Member postings for Nick Wheeler

Rolls was the 'financial partner', although Henry Royce was already a successful, wealthy businessman.

The traditional definition of mechanic was someone who builds, maintains and repairs machinery, which is a better description of what many model-engineers do. Engineer added 'designs' to that list and usually implied some sort of qualification.

The problem is that meanings in English creep, and so we end up with words being applied willy-nilly and all useful definition is lost. Calling the man who empties a septic tank a 'Sanitation Engineer' is a good example.

Smaller, cheaper, fits the machine and likely work better, and is still capable of taking 4mm deep cuts in steel.

I do a lot of turning with a homemade tangential tool that uses 3mm square HSS....

I use 8mm tooling on my WM250, and can't imagine why you would want to buy 12?

I don't see the visual appeal of ball handles, and having read descriptions of the work involved certainly won't be making any.

I have made a couple of handles like Andrew showed, which match the ones on my modern machines, and only take a few minutes turning for the base, and none for the handle which is simply a piece of stock rod loctited in place.

If building a machine that needed a lot of handles I'd buy THESE or something similar

Spares for the machines I bought new, and use occasionally for hobby work? None.

Both my work and storage space is limited, and I do have lots of tools.

That storage space is used for useful consumables: a range of fastener types/sizes for my work(M4/5/6/8&10), extra cutting tips/blanks, tap&dies, and a small quantity of metal stock in sizes that might cover unplanned jobs - turning down a common, larger size down for a single small part saves having lots of different sizes, Planned jobs I buy whatever is needed plus a bit extra if it has previously proved to be a useful size.

Nissan trained their warranty agents how to recover a faulty or accident damaged Leaf within a year of launching the car. That included how to ensure that the batteries were disconnected and safe.

Those bearings do have a constant flow of (hopefully) pressurised oil.

It's better mow!

They're only intended to run for a few seconds at a time to adjust ride height. And once the suspension is pumped up, very little air is needed to do that. Car air suspension systems use very similar pumps, and they all fail very quickly if a leaking air spring isn't repaired ASAP.

One might work if you want a quick, cheap and quiet blow gun for a machine - I have an Omega one to try - but they won't run air tools.

When I read you started with 1" square bar, I thought you were crazy.

I've just pulled a bit out of my stash, and now I know you're crazy

It already looks cool. Are you going to fold a monocoque out of foil to mount it in??

I agree with you on the tooling, but you would only need to make a few M6 T-nuts to fit the new slots.

I have an X2 Mini mill, and bought the clamp set that fits it; it's too big really, and I'm seriously considering making a more useful, smaller set using M6 fasteners rather than the massive M10.

I was going to do that, but even the generic 50mm boring head takes up a huge amount of space

I bought the Hemingway kit just after getting the mill, and made a mess of everything I did.

This repurposed the shaft and shaft holder, plus a couple of other bits including the tool:

The head and slide are from 60mm bar, the slot is 10mm wide. Shaft rotates on cheap bearings, and is screwed and loctited to the head.

It's only ever likely to be used for decorative balls(gear knobs, handles etc) so I saw no need to complicate it with an adjuster mechanism

The only time I've not had to collect a package from Parcelfarce in over 10 years was because I was standing by the door when their driver quietly slipped the We can't be bothered to deliver the parcel you've paid us to, so you need to collect it from the 'delivery centre' before we lose, break or steal it. But we no longer allow you to collect it on the same date on this card(they NEVER put a time on the card, and rarely bother with the date), we need at least 24 hours to get it back to the centre a mile away card through the letterbox. He had the right hump when I made him get the delivery out of the van and bring it to the doorstep without any help - it was the middle box for my toolchest.

Parcelfarce should stop pretending to deliver stuff, and just send the cards out with the postman, who does ring the bell and wait for someone to come to the door.

So Ketan, when I next order something from you, presumably you'll be paying me the the Parcel delivery fee?

I bought one many years ago(although not from Toolzone) for bending brake pipes. It was so bad that after making one bend, I went back to bending them around a gate hinge. If you want to make accurate bends, or bends really near the ends of your pipes then making one of the properly designs engineered to do that will be necessary

If anyone is considering buying this, you'll get better value for money by posting me a £10 note.

I have a very similar set. It does a lovely job of completely rounding out the screw head without damaging the part. 

Edited By Nicholas Wheeler 1 on 26/10/2020 17:46:04

An important thing to consider when working with cross-head screws is that the screwdriver you're going to use on them is a consumable!

It needs to be the right type(Phillips, Pozi and JIS are not the same) and in good condition. Even a slightly chewed tip will ruin perfectly good screws. Any driver in this condition should be taken to the grinder and turned into a pick/awl/scraper/general poky tool, or you'll put it back in the box and bugger up more screws in the future.

If possible, use an impact driver from the start.

You can buy specific grip paste for use on screws, but fine grinding paste works almost as well.

Sometimes grinding a slot across the head gives enough grip to undo the screw.

Once it's rounded out, drilling is necessary.

Anyone who has worked on aircraft will have their favourite methods for removing small cross-head screws because planes are littered with the bloody things; it takes a day to remove all the inspection panels on an Islander....

That would have upset the metre of the sentence....

That's so American numbers look bigger than ours.... did

I wonder how many people are actually using their 12mm cutters at 800rpm?