Member postings for mark smith 20

Understood now. How important would it have to be to get both pedestals into the same planes?

Ive resisted so far fiddling about with my Southbend 9A which is just sitting on a wooden suspended floor on a steel one piece cabinet stand(not fixed down). The lathe is fixed to this via four mounting bolts (two either side of each foot.)

My lathe has a nasty habit of turning a slight taper despite aligning the tailstock the best i can.

Ive never attempted removing twist ,the right bed foot is adjustable . How is twist ascertained,by simply placing a good level across the ways at several points or what???

How common is bed twist? Ive read that many just fix down the left headstock foot and leave the right foot only lightly bolted down.

Is 3 point fixing being discussed about the base to the floor or the lathe bed to the pedestal base?? What advantage does a 3 point fixing to the floor have??

I decided to hack up a broken epson r1800 a3 printer, all i ened up with which could be of use to me was a precision bar , 3 smaller diamter pieces of steel and a heap of useful looking felt. What type of steel is it likely to be?

Surprised by how i ended up with scrap that filled 3 small bin bags when the printer itself would have probably fitted in one.

Ive heard people using the main bar as a lathe test bar, but how.? Its rather long at 54cms and exactly 14.94mm diameter but doesnt have centre holes on the ends.

Any other uses?

Edited By mark smith 20 on 03/01/2017 16:33:47

Edited By mark smith 20 on 03/01/2017 16:34:29

Edited By mark smith 20 on 03/01/2017 16:36:59

I bought bought this off ebay when i was looking for a good solid small bandsaw ,But i found a much better (for my purposes) one later so this has sat in a corner. It has no table on it or tilting mechanism. The motor was totally wrecked.

Would this make a decent small metal cutting bandsaw. The whole thing is small but cast iron(even the wheel doors) . The guides are all there.

I bought these off ebay by HP Tec 1.6mm (no idea where they are made) but i use them for drilling sterling silver . Ive had them around 5 years and use regularly and only have had about 4 breakages in a manual Proxxon mill. I got sick of the carbide drills breaking ,so use these router bits instead . They seem very good quality.

Sorry i misread i thought you were using 25mm drill flute length,which seemed odd ,usually around 10mm.

Why do you need 25mm flute length to drill through 3mm brass. Sure the longer flute length will make them more prone to breakage???

**LINK**

Edited By mark smith 20 on 02/01/2017 19:03:54

Its very hard to find any "non sintered" bushes or bearing online in the uk, loads in the uS etc..

Would something like this not do. Needs machined but price seems reasonable.

**LINK**

Hi Phil, looks like we were just looking at the same image. It appears that head also only has one dividing plate like mine , must be common for the other one to go a stray!

Edited By mark smith 20 on 01/01/2017 19:08:05

Edited By mark smith 20 on 01/01/2017 19:10:16

Michael, yes it appears to be working so i cant complain. For around £120 for both head and tailstock from two different sellers including shipping ,i think i got a great deal,especially when compared to over £250 for the smallest Vertex type . I prefer buying old and british anyway.

Andrew, i think i`ll put some oil in anyway and see if it has any effect on that tight spot when revolving the spindle.I have a big container of iso 68 which i bought for my Alexander mill which was advertised as a replacement for the Shell Vitrea 37 which Elliot recommend.

I may of struck lucky with the tailstock as ive just found this photo from an old Gumtree ad. for a 3 1/2 " elliott and it looks identical to mine.

Hi Michael,

i understand how the two halves of the worm wheel move in opposite directions to take up any backlash but cant understand exactly what each adjusting screw does. Also there is unfortunately no instructions in the manual either . It  was a right pain to replace the spindle due to a spacer washer which kept moving and stopping the spindle going in easily ,so i`m not in too much of a hurry to take it apart again.

One question though are these supposed to be filled with oil ,it mentions it in the manual by removing the name plate but no mention of how much oil(is it really necessary?)

I bought this on ebay from a different seller, just finished cleaning it up and painting it. Does anyone know if its an elliott tail stock?? It looks right and is 3 1/2 ".

Edited By mark smith 20 on 01/01/2017 17:07:42

The d bit style in the first post are great for hard woods , i use them in my work, but to cut metal you need different ones.

I decided not to fiddle with it as i have no instructions regarding adjustment.

I don`t have the option of disengaging the worm , the only thing is the two nuts on the back side of it (one not the original), it seems strange how its only a few degrees . I can turn the handle lots of times before hitting the stiff area.

It must be an area on the spindle ,bore or worm wheel.

My wife always goes on about how i spend so much time polishing my tools and machinery but not enough time around the house tidying up.

Thanks, just need to get it all dirty again

Well after making 3 new 26T 16dp gear replacements. Ive finally got the thing back together ,after taking it completely apart.

Just have to figure out how to use it now. Before and after photos.

Only niggle is there is a region of about 10 degrees of a full circle of the spindle that tightens up ,cant figure this out.

Edited By mark smith 20 on 29/12/2016 12:47:33

The Fortis has a sliding gear , with the ``gear in``, threads from 4 -28tpi can be cut with the"gear out", threads from 32 to 224tpi.

Well if the machine weighs 1800kg and the package for shipping weighs 500kg then there`s a 1300kg piece of it missing somewhere!

Sorry 1250kg for the smallest mill , still 750kg missing somewhere.

Edited By mark smith 20 on 27/12/2016 10:07:21