Member postings for Chris Evans 6

Jeff, where in Canada are you ? Many years ago I visited a few toolmakers and moulders in the Toronto and Windsor areas.

Chris

As another who spent his working life in the injection mould game a agree with all Jeff Dayman says. Have a look at some of the standard mould base kits around from the likes of DMS (Die Mould Services) Hasco and DME (Die Mould Europe. A small 150mm square mould base is cheap and for all you need a mild steel (Din1730) one will do. Find and talk to a commercial outfit before you commit. You will be looking for someone with small say 25 ton press.

Welcome along Mike, I am a Brummie but have worked in and around the Black Country. Retirement is great but work expands into the time available.

Chris.

Plus 2 I have covered my entire double garage floor with them.

With the advent of wire erosion machines we left the holes out then used a start hole machine for the wire. All core pin holes and some ejector pin holes where finished with the wirecut machine.

I would avoid carbide, if one of those binds up and breaks in the hole your problems will start. I spent many years operating spark erosion machines and carbide takes some shifting.

We regularly finished injection moulds to around 44/45 HRc and then did final machining.

Welcome along James from another British bike tinkerer. I work mainly on 1920s/1930s bikes for myself and plenty of 1950s/1960s stuff for others. When you have a lathe and mill you get a lot of friends with bikes.....

Pritchard Gears in Wednesbury West Midlands. (junction 9 M6)

Like Jason I made mine to suit the machines centre height and also use a triangular tip. I never did get around to adding a scale. For a full ball I just push the slide/tip up to the side of the work. Most use mine gets is adding large radius to the heads of bolts on old motorcycle projects. Run the lathe fast for good results.

A friend bought a ball turner some time ago, I can't remember the make but it was not cheap. He returned it for a refund as it was very poorly made. I then made myself and the friend one loosely based on the design by the late Steve Bedair. Cost nothing as made from stock/scrap. Works very well but really needs the work held in a collet to allow the attachment to get close and sometimes a three jaw would get in the way. The sliding part to alter radius on some designs just slides in a plain square edged slot I refined this and dovetailed the slider.

Have you considered bolting two normal angle plates together at the required angle ?

For general day to day measuring I prefer a normal standard micrometer. I spent many of my working years working in high end toolmaking companies. We where expected to have top of the range Tesa/Shardlow style of kit to comply with standards required. Reality was not the bulky/heavy stuff but a "Tenths" reading Mitutoyo standard mic.

I would use a 10mm slot drill after drilling to 9.5 or 3/8"

Welcome along, what do you want to play with ? I don't make models but use my machinery for my old motorcycle passion.

A very warm and sincere welcome back Andrew. I always valued your knowledge and enjoyed reading your posts. Chris.

Re the ignition points gaps with the engine running better with 12 thou as opposed to 15 thou. Is this not why we started using "Dwell Metre's" ?

I use mainly imperial sizes on my old motorcycles but all my machinery is metric. I have both metric and imperial measuring tools but really do prefer to use an imperial depth micrometer.

I have given up on cordless drills for the simple reason that I don't use them enough for the battery to be charged/hold charge when needed. I did once buy a 24volt drill but found it a bit big and bulky for DIY use.

I had this problem with a Toyota Rav 4. I seem to remember the garage saying drive at 2000 revs for 20 minutes to keep it clean. Only kept the car 4 months it was the worst car I have ever had and I bought it after 40 years of running series Land Rovers !

Plus 1 for the Starrett