Member postings for Farmboy

Oops! Yes, a typo . . . nearly got away with it though

If the part was working its way out, causing the concavity as Jason suggests, then Dave's latest facing cut from centre out should result in convexity, or at least flatness, and prove the case . . . but I'll be surprised if it does.

Mike.

As an inexperienced lathe user I've followed this thread with interest, but I'm struggling to understand the concept of the workpiece rocking in the chuck such that it produces the convex face. I can't imagine how rocking could induce a consistant tapering effect on a rotating face

The only ways I can think of producing a convex face are either the spindle axis or the cross-slide being misaligned ( which should result in consistency at least ), or flexing of the workpiece, tool, toolpost, topslide or cross-slide, which might be inconsistent.

Or I may have completely misunderstood the problem

Mike.

Phew!

After reading a couple of recent threads here I'm surprised anybody bothers to submit articles for publication. They certainly need to be thick skinned.

I haven't seen the offending article in this case, but most of the time the writer is showing us something he made, and how he went about it. Nobody is obliged to replicate it, and if they do they'll most likely modify things to suit their purpose or available materials.

I'm just grateful that people are prepared to share their experiences, either in the magazines or on forums like this.

Mike.

In the 1960s I saved up to buy a Unimat lathe. I'm fairly sure it cost £56 at the time, or about 4 weeks wages. I believe the average wage now is around £500. Four weeks wages today would buy a pretty good new lathe and a small mill . . .

Mike.

On the plus side, if MS freeze out the third-party software developers, maybe more of them will turn to Linux as their OS of choice and we won't need MS . . . or Apple, or Android . . . ok, I know Android is a version of Linux . . . sort of ...

Mike.

Probably far less of a hazard than some of the morons driving new cars round here . . .

From my own experience on other sites, and from many of the earlier posts here, including Raymond's, I would say the problem is with Firefox, which I still use for most of my online activities.

Unfortunately, too many sites have security 'issues' which cause Firefox to block them. If you want to use those sites you either use another browser or go into Firefox's settings and enable/disable certain features . . . after reading the dire warning, "Here be Dragons", etc . . . assuming you have sufficient understanding of the system.

A different browser is the easiest option if you don't understand all the settings, and a decent antivirus program should protect you against most threats.

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica the Hurricane had a 12 cylinder in-line engine.

Guess it had a longer nose than the Spitfire . . .

Just a word of caution when setting the backlash on the gears, I found one or two of mine ( on a SIEG C4 ) were not perfectly concentric. Hardly noticeable until you mesh them too close, when they will bind once per revolution. Best to spin each one 360 degrees by hand to make sure, and adjust the setting at the tightest point. When you've done them all once, you'll know if you have any like that. I would hope it's not a common problem!

Mike.

I knew I'd seen them on something else, but couldn't think where . . .

I seem to remember some model railway wagons used 'needle-point' bearings, steel axles with pointed ends running in brass cups. If suitably designed with a wide angle cup and narrow angle spindle it should be easy to wash out the clay slurry under running water before it does any harm; I assume there would be a tap in a ceramics workshop. Obviously the spindle would be fixed in the wheel.

It should be possible to make the bearings adjustable with a simple screw arrangement.

Mike.

Yes, definitely a good day

Robin is able to finish the job properly, and my ego got a boost with a from MichaelG

Mike.

Robin,

I'm probably way off the mark, not seeing it 'in the flesh', but my impression was that the gear shaft had a keyway which runs right to the end of the shaft and is visible on the 'fastener' in the last photo. The gear is prevented from rotating by a key held in place by one of the grub screws. The other grub screw probably locates in a dimple on the shaft to prevent axial movement. The end of that shaft seems to protrude through the casting with a grease nipple in the end to lubricate the plain bearing hole in the casting. If that was the case, removing the grub screws should allow the shaft to be withdrawn from the handle end . . . with a little persuasion, such as tapping alternately on either end with a suitable soft hammer or drift after application of some penetrating oil.

Apologies if I have misinterpreted the photos

Mike.

I imagine 3D printers will eventually be working at the molecular level to create everything we need . . . probably already happening somewhere

Even then I expect there will still be people ( definitely not luddites ) building steam engines in their sheds, or making fine wooden furniture, or baking cakes, or gardening, etc. The human race evolved over thousands of years to have opposed thumbs so that we could do all those things, so I don't suppose we'll lose the ability for a few more thousand years . . . of course there have always been those humans who have all thumbs

I don't much care what other people get up to in the privacy of their own sheds but I do think there was a lot of merit in the old idea of learning basic hand skills before going on to machining, CNC, etc.

Sadly, I never even got to see the inside of the single metalwork room in a school of 1,100 boys but I'll be forever grateful to the brilliant woodwork teacher who taught us how to take a piece of wood, plane it square and true to size, mark out and cut it to length accurately, then mark out and cut various joints, all by hand. I seldom had a use for such skills in my working life but they certainly improved my hand-eye cordination for all manner of other jobs. And I still love a bit of joinery if I get the time.

Now trying to teach myself the same sort of things in metal . . .

Mike.

Not always easy to be sure from one photo, but the 'fastener' in the second picture looks to me like the end of the shaft with a keyway in it . . .

It may be an optical illusion, but in the last photo of your first post it appears that the internal thread depth to the inner shoulder is shorter than the external thread on the spindle nose. If so, the chuck will never seat properly on the register as it is seating on the shoulder first.

You could check this by placing a large washer on the spindle, against the register face, before fitting the chuck to see if it then seats properly before removing any more metal. Unless the thread engagement is extremely tight it should not prevent the register faces aligning.

Mike.

Edited By Farmboy on 08/05/2018 14:53:00

If you have an 80mm backplate with a 1" x 10TPI internal thread it should be a perfect fit on the spindle nose in the photo, which appears to be 1" BSF. However, if the thread in the backplate is only 1/2" deep it will not screw fully on to the spindle

If the damaged backplate was either 8 or 12 TPI that would explain the stripped threads . . . I would just be grateful that the spindle thread seems to be still intact!

It took some of us a long time to realise that, unlike many hobby machine tools, the PC is designed with a 100% duty cycle, i.e. they are meant to be permanently powered up. Mine wakes from sleep mode every night around 4am and updates some of its parts. The only way to discover this is by viewing the system log since it does not list these mini-updates.

If it is powered off at night these updates take place after you switch on . . . which may be fine if you are on "superfast" broadband, but can involve a very long tea-break if you are on a slow rural 'phone line as they hog ALL the bandwidth

Many of the bigger updates involve a long-winded reboot but if you have Win10 Pro you are allowed some leeway to choose when to do this.

Mike.

All computers are a pain, but sadly they are no longer optional unless you are a hermit who does not need to contact anyone in the outside world for business or social purposes . . .

Edited By Farmboy on 12/04/2018 23:00:09

Most 'advances' in technology lately seem to involve somebody inventing something and then desperately trying to invent a 'need' for it. The saddest part is that they nearly always manage to convince the masses they can't live without the latest gadget

On the other hand, you can't imagine the time and energy I've saved since I fitted my new bathroom cabinet with its self-closing doors, it was such a chore having to close those doors every time I opened them in the past