Member postings for Dave Halford

Till you know want you want to make.

3" vice -bog standard machine vice not a wobbly tilting one. Make it's locating blocks for your first project

Cutter holder - Vertex Osborn clone suits me as you don't have to wang it up very tight and I have a load of threaded cutters, others like ER versions for plain cutters.

tee nuts can be 60p each at Warco - pairs of clamps are best from RDG - buy extras at an ME show. Get some decent threaded rod in whatever size fits your table slots.

Parallels - small thin ones, lathe tool blanks will do for thick ones.

That covers the two primary objectives.

• holding the work still
• holding the cutter

The rest is nice to have which you may never use..

I remember most lamp switches were white plastic and square sectioned, but then Norfolk does that to you.

The fact that the OP muses on Chinese or Myford implies he wants a bench size lathe, not a whopping great 500KG+ floor stander.

This limits the choice a bit to bench size 10" or less.

Any Chinese might do if you don't want to use it in a shed (damp kills some of the speed controllers) or you don't intend any low speed big cuts, if you do Warco at least do a belt drive one for that. just be aware that overloading this sort of modern stuff tends to let the smoke out and the guarantee doesn't cover miss use. Old 'junk' just slips the belt and lives to fight another day.

Quality wise I have two far east machines, a bench drill from 1990 that clattered like a machine gun fro new when not drilling (the quill is rubbish) & a Combination roller, folder cutter thing with bolts drilled and tapped at odd angles and sort of works as a roller once you pack out all the slack.

British stuff comes in three camps,

'been in a school / education' which it clearly hasn't if you look at the photos or when true it might have been crashed to death, also training lathes are very basic ones and no extra tooling.

refurbished, likely a coat of paint is all the refurb it got and and no extra tooling.

Original paint, only a bit scruffy, no streaks on the bed from the tailstock, might be a good one, might get extra tooling.

To be honest it's probably time to toss a coin as neither route is perfect.

Hi Andrew,

you have a PM

And suddenly I agree.

Though it doesn't mean the gearbox is the same as the slow speed version

Hi Andrew,

What it says is 'found with' which can mean the parts swappers have been busy like on Simons Automill which was alloy only.

If you bought my old 66 Cortina mk1, when you lifted the bonnet and saw a Corsair 2000e V4 and found the battery in the boot would you assume Ford made some like it?

The Centec's were designed in the late 40's as industrial machines for small work, 3" dia horizontal cutters max. The vertical will happily run a 5/8 or 16mm cutter with a decent depth of cut in steel on1/2hp

Centec speeds are riveted to the mast and the factory documentation does not mention a doubled speed version. If you find a plate with doubled speeds I might agree.

You can use the horizontal to hog out a vertical head spacer for it's self

Don't forget you need to run the motor in both directions

The 2 B and 2A and Automill speed range is 85 to 1400

The only gears in the VH are bevel gears and what goes in comes out unless you mess with the pulley sizes.

I would not run a gearbox at twice the design speed unless you have a spare one

It's mostly all on Quest Dave

I think the UK answer to this lies in a current TV show on BBC titled W1 A.

Like 'Yes Minister' only based on the BBC. Disconcertingly close to the truth.

TV is driven by ratings and what ever TV land considers important to them and therefore must be important to the viewer. And they don't care about engineering YAR.

It also reflects their own attention span.

And need for jeopardy etc.

Most towns and cities are smokeless zones.

This means smoke from chimneys.

ridiculous as it seems this includes the little 6" chimney on the dustbin style incinerators.

Since recycling started our way my two 50 litre bin bags are now one.

Just don't burn lots plastic and nappies are vile if burnt

Not convinced Sean, bouncing up and down on the bar and squeaking might also mean the tow bar bolts are working a bit.

Most stability issues these days are caused by poor loading, you see vans with 4 pushbikes loaded in them, twin axle vans with the nose in the air because the hitch is set too high, and so much for a legal nose weight.

I guarantee if you come across a van towed at 40 wagging it's backside it's due to the owner (the one with the white knuckles on the wheel) with all the weight of his awning behind the axle.

As to speed of the lorry you follow at 58 or so isn't breaking the law to do you a favour. He's using his Tacho and doing 50 which is accurate, just check your sat nav. However the bloke in his Toyota who thinks he's good and right on the 50 limit is in fact doing 43 so I'm not surprised caravan towers get a bad name and truckers don't

Exactly what I did to re set my Centec way, way waaay out of alignment overarm bearing.

lathes.co is your friend - read carefully all the Arboga pitfalls are in there

Does you 2 have an output pulley on the horizontal shaft?

Otherwise you still need two drive pullies

Try bidding him for the 2A knee raiser and the head for £280, you only need to swap your knee spur gear onto the 2a shaft and bolt in to the back of your mast.

Would you pay £380 plus what your 2 cost for a complete centec?

Believe some don't work from a genny

I have several 2 flute cutters sharpened 'off' centre, they plunge just fine

Thanks, to be fair you are the first to mention it, good, bad or indifferent :O)

I've turned whats left of my 2 into a mini surface grinder simply by plonking a half horse bench grinder into the top dovetails. It's come in handy once already.

Sean

theres one in the files section, centec parts swapping pdf, it's not by Gary , but ................

A lot of the screw jacks need to protrude below the base plate, mine sticks out 2 inches or so so not much use if you have a drawer beneath the mill.

Or even the same size. remember when mars bars were a measure of inflation?

This is only an issue if you need to drill at an angle other than 90 or 180 to the table. Quills can be a pain.