Member postings for not done it yet

Fidge compressors are usually rated in tens of Watts, sometimes into the hundreds - hence the quietness of them.

Maybe OK for the occasional blow down, but not for using power tools. A decent sized receiver will take ages to fill.

If using power air tools I would suggest a good two stage cast iron compressor pump, fitted to your receiver, might be a better option. I bought a second hand compressor about thirty years ago and it is still going strong. Not used much, but it will likely outlast me. A two horse motor powers it. Certainly not silent but nowhere near as noisy as these 2800rpm buzz boxes.

Putting the pump and motor ouside is a good plan, but I would prefer the air tank was safely remote from my work space... even though I tested it hydraulically, to well above its working pressure.

I'm afraid I will have to 'stomp on' any discussion of how to evade VAT or import duty.

You can't very well stomp on the advice of making several separate purchases, if each item is 'free shipping included". It can sometimes be advantageous to do it that way. Buying heavy items separately, hoping the lighter ones come in duty free is another ploy. One simply has to be prepared to pay the charges, if customs apply them. It's not evasion (and commercial importers would be hammered if they did that) as long as one is prepared to pay if requested/ordered. The alternative is to forego the dlivery, I suppose - and then the mountain of stored items would be a nightmare!

Buying at the busy Christmas period means one is less likely to be charged for marginal VAT, too. Not the recipient's fault if Cusoms are snowed under - they have far bigger fish to catch than Joe Public's odd chinese tool order. Drugs and counterfeit/unsafe goods are just one of several extra loads on them at this time of the year!

Edited By JasonB on 11/12/2017 07:20:08

I would not do it that way. I would insert the bush by shrink fitting and make a drilling (with a milling cutter) and insert a matching pin, secured with loctite. Two pins, if you must, would take little longer to do.

I want to buy a broaching set.

Hello Martin,

Is that 'I want' or 'I need'? If owning another machine (space, use, etc) would be another option and the parts to be broached are of suitable dimensions, a shaper might be less expensive.

I was considering looking around for some broaches, but my little hand shaper will suffice for all my current needs. Well, OK, I have the Alexander which is adequate - and I will admit to finding a Drummond which is rather more capable and likely easier to set up. These hand shapers will do a good job of keyway cutting on smaller items, but also can be used for other duties (which can be conjured up, once you have one!).

I think we get away with the VAT charges because most things are less than 2kg, so are delivered by the postie. If Parcelforce get involved, then there are more likely charges involved due to them perhaps having more time to collect the tax (and charge that extra fee on each delivery).

The paperwork for customs clearance is horrendous, compared with the loss of revenue and logistics of storing millions of small items while awaiting that paperwork and the small payments to be processed.

A couple or so points. If second hand, with a plug instead of a valve, I would be hydraulically testing the receiver for integrity - it may have had water sitting in it for some time!

Valves left very slightly open - as in leaking - may well wear like leaky water taps by cutting the seat with the high velocity wet air passing. Agreed not as bad as water cutting brass tap seats, but may occur.

I believe automatic steam traps operated with a bimetallic strip, which opened the valve when the water collected and cooled the valve (water is a poor conductor and any cooling caused the condensate at the lowest point to cool more as colder, insulated, denser condensate then cooled even more quickly thus opening the valve; steam escape almost immediately then heated the valve and it returned to the closed state.

Compressed air is an expensive commodity in terms of cost per unit work done. Leaking it away, however slowly, will mean extra power expense. Even if it is financially acceptable to the user, it is wasting our planet's resources!

Idiot. Apart from the obvious missing guard protection, he was seriously over-speeding that blade. Likely no eye protection either!

I once came across a night shift worker cutting stone with a diamond toothed blade - again oversized blade for the machine and no guard. I told him to refrain (as the gang had done more repair work than required and the rest had 'got their heads down' for the rest of the shift - an accepted practice - and it was 'homework', warning him of the consequences of a slip. I dare say he was at the same thing on other shifts as he was working permanent nights. 9" blade in a 7" saw, as I recall.

Really? There’s no mention of any carbide strip on the blade on the website. It just says M42 HSS.

Don't ask me. I only quoted from Hopper's post. He is the one to ask!

