Member postings for larry Phelan

Thanks,Guys,

Will start checking those points.

Hi,

Does anyone out there know about air compressors ?

My unit Ingorsol Rand 150 lt will only build up pressure to about half way and go no further,just keeps running. I have checked for leaks,found none,and the belt is tight,no slack. Any ideas ?

On another subject,what is a good height for a mill table?,I have mine set at 3ft,but I find it a bit low when using the rotary table [yes,I do still use it from time to time ! ]

Hi Allan,

That,s exactly what Sparey said about the fit of the nut,that one or other of the threads could be tight,but there was no way of knowing which one,so the only way was to take another pass from one and try it. If that did not work,take a pass from the second thread and try again.

You,ve really got me interested in this stuff now,time to leave the grass for another day. Cheers !

Hi Allan,

Thank you so much for those kind words !! Do let us know how the 4 start works out,cutting the inside thread for that should be fun. Did you have any bother fitting the nut to the twin start?

You are just a show off I HATE YOU,I HATE YOU ,I HATE YOUUUUUUUU !

Good man,you got there before I did.YoU ARE NOW TALKING ABOUT A 4 START THREAD ? Is there no end to the man?

All I can say is,"Good for you ",I must now go and eat humble pie.

This thread is a real education for me ! I spent most of my working life building transformers 5kva to 10 mva,but I,m still learning about them. Our 5kva,s were about the size of a dustbin,you see them on poles all over the place. They were single phase and filled with oil,quite heavy as well. Our 33kva was way bigger than 2x1x1,not sure about the wt and the 50kva was 3ph and much bigger. After that it was 100 200 400 640 1000 2mva 5mva 10mva. I worked on them all,first the transformers themselves,then the tanks,so I ended up as a fabricator.

At one stage I worked on big old spot welder,must have come out of the ARK.,maybe it was used to build it,but it never packed up,unlike some of the newer ones. I did have a short spell on a Ward capstan lathe [maybe that,s where I got bitten by the bug ] Which reminds me,last year I made up a unit,fitting,yoke,call it what you like,which fitted onto my lathe,something like a capstan. I was doing a job at the time which required different dia,s at different lengths and then parting off ect. This thing was in the form of a disc fitted with 6 threaded bars which could be set as stops.The disc was mounted on plain rod so that it could be rotated and the whole unit clamped to the back of the lathe bed. Might sound a bit primitive,but it worked and saved no end of time and mistakes.

Always interested in things like this.

I think you are all wrong. There is no doubt in my mind that that item is what is known as a "Wasim"

You may ask "What is a wasim?" Well a Wasim is something that no one knows what its for,but it looks too good to throw out. My place is full of them !

My thanks to everyone who replied to me. I never knew there was so much difference between ship and shore.

It was just something I noticed when travelling by ship [I like to look around while the others are getting pissed at the bar ] I did notice that the gear was a bit better than normal and well protected,but assumed that this was to cope with conditions at sea.

They say that you learn something new every day,and in my case,I sure do.

I thought that might have been the reason,but I just was not sure. Makes you wonder why they dont do the same in workshops,could it be for safety reasons?

What makes you think that kids would be bothered looking at things like that or that they would even know,or even want to know what they were looking at. Unless it was covered with lights and buttons and with an earpiece plug in,they would simply pass it by.

I am reminded of something an old turner said while looking at a group of young visitors staring at a machine in the machine shop where I worked years ago. He said;

"What ever intelligeace there is in that group yonder,the machine has it "

They might as well have been looking into a bush and made no attempt to hide it.

I think we are both a little clearer now,I seem to remember about the thread dept from way back.

I just set up for an 8tpi,just to check the spacing and it looked pretty good but I can see why you would need to go only half the dept.

Looks like I am going to have try this,and I was just so nice and snug !

Does anyone know where I can buy gear cutters 1.25 mod?

Hi Allan,

A friend mine has a Bridgeport mill with a huge tray all around it,seems to take up half the shop,but it does catch all the spray. My mill is a Lux [ex Chester,but quite good for all that ]. I just mounted it on a box tubing stand,never thinking about the coolant problem,but now,years down the line,I,m thinking about making a tray for it. What puts me off is the thought of having to clear the junk from around it in order to lift it from its stand.Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

My workshop/garage/fuelstore/junkstore is 800 sq ft inside,9ft headroom,with an RSJ fitted across it [40 x20 ] It holds everything,sometimes the car even gets in,but not often.The junk area is slowly but surely taking over. Any ides how to deal with this? I mean,how can you throw out something which "might come in handy some time" . Does it ever? and if it does,can you ever find it? By the time you dig it out,you could have a new piece cut and the job finished. I,ve been there,done that,too many times,but still------it just might come in handy some day.

One other thing I forgot to check about the two start thread,do you cut the thread to full dept or only to half dept?

Seems like I came across something about that before. Must check it out again.

Hi Everyone,

I was reading some of the replies to questions regarding noisy motors ect which I found very enlightening.

