Member postings for Jelly

I read his post as expressing the economic realities of the situation, there are very few "western" manufacturers of manual machine tools left, and even the Taiwanese offerings like XYZ (which seem to be held as being of a more consistent and perhaps higher quality) are dwindling.

If money and availability were no object it would be easy to suggest a new Schaublin (Switzerland) or Trens (Slovenia)... But both are significant factors in any purchase.

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Regards criticism of Far Eastern manufacturers, remember it's not all that long ago that the Eastern European options like Stanko, TOS and Poreba were treated with great suspicion for being cheap imports...

But are now viewed as being very desirable, quality machines, offering unique capabilities at a fair price (something which has kept those businesses going long after a lot of the British manufacturers folded), and it's accepted that the historically cheap pricing was really a reflection of the premium placed on acquiring foreign currency via export sales by those economies at the time.

On the contrary, neutral and negative rake can give excellent results, sometimes better than a positive rake!

To which end I have a negative rake parting blade ground specifically for brass, which is much less prone to grabbing and leaves a superior surface finish.

It's just a case of users of smaller lathes needing to be aware of the additional cutting power needed so as to not overload their motor, and minimising stick out to prevent the additional force exerted on the tool damaging a toolbit with a small cross-section.

For this reason conventional wisdom was that model engineers lathes lacked the power to use these tool geometries...

But given that even a modestly proportioned modern lathe like a Warco WM250V comes with a 1.1kW/1.5hp motor, I don't think that holds anymore.

Edited By Jelly on 05/05/2023 20:40:09

ARB seem to have discontinued it in favour of the much simpler airbag type you mentioned which is wider and more conformant resulting in greater stability, and clearly far cheaper to produce (they sell for about wat the Vevor ones do, but have ARB levels of mark-up on them).

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I after some formative years in O&G, I spent a good chunk of my career operating in the Waste and Resources industry where the regulator is both unable and unwilling to take enforcement action against non-compliant operators, and actively targets larger more compliant operators (who they knew could stand any fines) for minor administrative issues to generate revenue (as admitted by their chief exec on an agency wide call, and leaked to the Gruiniad), but will fail to take against smaller ones which would be bankrupted leaving the regulator to foot the cleanup costs even when other operators give them cast iron evidence of serious non-compliance, that I have long since ceased to get upset about this kind of thing...

To do otherwise would long since have sent me mad, it's just another part of our increasing broken civic landscape stemming from a lack of funding and resources.

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There's also the issue of how regulatory compliance is now approaching Byzantine levels of complexity, which would be fine, apart from the fact that ultimately for a huge proportion of goods which are subject to self-assessment conformity assessments, it's actually in a place of "Do what you think complies, then if we don't think it did, we will prosecute you at some point later and a judge can decide who was right"...

But simultaneously paying an external body if you don't have to will price you out of the market so there's an unlevel playing field on compliance approaches that incentivises companies to do things in house which they're poorly equipped to do.

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That's made worse by the fact that we persist as a nation in maintaining an arrangement where the majority of our standards in the hands of a private body, behind a exorbitant paywall. Despite many of them being treated as the de-facto approach to regulatory compliance and some of them being de-jure regulations as they're referenced without expansion in secondary legislation...

Even the Americans make their standards publicly available when they take on legal force.

The airbag jack is pretty much a direct copy of a design by ARB which is designed for off-road/overland enthusiasts as an alternative to a farm jack in very soft conditions, they're not great but they're intended to be used when everything else fails... The off road ones often come with a kit to inflate them using your exhaust!

I think similar but bigger ones exist for use by heavy equipment mechanics too, very useful when you're working on an FLT which weighs the same as several estate cars, but has about as much ground clearance as a lotus.

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More generally I would guess that Vevor weren't taking their duties as importer seriously and we're relying on inadequate conformity assessments and documentation from the manufacturer, and totally failed to account for renewed scrutiny after the switch from CE to UKCA, or simply became so big that they were an inviting target for enforcement action.

I am certain that dozens of smaller importers are bringing in the exact same goods right now with even less attention to compliance and zero chance of having action taken against them, because they're just too small for the regulator to pay attention to.

