with the tray cut

down to fit in a corner, you could probably remove it all together if you're not fussed about having flood coolant.

As others have said, I reckon you will soon get fed up with milling operations in the lathe.

John, as above, ER collets are ok for milling, I use them myself on a much bigger machine with no issues, however the clarkson chuck you have does offer a more positive method of holding cutters as they are screwed into the collets which by design cannot spin in the chuck body. If you are struggling to get a stuck collet out, remove the chuck from the machine, give it a spray with plus gas or similar and knock it out through the drawbar hole with a length of rod.

Nifty trick I learned when I bought my first "big" lathe a harrison L5a. No engine crane available.

2 long hefty planks side by side with a slight gap between and a short piece of heavy angle iron nailed on the end.

block and tackle attached to angle iron in gap between planks.

3 x lengths of 20mm solid round bar as rollers.

lay planks to form a ramp but with plenty of length stuck up in fresh air.

slowly and carefully drag the lathe up the planks using the rollers, when it reaches the fulcrum point it will tip into 

the trailer, or in my case a transit van.

Mine was only a 10 mile journey so I left it sat on the planks and simply reversed the operation at the destination end.

Edited By Alan Waddington 2 on 21/02/2015 09:05:47

Edited By Alan Waddington 2 on 21/02/2015 09:06:38

Mhh Interesting reading Ronan........couldn't quite work out if he had replaced the gears or just cleaned them up?

From what I can gather 600 group spares prices are eye watering to say the least, might be worth pricing them up

before formulating a plan of attack.

Wonder if that's why they chose not to harden them in the first place

Thanks Michael

Unfortunately the link stays in German on my Mac & ipad, a quick look at the pictures reveals fairly major headstock surgery.

If the spindle brake operates anything like my Student 1800 then I very much doubt that's the culprit. its a fairly crude brake block arrangement that jams into one of the V belt drive pulleys.

I've heard many stories of noisy Colchester head stocks, especially high mileage ones, can't say my Student is too obnoxious, however I don't think Colchester were ever noted for their quiet operation.

Might be useful if you could describe the noise in a bit more detail, is it a whine, a rumble a clattering sound etc

" a bag of chisels is a bit generic " 
 

IIRC the master headstock is pump lubricated rather than splash lubricated like my student, I wonder if it's possible the pump had packed up at sometime in its life and no one noticed for a while, resulting in high gear train wear ?

Edited By Alan Waddington 2 on 12/01/2015 20:27:19

Dave

Iv'e never owned an M300, but as it's a comparable lathe to my Colchester and from the same stable, I wonder if like the Colchester it has an adjustable headstock ? Worth checking if all else fails.

The trouble with used machinery is you never know who has fiddled with it in the past. Hope you get to the bottom of it.

Alan

Had a very similar experience to Andrew.......this is the post I made at the time.

"I've just installed a Short bed student 1800, and not having access to a precision level I just used a normal 3 foot level to get the machine somewhere near. Cutting a short test piece in the 3 jaw showed a taper of .002" over about 6" .......bugger!

After a read of the manual I was contemplating tackling adjusting the headstock, then a friend, a retired toolmaker suggested I loan his burnerd collet chuck and test bar, with this in place and a DTI mounted on the toolpost I noticed a noticeable jump in the readings, on further investigation I could feel a ridge between the bed and gap piece with my finger nail.

Took the gap out and found a tiny bit of paint and muck on the mating surface, cleaned everything up and carefully re fitted the gap piece.

Test bar then clocked to .0002" along the full length, put my original test piece in the collet chuck and took another light cut which again clocked at 0.0002" along its length , although a mic reading at each end seemed to show a slight taper of around a tenth

Put the 3 jaw back on and took another light cut, reading each end with the mic showed a slight taper of less than 0.0002".....good enough for my level of bodgery !

In conclusion, I would check everything possible before messing with the headstock, like me you might have missed something obvious.

My retired mentor scoffed when I was worrying about precision levelling, he has a Harrison 300 which is sat on drive blocks to jack it up and save his back, says it cuts just fine, although he doesn't consider it a machine for precision work, he has a hardinge for such occasions."

To quote my old gaffer when he thought the job wasn't moving fast enough ..."

..."come on lad we're not making gold watches here you know"

Looks like the advert got pulled by ebay so at least no one got stung this time........Been around a bit has that machine.

Originally for sale in the States, which of course would be the genuine article, then started to appear on UK ebay

March winning bid £11,700 Isle of Lewis

April winning bid £5600 Isle of Lewis

July winning bid £4300 Oldham

July winning bid £???? usk

Its a minefield out there for the unwary buyer......and a sad reflection on society......tread carefully folks

Crikey, it only had one bid of 99p when i posted the link, its up to £311 now!........are you lot bidding on it

Forgot to include the hacked ebay account scam, where the seller appears to have plenty of good feedback.

have a look at this, which i reckon is an example of a hacked account.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2000-Vertical-Machining-Center-Haas-VF-0-CNC-/371098179398?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276

Then do a google search using the advert title..........recognise the picture !

The American flag is a bit of a give away too.

Ok could be someone selling a genuine item and using a stock photo, but i doubt it......scammier than a scammy thing i reckon.

Edited By Alan Waddington 2 on 08/07/2014 21:31:39

I feel your pain, Iv'e drilled countless 1-1/4" holes in cast iron fall pipes using a hole saw in a cordless drill, never a problem, two minute job, then a couple of weeks ago I encountered one made from cast kryptonite .......hard does not even come close, took an hour with a corded drill and killed two starret cutters......funny stuff cast iron!