Member postings for HOWARDT

Have a look at Keith Appleton on YouTube. He has recently built a Stuart boiler, all the finishing info is there to be seen.

Record plane, have a look here, 7/32-20 BSW, I think that’s what it says.

I always take a set of drawings as a guide to building what ever it is and make mating parts where possible near the same time. This allows for differences between the drawing and what i have produced usually changing material and threads to metric. I will admit to quite a few mistakes over my working life in producing many thousands of drawings both hand and cad generated, no one is 100% right.

In the 70’s when I worked in a contract drawing office some local machine tool companies were still using there own draughting standards. They not only had there own unique standard parts but also there own tolerances. Being UK based they probably used something based on the Newal tolerance system but then developed it based on there experience and the machines used. Remember in those days many people stayed with an employer as could be seen by the number of names on the 25 and 50 year employment boards. A company I went to later had about a dozen or more boards of 50 year personnel. So many of these people would be used to the terms on a drawing and wouldn’t need it written down just inferred. Of course all that is gone now and I doubt we will ever see a fifty year employee, I only managed just short of 25 before redundancy struck for the third time. Once British standard limits and fits took over standardisation became the norm and the old ways were forgotten along with the people who used them.

Visited the show this morning. Got there for opening time when it was easy to get around, other than for those people standing in the middle of the walkways. By the time I left it was getting a bit packed and the car park was the busiest I have seen it. I do wish stands would make it clear that they only take cash and others would sort out their card machines as some seemed to take an inordinate time trying to take payment. I did buy a couple of things but felt that most of my expected purchases will be made later from home. The displays seemed less than has been in previous years. I do wonder if these shows will continue, be interesting if Crystal Palace or Doncaster make it next year.

Just out of interest I installed the Loop app on my phone to monitor electric usage. The app connects to your smart meter, it doesn't work with some though. I use it just for the consumption not bothered about the costs given as not sure they can be set properly yet to give accurate costs. Any way with this I was able to see that my base usage when we are away and running internet, fridge, freezer and may be other odd things I forget to switch off is 1.8 kw a day. So if we set that to 2 kw for 30 days we would need a storage capacity of 60 kw without some sort of charging, but I suppose if we are merely looking at a few hours of power loss per day it could be significantly less. Just a thought and the app is an easy way to get some real date for your property, including workshop once you have set your non variables.

Reading the full travel insurance documents will give you an unpleasant time. We were due to take up a covid delayed flight and holiday this year, my wife became ill after rebooking the flight. I generally book the rest of the holiday once I had the exact flight dates, so in this case hadn’t booked anything else or bothered with insurance at this time. Read through various travel insurance policies and deduced we wouldn’t be able to fly for some time. Basically there is a long list of the usual medical things of which you can only have one without informing them. Then if you have had or are in need of surgery you have to be signed off from the hospital for some time. It goes on and on, I think we will stick with the UK and avoid the hassle.

I had a selection of old planes with various screws missing, I think the basic thread may be 3/16 BSF. Amazon have selections of the required parts and I bought one of these. Some parts fitted some planes but not all, so there is a difference between Record and Stanley dependant on age. There is lots of information on the net which I read at the time so just have a search.

I’d say replace. The wear caused by the missing tooth on adjacent gears depends on the diameters of the driver and driven gear. The top of the tooth will scrape the mating tooth and eventually wear all the teeth dependant on the ratio. Also if the teeth are hardened you risk breaking another tooth which may lead to something catastrophic and costly.

The more mass the better from a vibration and dampening point. I don’t think the material matters for a wood lathe. During working on a wood lathe there is no metal to metal movement as you are using hand held tools, except obviously for drills etc. It is easier to produce a heavy cast iron base than a welded steel fabrication. The problem these days is finding a foundry and the cost, fabricators are easier to find although getting ones proficient in welding thick sections will increase the labour content. So in order to keep costs down lighter steel fabrications are probably the order of the day, leaving the buyer to add mass as required, tuning the machine to their liking.

Size of the machine affects how close you can get to the workpiece. Not a problem on a cnc machine where safety doors mostly keep you away from the cutting point but on manual machines can be a problem. Consider the difference between a 4” and 12” chuck with a piece of 6mm bar in, also the size of the lathe tools in normal use.

I have in the past bought bags of bar ends, various sizes, usually steel mostly with their identifying painted ends. Still have quite a stock of round, rectangular, also odd bits of stainless. This does entail finding a steel stockist who saws into billets for customers and also visiting often as possible and getting to know the people so you can find out when they are available.

Consider all the physical attributes of the machine and where it is going to be situated. Power, 3ph or 1ph, weight, what is the base like the machine is going to sit on, chuck size, weight can you lift it or do you need a hoist, can you lift the material into the chuck etc, etc. Just a few thoughts, little point in getting something much bigger than the largest part you need to machine, even cutting tools will add up as you go bigger.

The wheel is probably just a normal bronze or even brass. Many years ago we had a wheel go in a servo driven rotary table. The shop made a new wheel from a plain bronze, it lasted about a week, then they asked what it should be made of, aluminium bronze, was still going years later.

It seems that often the indicated fault is triggered by a fault elsewhere. Have seen a YouTube video with an indicated right wheel abs fault which was a broken wire on the left. Take it to a competent electrical vehicle engineer but expect a hefty time cost. A friend had a Volvo, drove it home from a holiday, emptied the luggage then later noticed the side lights on and the car wouldn’t start, four months later and numerous part replacements before he could use it again.

High magnifications are not optical, they are created by software rendering of the pixels captured by the sensor. You only have to compare older digital cameras to modern ones to see how software has moved on. My son has worked with creating imaging software for microscopy for quite a few years and is amazing how it has moved on.

Seeing what looks like evidence of rust on the spindle it may have rusted in place. It may be best to strip the assembly down and saw off the nose of the holder and carefully bore out the taper. If set reasonably accurately it should be able to bore out most of the metal and collapse the last slither. Then clean the taper well and rebuild..

The problem with hss is once they get below a certain length they become more or less useless. Other than using some shorter bits in boring tool holders, most square sizes will only fit or be used on certain machines. Desk top lathes use 8 or 10 mm bits, larger machines use progressively bigger bit sizes. Has has been stated unless the bits are near full length they are no more than scrap value.

My most used taps are HSS, metric in my case, but I have carbon steel for some BA that I used on a Stewart steam build. One thing I find is to drill the smaller sizes with a smaller drill size than required then open it up to size, some drills are not accurately ground on the point and tend to cut oversize. Always ensure the tap is inline with the hole, complete the drill and tap process before moving on to the next position.

You may find Joe Pie YouTube videos useful. He has made a few small machines and his techniques are useful.