There's probably a place for belt shifting to move between speed ranges of you want to have maximum versatility, I am envisioning three pulleys giving 60-600, 300-3000, 1500-15000 (I know some people like glacially slow speeds for screwcutting but I normally run between 120-200 and don't have too much trouble, 60 seems reasonable, plus with ELS by default it wouldn't really matter).

My geared head lathe has change gears in the drivetrain for that purpose, albeit with not quite as dramatic a range of speeds and it works quite well as you're rarely going to find a job that needs 28RPM and 3200RPM on the same workpiece, it is however a pain to take the cover off and switch out oily gears so belts seem more civilized for the purpose.

Would also recommend XYZ.

I can reel off a fairly long list of Uni's and FE colleges I've visited who have their products, and the technicians who run those workshops generally feel very positively about them.

Optimum also seems to be popular with FE Colleges for full size lathes.

Variable Speed might be the rub, as all the Unis and Colleges I've visited were running gearhead machines with 12-18 discreet speeds and a similar number of feeds, presumably to equip students for what they might expect to encounter in industry if they were asked to operate a manual lathe.

I would tend to disagree that it's the wrong way to go.

It's both mechanically simpler and simpler to manufacture, so would be the number 1 way to maintain price competitiveness whilst maintaining high standards of fit and finish.

Most of the issues we see with DC-Brushless and VFD's on here tend to come from three sources:

• Proprietary controllers which have been heavily value engineered.
• Poor documentation.
• User Retrofits.

By using COTS (commercial off the shelf) parts from reputable suppliers, and properly documenting the implementation with complete circuit diagrams and control logic schema as part of the manual, much of that pain can be avoided.

Using a Mitsubishi drive might be double the price of an unbranded one, but it would still represent a major cost saving over all the additional casting and machining needed to provide a speed range even close to that via pulleys or gears.

Similarly, using a Melsec HMI (Human Machine Interface) panel rather than a custom PCB adds cost, but makes it both more reliable and more maintainable, you also have a much greater level of adaptability if we're thinking about accessories for a modern CNC age.

Just flash the HMI and Controller with new software and it can upgrade the capabilities of the machine to use additional accessories.

The testing by BRE did consider the eventuality which happened at Grenfell, and the product failed.

So the manufacturer Saint-Gobain, went back to the drawing board and designed an installation system which included various flame retardant baffles, and other mitigation measures to allow the system to pass, which it then did.

Saint-Gobain's marketing team then plastered the "passes test such and such" all over the product marketing literature, leaving the "* only if installed correctly using our complex mounting system" caveat to be buried in the product technical literature.

The Council and Housing Association then employed a principle contractor who hired a very cheap, not very savvy cladding sub-contractor to do the cladding work, who didn't have a suitable engineer or architect on staff to pick up on fine details like that, so let the owners unqualified son bid the project, which he did so based on fitting the product directly (in the manner which failed the BRE testing), wrongly believing from Saint-Gobain's marketing literature that this would meet the fire safety standards.

The Principle Designer took assurances from the subcontractor that they were fitting a compliant system at their word, and no-body in the chain (Council as owner, Council's Building Control team, Housing Association as Client, or the Principle Contractors) undertook independent verification of the subcontractors faulty design and installation work.

Ultimately there were 6 different organisations who had opportunities to prevent it by undertaking proper design and installation verification:

• Sub-contractor,
• Principle Designer,
• Principle Contractor,
• Housing Association,
• Building Control,
• Council,

and two organisations who actively made decisions which led to the installation of dangerous cladding:

• Subcontractor (through blindly trusting marketing materials), and
• Saint-Gobain (by publishing marketing materials including test certificates but absent the details of what was tested, which if I understood Dame Hackett's findings correctly were so unclear about when the test results were valid that it verged on misrepresentation of the product).

Edited By Jelly on 03/05/2023 12:46:38

I think anyone who has purchased one can atest to how awful the instructions are.

They clearly fall well short of the required standard and I'm glad that Trading Standards are challenging it, because it very much could be dangerous to someone inexperienced fitting it, which with the trend for DIY camper conversions is a growing market.

This said, I am very happy with my diesel heater, which is permanently installed with a balanced flue, full copper fuel supply lines, and emergency cut-off as per the requirements of the relevant section of the building regulations; it works far better that way that it would have done if I had followed the supplied instructions...

(As an aside the instructions for the Erberspracher diesel heater it's a knock-off of were very useful for designing my heating duct network).

