Member postings for Breva

That is a very neat casting furnace you have made. A fine job! You have given me ideas.

Good other videos as well. Well done.

Derek,

Slippery slope maybe, (well yes!) You have a useful collection put together so far and that looks a lovely box for £70. As a woodworker could you make it for that?

As someone said recently on another post, Having a hobby is a pleasant way of spending your money. And, its a great hobby. I hope you enjoy it.

John

I had an 8" grinder under the bench for several years. Not alone did it vibrate, it would go "walkies" all over the bench I read up about balancing and trueing the wheels and had a go . After some trial and error it now runs very smoothly.

It is usually the wheels that are unbalanced and the supporting washers are sloppy. Sometimes also the centre hole in the wheel is too big and causes the wheel to be off centre. Start by winding a hard paper slip around the shaft to take up the slack. It might be all it needs.

Then have a go at balancing the wheel if it still vibrates.It costs nothing and will transform your grinder. There's plenty info online.

I used a thin (1mm) lead washer with a centre hole for the shaft and a long pointed nose off it on one side. Find the heavy side of the wheel. Fit the washer with the point opposite the heavy end. You may have to trim the washer a bit to adjust the counterbalancing weight of it and move it around to get it to run true. I would do it with only one wheel on the shaft. Then put on the second wheel and repeat the operation.

Very satisfying when it works!

One of the additional "bits" that I bought with my mill was a set of ground parallels

**LINK** (usual disclaimer)

I have found them most useful for all sorts of setting up, both in a vise and on the mill table. A bit of an outlay but I wouldn't be without them. Not an everyday use item but certainly often in use.

John

My late father who was raised in Motherwell had quite a few descriptive phrases in his vocabulary that originated from the work that he and his father did in the Lanarkshire Mills in the 1920s. Eg. if the materials at hand for a particular job were of a poor quality he would refer to the inferior materials as being a poor scantling of....

His name for an awl was a mennie.

Some of the more colourful descriptions he bought back with him were of people he met. Among those were descriptions of people who had : a nose like a gimlet, shoulders like a lemonade bottle, or a face that would turn a funeral.

Then the PC cops arrived and we all got to speak real proper.

An interesting project but I don't like their pricing system.

As I understand it and I may have mis-read it, you need commit to subscribing $10+ a month to get the plans. No mention of how long for.

I wonder has anyone on the Forum tried to build something similar?

John

Thanks Tim. Good to know that.

John

I feel a real sadness that ordinary people following their ordinary lives should be the victims of senseless acts like the Westminster atrocities. Many lives cut unnecessarily short and no doubt many with long lasting injuries.

I must however agree totally with Blowlamps posts above. Many Western governments do not have clean hands here. Their actions give an excuse to religious fundamentalist groups to follow their agendas.

History shows us that religious fanaticism has killed more people since the dawn of history than practically anything else. And that stretches across all denominations!

That fanaticism draws many "hangers on", and one would suspect it gives many of lifes "no hopers" a chance to fame in their own mind, in carrying out some spectacular action no matter how senseless it might be.

There are luckily not many so deluded and we must all be careful, keep a cool head and preserve the freedoms that our society gives us.

John

Alastair,

I'm not sure if a spare no. 3 from another similar Burnerd chuck would fit without centring issues. Maybe some of the experienced members on here could advise.

The reason I ask is that I have a spare no.,3 which came with my Bantam lathe. I most likely will not use it and if solves your problem then you are welcome to it.

I have put a few pics in one of my albums.

John

Chris,

Personally I have found books ok to browse But by far and away the best tuition I have come across for between centre or spindle turning is:

**LINK** The skew chisel with Alan Batty.

A master of his craft and a good teacher as well. Worth playing and replaying.

Hope this helps,

John

Apparently, the enamel on a rat's tooth is the hardest organic material known.

A friend who worked as a Health Officer had an interesting story about being called into a turkey farm that was plagued with rats. The owner had tried everything, as did my friend, but the rats were thriving.

After quite a bit of head-scratching he checked into the contents of the turkey feed. They were adding a vitamin supplement (K, I think) that was the perfect antidote to the poison.

Having sussed that and removing the vitamin, the rats were beaten!

So don't leave the cornflakes laying around.

