Member postings for derek hall 1

Nearly choked on my cup of tea when I read the title of the thread!

Hi, I agree yes you only leave the Mandel handle in once....!

Roderick, the George Thomas pillar tool and drill attachment is like mine. A fantastic bit of kit, normally used mainly for tapping but the sensitive drilling attachment is very useful.

A great project and well worthwhile in the time it takes to construct

Regards

Derek

I made the simple grinding rest and I have to say was dissappointed with it.

The grinding rest itself was easy to make but it was such a faff to mount and set it up to work on a grinder, the instructions on how to build it were ok but details were light on how to use it. Pictures were poor in the book and it was not obvious how to set the rest up even to grind simple HSS lathe tools. It seemed that so much of the rest gets in the way of the actual grinding process and there is a requirement to keep adjusting the rest to try and present the tool at the required angle which became very frustrating and time consuming.

in some attempts the HSS tool had to protrude so far from its holder it was not thought to be a safe practice to be honest.

Most HSS lathe tool angles are not required to be accurate for general machining, most of the time I have gone back to freehand grinding.

Regards

Derek

As an apprentice many years ago, I once cut a 6 inch dia hole in the wrong place in the hull in the very bottom of a new ship.....fortunately it was in dry dock at the time....

I still have that piece of hull on my table as an over large industrial coaster for my mug of tea, to continually remind me to measure twice cut once !

Regards to all

Derek

Hopper……your post……that was brilliant!

all the best

Derek

Yep I also worked in a shipyard in the 1970’s…toughened me up working out in all weathers. Mind you my hearing is not what it was !

all the best

Derek

During my apprenticeship in the shipyard many moons ago I was given a new 1lb ball pien hammer and told to cut 2 inches off the length of the shaft as it was deemed "better for close controlled hammering"...

I think the main issue William has is the business end of the wooden shaft. Surely it has to be shaped to size to fit the hammer head before the wedge is knocked into the end grain? Never bought a new wooden handle for a hammer to be honest, when the handle got damaged I bought a new hammer.

My grandfather used to make handles for hammers etc but sadly I dont have his skills in woodwork

Regards to all

Derek

I had a very similar experience to you Colin.

Regarding the EITB and at the risk of straying off topic.

I did my apprenticeship 1974 to 1978. First year of apprenticeship many of us spent away from home (at 16) and I was based at Lowestoft College, living in "digs" and based full time in the machine shop for our first year basic training. During this time we did have one day a week "day release" either doing the Craft based course, or Technician based course or if you were really brainy, the ONC course.

At the end of this year we went back to our place of work, but in my case I was changed over to the S.I.T.B (Shipbuilding Industry Training Board) very similar to the EITB apart from marine bias... We still had to go one day a week to a local Tech college though..

Day release used to be 0900 through to 2000 (as it included an evening class)...a long day....

We used to have practical phase tests such as making a dovetail male and female bits using hand tools and a drill and the gaps had to be good enough to not allow a feeler gauge in (no idea what the size of feeler gauge was though). We also used to make several tools in the first year that I still use!

I agree about the distraction of young ladies attending nursing, art and other courses - Day Release at Tech always had its distractions and we used to try and arrange our breaks to coincide at the same time !!

I don't recall the 40 hour practical test though, maybe my course was slightly different.

I still have my log books!

Regards

Derek

I too was a "graduate" of the EITB.

Cannot help with any manuals I binned them ages ago....wish I hadn't

Derek

Polly is a great little engine for a beginner. Just follow the guidance and constructional details by Tubal Cain and you will be fine!

It's also a good project in learning about your lathe and what equipment you need to buy or make.

It really depends also on what you intend to make in the future. I regularly use a faceplate as well as turning between centres with dog and catch plate as well as line boring with castings strapped to the crosslide.

You don't need a DRO and fancy carbide tooling to enjoy model engineering. Just get familiar with your lathe and tools and decide what works for you. You can get a lot of enjoyment and experience in making simple and useful tools as well.

+1 for Dave's suggestion about the book

Have fun with the Zyto!

Derek

Hi,

I wondered when someone was going to mention some of the useless lumps of "castings" that you get with some kits! e.g Jason mentioning a lump of casting that was supposed to represent a flywheel as a very good example.

So many of these components from a kit can be manufactured from the solid or built up and brazed/soldered.

However I am not going down the CNC route personally, I want to leave computers outside the workshop - all this talk of G -code etc just goes over my head! and have no wish to learn it and convert my manual machines to CNC, but I admire the work that these CNC machines can produce.

Jason mentions and I paraphrase.."click of a mouse" and "get on with something else while the machine is cutting" - I like twiddling the feed screws and enjoy manually making things that are generally one offs. I would sooner do this than sit down in front of a PC and write loads of code to be honest...

But horses for courses and all that, I am sure that if I was younger I would be getting into CNC and 3 D printers etc, but for me now pottering around the workshop is enough !

All the best

Derek

Just noticed 2 very dodgy looking scam adverts in the for sale section....

I guess this is for the mods to do their magic and zap them!

Regards

Derek

Hi Peter,

I agree especially when sorting out house or car insurance on one of the many comparison websites. It's made more tedious by trying to compare like for like and then noticing all the hidden charges when you think you have found a good deal...!

Happy New Year!

Regards

Derek

I am considering a Newton Tesla package as a late xmas/new year pressie for myself.

Yes it is cheaper to buy the components, but I dont want the hassle of filters, programming, building an enclosure, sourcing screened cable etc...

Someone commented on this forum recently that they don't want to waste time making tools, they would sooner be building models, nothing wrong with that, I like building models and tools, but I dont want to waste time faffing around with sourcing all the kit to convert my lathe from single phase to inverter control.

Yes the NT package is expensive but the inverter is housed in a decent looking enclosure and does "look the part".....and yes the inverter ideally should be in an enclosure....

Kind regards

Del

Happy Chrimbo everyone and let's hope for a covid free 2022.....

All the best

Derek

I went through a similar exercise as you did Clive.

I looked at what was available but ruled out the clarkson as too big for my workshop and a lot that you see for sale don't have any essential kit that you need to get the most out of them unless you're lucky.

I built the simple Harold Hall grinder and I found it very frustrating to use, perhaps the advanced grinder is better.

However a year ago the chance to get the Quorn castings came up and although this machine can be awkward to use, I have always wanted to build one since as an apprentice in the mid 1970's I read the construction articles by Prof Chaddock.

Tell you the truth I am building the Quorn for the challenge more than anything and if it can sharpen the tooling in my workshop then I will be happy!

I built the drill grinding attachment designed by Ian Bradely many years ago in the ME and it's a fantastic piece of kit.

I ruled out the Worden due to thel fan of the motor directing air and grinding dust into my face.

Horses for courses though !

Kind regards

Derek

Ps I had to look up the word "infelicitous" in your post.....never heard of that word before, you learn something everyday... even though I dont agree with it!

I agree with Duncan.

The late great Tubal Cain (T Walshaw) discussed this in the ME and proved that the thin nut goes on top.

I have worked in engineering all my life and have never seen any practical installation of a thin nut first then big nut, that's not to say somewhere there is an example.

This topic always seems to come up every few years! But I will go with the vast experience of Tom Walshaw and say big nut first then thin locknut on top!

Regards

Derek

I solved both problems in a matter of minutes. I was going to show you all

I wrote the solutions down on a piece of paper

But the dog ate it or I left it on the bus ....sorry sir

Happy Xmas all

Derek

Hi made the cheaper one, the Fallows design, and for the amount of graduating it does it's fine.

Regards

Derek

Not forgetting in the 1970's, the impending ice age...

Regards

Derek