Member postings for Fergus Stirling

I only paid 200 notes for mine and another 130 to get it shipped on a pallet... bargain of the century

Email sent Nigel, its quite large so let me know if it doesnt come through

If anyone has a spare hand crank for a VMF, i am after one!

Nigel,

I will send you an email with some manuals for the machine the main castings for the VME and VMF are the same, the VMC is a much smaller machine. The VMF is about 450kg give or take. I recently had one of these shipped from manchester to brighton for about £130 using shiply shich may be a better option. but you need to make sure it is propperly prepped if you are going to do that as they have a habbit of falling over in transit. contact me if you need more info regarding this.

As for taking it apart, it depends how stong you are. Im 35 years old and a 21 stone powerlifter... I managed to take it down and move it about on my own without the use of any lifting equipment (just using metal bars to roll it), but it was a struggle. The main casting is still about 250Kg once you have removed the Head/Ram/Table etc. and i would say that removing them is a two man job really, even if you had an engine hoist.

If you do go down that route, most of the bolts etc are imperial, so take the correct tools. LOL

PS i dont think the ram can slide out all the way as there is a key holding it in, you have to remove the whole thing clamp and all ( which is only two bolts)

Mine is currently in bits so if you have any questions let me know.

Did you find a suitable washer?

Ironically, the police drones had to be modified before they could fly them over Gatwick as the airspace was GPS denied by the manufacturer.

STL files are a garbage fire of a format, used to use them in a former GovT job. There are many standalone convertion programes you can use to put them into somthing more usable, modify in your program of choice then output to a clean STL (or somthing else if you can)

I used to use them in solidworks and 3DSMAX (but i had to write some custom tools to import them properly) The biggest problem is that the format simply defines a list of unconnected triangular faces, so when you import them into a program, it has to undertake a 'vertex welding process' and assume that vertices within approximately the same location are connected to form contiguous mesh faces. So each final vertex point in a mesh may be made up of many triangular "corners". this obviously falls over when you have very complicated STLs with high levels of detail because there has to be an assumed tollerance when doing the weld process.... so nearby verticies that should occupy the same 3d co-ordinates can get pulled together forming a big broken meshy blobfest..... Blaa bla bla....sorry bored myself...

admittedly you can (with the likes of both of thes programs import them unwelded, but then you just end up with a big pile of triangles, which makes any hope of modifying the object unrealistic.

The early commercial Stereolithography 3d printers that we used to have, would only really work with STL files, and back then (ironicaly only about 10 years ago) small models would cost thousands of pounds each to print. Do newer 3d printers work with other file formats or is STL still the only format used?

Mine leaks so much i assumed it was supposed to... what size does it take?

Before anyone tries to buy it off you for a steal, If its new and unused i would say its worth quite a bit more than that. you would pay 5 for a used reconditioned one direct from myford. may be worth giving them a call to see what they would offer you for it..

I checked the gearbox yesterday, it is half full (just not quite up to where it should be), so i will top it up.

doesnt look like the apron res has ever had oil in it its that clean.

is it just the same SAE30 that goes in the apron?

I did concider drilling and tapping the shaft (and i may do in the future...seems like it should have been done like this in the first place)

But for now i ended up removing the leadscrew and then dropping the saddle.

The powerfeed apron fully encapsulates the leadscrew, so that is the only way the apron can be removed by the looks of it.

id note when i took the apron off that the oil reservoir was bone dry (and clean) should this not be filled to the level?? the gears dont look worn and are oiled but i expected to see it full up, not dry....

So, im trying to re-install the apron handwheel in my power cross slide, but i cant get it to go all the way on.

The shaft that it slides onto slides back and forth by about 5mm (is this a normal amount of play?), so when i push it on, the shaft retracts and prevents me from fully installing it.

How do i do it please? It's driving me nuts.

Do i have to remove the whole saddle to get into the top of the apron?

Its old for me as a 30 something

i didnt notice the pad untill i got it out of the garage under some better light, it was covered in black muck.

I managed to get it off, it was really stuck on. When i replace the screw i am keen not to marr up the surface of the new screw is there a technique or best practice to tightening it back up to not cause any damage to any of the surfaces.

To get it off i ended up putting a bolt in the grub screw hole and clamping the end of the screw in the vice.

The screw was damaged so i obviously wasnt concerned about causing further damage to it.

thanks in advance

Hi guys, new to the forum.

Bought an old super 7 with power crossfeed, and I need to replace the cross slide screw.

Is there a trick to getting the cross slide adjusting collar off? I removed the grub screw (but it doesn't like the grub screw goes all the way down to the screw shaft.

I can't seem to get it to come off, just can't get any purchase on it and don't want to damage anything