John

Whatever you do, steer clear of one of these, sold under various brand names. Mine was WoodStar.

With space issues. I searched widely and found that these had been converted to a table mounted saw by at least one respected member on another Forum. So, I got one. It comes as a portable saw with no mounting system for table use.

I went to considerable effort to fabricate the yellow and grey hinging mechanism seen in the photo which was problematic, added an auto cut-off switch, got good bimetal blades and was very pleased that I had a light portable saw. However, within a short while blade tracking became a problem. I added extra guides. Eventually the blade slipping off chewed up the wheel-bands and driving wheel and the saw became unusable.

Annoyingly 90% of the saw was reasonably well made but they had fitted PLASTIC wheels, which began to flex........It was directly gear driven from the motor with one gear moulded into the plastic wheel so not easy to remedy. The ha'pworth of tar syndrome.

So you live and learn. I now have a second-hand Clarke model CBS45MD. I have done enough mods and fixes on it to write a whole chapter. It cuts straight and square in both planes and is a great addition to any workshop.

I hope my experience might save others from wasting their efforts on this type of machine.

John

Hi Silly Old Duffer,

I'm coming 67 soon and to prove it have two small sheds lined with "might be useful" bits in boxes salvaged from dumped or broken items. Like yourself I'm an incorrigible fixer..but... I can honestly say that over the years only 2%, if that, of all that was ever rescued was found to be useful for my projects. Maybe I'm not creative enough but it is generally more trouble than it is worth to "Make things fit". The main exception is machineable lumps of metal.

One little triumph does come to mind though. One Christmas Eve the pump on the washing machine gave up and with everyone off work and three young kids and a fretting Mum in the house I had a little root around in the local dump. You could do that then. A useable pump was found and Christmas was salvaged and the old machine ran for years after.

My new Year resolution is to tackle the clutter. Ask me in Dec. how I got on.

That was quick! Thank you all for your help. Much appreciated indeed and problem solved.

Best wishes to you all for Christmas.

John

A friend of mine was rebuilding a 3" marine pump and the technical spec for the thread on one end of the drive shaft specified a thread which was described as G3/4A, that is G threequarter A, with a major diameter of some 26mm.

Not one we came across before and 3/4" being about 18mm we were a bit puzzled. It seemed to be about 14TPI.

Can any knowledgeable person on the forum give me any information as to what we might be dealing with please?

John

Hi Daniel,

It would help if you posted additional info and maybe a photo.

Physical size, wheel size, motor output and the type of mounting on the brush side etc, would help contributors on the forum to advise you.

John

I have had an Amadeal LV25 for a few years. It has not given any real problems. It can tackle light to medium jobs but don't expect to take heavy cuts. With light feeds and plenty of cutting fluid it will chomp away at it's own pace.

The only black spot is with the fine down feed. There is a lot of backlash in the knob. I have not managed to eliminate that as it seems to be the mesh of the two gears. Amadeal were willing to investigate it but needed the machine back. As I only live 200 miles across the sea and can't swim I have learned to live with it.

Like a lot of Far Eastern machinery, it is advisable to strip it down to clean thoroughly and re-lubricate. There are plenty forums on the Web to explain how and there are some useful mods you can make also.

You're going to need some sort of clamping system and /or vise also. I found a set of parallels very useful in setting things up. The list goes on.

My own feeling is that if I were buying now I'd go a bit bigger, but at the time it got me into the hobby and If I'm honest it will, with patience, do most of what I need.

John

This is a very informative discussion indeed!. Thanks to those who shared their knowledge.

A relevant question then. I had reason to straighten a gib strip on the lathe cross slide recently. I stoned it flat and matched it to the opposing face with blue.

Should the face of the gib strip have been scraped with any kind of pattern to hold oil on it's surface or can it be left flat?

John

I'd ban the latest Americanism that seems to have crept in where in interviews every reply has to begin with "So...".

Chris,

I have one of those scopes.

I had the same problem until I realised that you needed to change the setting on your computer which dictates to the computer which video input (camera or scope) you want the computer to use.

There will be the original built-in cam that is the default one.

You have to change that setting to tell it to use the borescope. It is a while since I used it but I remember it was simple once I copped what needed doing, and the video quality was quite good.

John