Fitted 2 of 4 of the Weld-On Jack Legs on the trailer.

I have to admit that I was a bit out of practice on my vertical uphill with the arc welder, as can be seen from the copious amounts of grinding dust, I had to gouge back several portions of the root and reweld before I was truly happy with the job, but got there in the end.

Just as well I got the practice in there, as there's a lot less weld area available fitting this one, I think I want to do a weld along the bottom of the mounting plate too before I'm really happy with it...

But will wait for daylight and the other legs to be fitted so I can raise the whole thing up, welding in the overhead position is hard enough as it is without having to contend with access so tight I can barely get my hood underneath.

Probably going to want to inject some lanogard or waxoyl too once it's all done as the internal hot dip galvanising definitely burned off in places.

But this should make it a lot more secure for moving machines going forward, just need to sort the electrical issue that causes a fuse to blow in the truck every time I tow it now.

Logically yes, practically it depends on how much vacuum you actually need to maintain and for how long.

Holding ultra-high or absolute vacuum requires a near perfect/actually perfect seal at a molecular level, which is more challenging than maintaining "good enough" sealing performance in the containment of steam/oil/compressed gasses.

In any case, I've been able to source some high-precision bearings cheap (local supplier overstocked an unusual size some years ago and let the matched set go for £75), and think I will definitely be having a bash at building a one-off prototype based on a Boxford lathe bed.

Starting with the hard bit by making a very high speed spindle, (which will probably need outside input for dynamic balancing) it's not the first one I've done in this speed range, but it is an order of magnitude bigger.

If I can make a go of that part, then all the remaining elements will only be hard.

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As to whether the end result could be commercially viable, I think I set out a fairly clear path which could lead to viability in part by pursuing a fundamentally different business model to previous machine-tool builders in the "Worth It?" Thread,

Without doing some prototyping, who knows if it's even possible to achieve the level of simplifications I think would be needed to make that work.

I doesn't really matter where you think it's going to be used, the legislation doesn't differentiate, if you place a machine or machine element onto the market (by offering for sale, using commercially or in some circumstances giving away), and it was first placed onto the market after 29th December 2009, then the requirements of the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 apply.

In complying with them the person placing them onto the market must prepare a technical file and undertake an internal conformity assessment which justifies that they are in compliance with the regulations, then affix a UKCA and/or UKNI marking; if it involves using interlocks or safety relays other than those supplied as partly completed machinery with their own UKCA mark, then it's an Annex VI qualifying item, and the technical file would need to be assessed by an approved third party.

Failure to do so, or making a faulty conformity assessment (deliberately or otherwise) is unlikely to have immediate consequences, but it doesn't seem like a good gamble to take given you're up against the:

• Financial liability of trading standards being able to seize and destroy your goods at any time if non-compliance is highlighted, and/or
• Legal liability in the event a user is injured and HSE determines its down to a preventable cause linked to the machinery you supplied, and/or
• Threat of a prison sentence up to two years and an unlimited fine.

Even if you sell to a user in a non-commercial setting (predominantly home, technically certain other non-profit organisations but it's a grey area) knowing they intend to defeat the safety systems you install without committing a crime under the 1974 Act or PUWER98.

The question comes down to whether you believe you can genuinely justify omitting a type of guarding from your design based on a risk assessment showing that that particular risk is ALARP.

Dwyfor Oils in Caernarfon would fit that description perfectly.

But I do appreciate that if Bob lives in "anialwch mawr gwyrdd Cymru"* as my friend Gwynfor used to describe where he grew up in mid-wales, then driving all the way up to Gwynedd is going to take about three times as long as the distance on a map would imply.

When I lived in Bangor I could generally get to Glasgow to see my family, quicker than I could cross mid Wales to see my friends living in Treorchy, I think the A470 is better now than it was, but there was one point during the improvement works when a journey to Fort William worked out quicker than returning from Cardiff a few days prior!

With that in mind, there's a branch of BMS Hayley in Aberystwyth which might fit the bill, and is sort of central for the western part of Mid Wales, if they will trade with you of course.

* With suitable bardic licence this was always translated as "The Great Green Welsh Desert", although my limited welsh language skills suggest a literal transliteration is more like "the big green wilderness of Wales".