Like most small workshops,mine operated on single phase for years,three phase being out of the question due to cost,so I never had any experience of it except where I worked,that was all three phase of course.

All my motors were single phase and I thought,smooth running although I did hear that 3ph ones were much smoother and quieter.Never understood why this should be. A friend had a power press in his shop which he had converted to run on single ph but he said that the growling noise it made would put you off using it. Later,when he got 3ph he put back it,s own motor and said it ran like silk. I have a saw bench with a 2hp single ph motor,my friend has the same model 3ph,and the difference between the two is quite clear. Mine is subject to a certain amount of vibration which ends up at the blade,of course,his is rock steady. I put this down to pulses in the single ph motor along with poor support for the motor itself [bad design ]

Later on I had to get 3ph because I had bought a planer and spindle moulder,each with 4hp motors,not the kind of things you can run on single ph. 3PH motors seem to be more powerful,size for size than single ph ones,and they are of course much easier to reverse,very handy on the lathe ! They are also much easier to come by secondhand and they seem to go on for ever.

Can anyone out there shed a bit more light on this subject for the benefit of people like me? Also,I have two questions

1 What is the relationship between the frequency of the supply and the speed of a motor?

2 Why are electric motors on ships running on 600 v ?

Hi again Allan,

Just like to say I love your workshop,lovely lathe !

Hi Allen,

We do seem to stir things up,dont we ? Early on this afternoon,nothing better to do,I set up to cut an 8tpi [the fact is I was already set up for that anyway ] So,using a piece of 12mm bar,I cut one very light thread and then using Sparley,s method,I advanced the top slide by 1/16",1.578mm,if I remember correctly [old age is a curse ! ] and put on a second cut,just to check the spacing. Although I did not cut a full dept thread,the spacing looked fairly good,so I think this might be the way to go.Later,when I feel more brave,I will try the inside thread,that,s when things should get interesting. In the meantime,this system does appear to be fairly simple and is well worth a try.

I do have a coolant pump on my lathe which works very well,but what about the milling machine?. Does the stuff not go all over the place? what,s to stop it since there,s no tray?. I just apply it with a brush.

My thanks to John Stevenson for the picture,never even knew there were such threads !

I asked some time ago about a supplier of Acme thread gauges but got no feedback. A few days ago someone did send me an E mail but I dont know where it went. I think he said he made them and other gauges but made no mention of price.

Would still like to hear from him,although I have one on the way from China.

Someone took me to task for going on about my rotary table and expressed the hope that I was not going to pursue it any further. I,m not ,I never had any intention of pursuing the matter with Chester since too much time had elapsed anyway.I simply wanted to know what if anything could be done about it,but I got my answer there alright !

Some of the other members have been more helpful since it seems that I am not the only one who has been unlucky in this way. When you ask about the spec,I think an error of 0.25 mm should answer your question.

Considering the range of other equipment I bought from Chester,which gave no bother,I was somewhat surprised and disappointed with the table,that,s all. I thank you for your interest in the matter,but dont lose any sleep over it,life is too short for that.

Hi Allan,

Glad to see that you are having fun with your twin thread ! but I believe the REAL fun starts when you get to cut the internal thread and it gets even better when you try to get them to fit each other. This is a minefield into which I have not ventured yet. I too had a go at cutting two start threads and got some interesting results,not sure what they might be useful for,but they looked-------------different !

It seems like we both opened a can of worms,you with your thread,me with my table,but your problem should be easier to sort out.

Just reading the reply re my table from "Silly old duffer" [you are far from being silly or a duffer ! ] you are lucky indeed with your table. I would treat it with lots of TLC.

One other thing while I think of it,the mod I made to my cheap bandsaw by fitting it with a coolant system,could also be fitted to a lathe,it,s the same idea and would be a lot cheaper than buying a unit. Most of the bits came from my scrap box [which gets bigger every day ] and old washing machine pumps are everywhere.

This is a picture of my cheap bandsaw,bought many years ago. It came with a Micky Mouse stand and wheels,which I got rid of at once.It is now mounted on a box tubing stand fitted with good wheels [ex Supermarket cart ] The top tray is a piece of Ali sheet notched at the corners and bent up [clamped between two pieces of angle iron,no folder to hand ] the corners are just sealed with mastic. The tank you see on the lower shelf is an old saucepan,clamped in place.

A plastic tube carries fluid from the top tray via a piece of mesh sheeting fitted to a simple flange fitting [home made ],and feeds into the saucepan. To the base of the pot,a simple plumbing fitting is fitted which allows a short piece of pipe to project into the pot [to prevent the waste from finding it,s way into the pump ] The washing machine pump is connected directly to the bottom end of the plumbing fitting. From pump outlet,a plastic tube comes up the frame of the saw and is fixed to the frame so that it can be adjusted to direct the flow.A valve ,from an old gas lamp is fitted to adjust the flow.

Washing machine pumps will not pump from a low to a high level right away,they need to be fed from overhead,as here,and thus they never run dry. I have been using this system for the past 10 years [same pump ] and it has never given any bother and the blades last longer.

Try it !!