Perhaps you are not looking in the right place? You had better ask Hopper, or even his mate.

Edited By not done it yet on 08/12/2017 22:13:21

Air Changes per Hour?

Buy two cheapish basic sets of HSS. Also some HSS blanks later or at the same time.

Use one set, and retain the other to compare the sharpening profile while you practise sharpening. Buy other cutters as and when you need, if the need arises.

Progress to carbide as and when you feel the need to experiment, or for very hard steels.

Having two (or a few) unused cutters and persevering with sharpening the used set is better than several blunt/broken cutters and still no idea of what the profile should be. A small angle checking device is good for a beginner, so the new grind can be compared with a factory item.

Experience only comes with practising ... and quite quickly if you persevere. Some means of honing the edges is an important aspect, to retain a keen cutting edge for longer.

Don't ask me! If you happen to be part colour blind, all options are possible! I could never see hot spots on a kiln shell, where the refractories had worn thin or dropped out, until it was veerry obvious to everyone on the shift.

'Sucking and seeing' with a piece of hardenable steel is the best way to go, I reckon.

If hardening, try the loss of magnetism trick and go for the lowest temperature that works satisfactorily, so scaling is minimised. Transfer experience to the brazing application.

Mick,

I think you may have missed this bit:

It has a strip of carbide along the top of the T

Enough of the pith taking. Member is new to the forum.

I would think, if there is also a power feed to that leadscrew/nut, there will likely be other bits that may need to be removed, like worm drive components, before the thing can be separated.

A pic of the offending area parts would be good as there are not so many of these machines around, I suspect. Pics of the actual machine are likely no more advantageous than those on lathesdotco.

Ian could be right. The only working coal mine I visited was at Bolsover. I suppose they riddled off the largest lumps, but most of the machine cut material was fairly well shattered before removal from the face!

What I remember was sets of vertical stacks of spoked wheels rotating in the horizontal plane, where the coal was dropped in at the top and any stones/larger lumps were deflected, if hitting the spokes, into side chutes.

We only ground the coal into dust, before burning, so likely just got what fell through. I can't remember whether it was primarily to remove denser stones, or what. It was a long time ago (about 35 years) and the coal face was, of course, the most memorable part of the trip - as well as actually riding on a conveyor belt at quite high speed!

The Centec 2B is likely considered as somewhat more robust than a minimill. A full one horse drive capable of some decent cuts, particuarly in the horizontal format.

Most serious cuts, even with slitting saws, seem to be far easier on the cutter if cooling is applied - rather than simple lubrication. 

Edited By not done it yet on 03/12/2017 20:01:38

Square threads, when cut, are stronger than other cut varieties (rolled threads are likely better than the cut versions), but are not so easiy engaged for lead screws and half nuts. The 14 1/2 degrees may have come from involute gears, I don't know, Maybe from the usual angle setting for thead cutting of imperial 60 degree threads - simply standardisation at the time?

Cheap leadscrews, if of V form - simple as that, whatever origin.

I try to achieve this by tucking a piece of stiff folded paper in the form of an angle over mine

Mine have metal covers over the full length. They were sealed, against coolant ingress, with a silicone sealant. Paper is not much good if flooded coolant is anticipated. I've not yet sealed mine but do expect to use coolant when I get it in its ginal position....

I would think a Luton van and two people should manage a tonne with no particilar problem - as long as the tail lift was rated OK. But there are smaller payload vans which are still termed 'Luton' and will only lift 500kg. But that would not be a problem in this instance...

I have both Warco and Arc. Warco is two axis and the Arc is three.

I'm not sure that the measuring specs are quite as reported above, so one needs to read the specs carefully.

What I do know is that the Warco is battery only and the Arc is also mains powered (but may need batteries in the readers).

The Warco display is rock solid, but the Arc zero tends to wander. Not sure if it is just my example, or not. It was good enough for what I wanted at the time. I have a full 3 axis dro, with all the bells and whisles, on my Centec, anyway.

I would fit the 'bells and whistles' type, if it were mine, as it would appear (by previous report) to be in close-to-new condition.

Details of the stand would be good, as that would initially appear to be the only problem.

The mills were available as a kit? Easily reduced to component parts, or at least smaller assemblies?