Edited By Jelly on 01/05/2023 22:26:46

I have a spare 163E Dead-Length Lever Action Collet Chuck on a suitable ISO R702 backplate (my lathe came with two), which I could be convinced to part with.

It's currently set up for bayonet type locking (ISO R702:3), but for the price of three camlock studs would work with camlock (ISO R702:2), no spare collets though.

Edited By Jelly on 01/05/2023 21:21:46

Indeed.

My experience is that if you don't have access to Plant3D (AutoCAD)/ Modular Plant Design (Solid Edge)/ MEP (Revit) or one of the many add-in or standalone piping design programmes, it is simpler and easier to ignore 3D modelling of the pipe systems and just do your piping iso's in 2D cad or by hand.

This is based on designing large runs of DN50-DN200 (2"-8" piping comprising multiple spools with complex geometry to fit round various constraints like existing pipework and supports.

Given the Piping Iso is the ultimate product of a piping design process which communicates design intent to the fabricator, 3D models of the elements are non-essential.

So I actually did the design calculations for such an idea incorporating a decently large rigid spindle last night, and making space for the spindle and bore requires you to spread out iron core material around it to get acceptable (according to the guidelines I found) magnetic performance which in turn results in a very large motor for the rated power.

I think I agree that an underdrive system is most practical.

Low speed torque is definitely an issue, a gearing system of some sort is almost certainly required if you want decent performance, but it's difficult to come up with one that won't result in either mechanical complexity or vibration issues.

Absolutely, for a new market entrant the lack of a brand identity would be a major disadvantage.

I suspect that there's a price premium a new entrant could charge for a "British Made" or "Made in USA" brand claim if they can back it up, but they'd need a way of getting in front of prospective customers long enough for them to absorb that claim, to the point that buying a defunct brand and resurrecting it could be worthwhile.

Myford meanwhile has brand identity in spades.

I can't disagree, fundamentally to complete with the range of far-eastern lathes (which are available in any level of quality you're willing to pay for) a "Modern Myford" would have to offer functionality that isn't available elsewhere to attract sales, which is what the original ML7 and super 7 did at the time...

And the price-point itself still needs to be reduced.

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I do think that is do-able however, the Connoisseur whilst a lovely design, has a huge amount of mechanical complexity which can now be eliminated with (comparatively) cheap electronics to no loss of functionality.

When you dig into the design of the core components for the S7 range, it uses a significant number of individual thin-wall castings which would be time consuming to mould, demanding to pour, then require extensive fettling, and multi-operation machining on fixtures. Beautiful industrial design, but not great from a value-engineering standpoint.

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The ubiquitous Mini-Lathe designs today themselves are well over 25 years old, and originate with further adaptation and simplification of value-engineered designs that are the best part of 40 years old, so there's definitely room for a refresh in that space.

I think that's something of an over-estimate of the development costs, it's ultimately just an integration of various well established solutions to well quantified problems.

Do the initial prototyping in house on a shoestring budget, use that knowledge to do the requirements engineering for any refinements which need "discipline engineering" and let them as work packages to consulting firms on a target cost basis, and then use that to develop the manufacturing program.

From a financial perspective because it's a clearly defined project you can opt to capitalise the development costs under the SSAP 13 or IAS 38 rules as an intangible asset and then write that asset's cost down against tax across the first 15 years of the product lifecycle.

No need to tool up for in-house manufacturing, it's not going to be a volume product, so you can opt for serial production on a JIT model, with small lots sizes for the castings and the machining done externally.

If you know your subbie's capabilities you can also engage in "design for manufacturing" to minimise the setup costs and special tooling requirements.

It then becomes a problem of optimising your cashflows by minimising the "hold-up" in the system.

Ultimately not having to feed a huge production overhead will lower the cost of the product at release as you're not trying to cover financing costs or depreciating assets.

Edit: There's also novel funding streams to consider, traditionally this kind of thing would have to be debt-financed or come from shareholder capital/retained earnings.

However given that it's aimed at a hobby market and if you consider CNC integration is highly appealling to a range of hobbyists who are internet engaged a working prototype can be used to generate a social media buzz which feeds into a crowdfunding effort that effectively de-risks initial production by selling the product before you commit to the spend.

That model has worked for Wazer (desktop water jet cutters) and Markforged (sort-of-affordable metal 3D printing).

Edited By Jelly on 28/04/2023 17:59:04