Member postings for Pete Rimmer

Put the DRO on the quill like the rest of the world and read the quill movement. If the spindle moves any differently in the vertical direction to the quill at all then the problem isn't with the DRO placement it's with the spindle bearings.

IMO that's just a DIY fly cutter/face mill and the guy who made it just keeps all of the cutters mounted on it for stroage.

I have a similar one with the same problem. Had it apart several times and it always goes sticky again. Now I just give it a squirt of brake cleaner each time I need to use it.

Top slide set parallel to the bed is handy for doing coarse acme threads on a smaller lathe. Use a narrower tool designed for smaller pitch acme then when you get to your depth use the top slide to feed into one flank until you hit your width.

It's also very handy for picking up an existing thread.

I've welded stuff to motor casings several times never had a problem. I welded ally feet to an ally cased motor with a 200a tig welder and even that didn't cause any problems.

Michael you'd be better off buying Robin's lathe:

**LINK**

I'll have a look when I get home it's possible I might have one.

That Colchester might have been lightly used for the time the seller has known of it but it bears all the hallmarks of a machine that's been round the block a few times and down the motorway too.

That chuck is almost certainly clapped out. If I had to guess I'd say that it's been heavily rusted and then brought back from the dead. The chisel and punch marks around the hole are where someoe has tried to shrink the hole so that the scroll driver doesn't flop about and bind up. The chuck is in dreadful condition so allow for buying a new one if you do end up with the lathe. You'd be just as well off with a 100 quid Indian jobbie from Vevor.

Looking at the peck marks all over the compound top and saddle tops I'd say that it's done a good bit of factory or job shop work they are caused by the operator setting drills and reamers into taper adapters.

Take someone with you who knows what they are looking at because if the spindle bearings are shot then you just added a grand to the cost and IMO even in great condition £2500 is too much money for that machine.

Yep been there. You can't easily get the belt around the top of the pulley as it fouls some feature on the inside of the headstock casting. Here's what to do - get some string and stick the end of it in the vee groove with a dab of grease. Turn the spindle so that the string is drawn around in the groove then tie the string to the belt and pull the belt around with the string.

Just measure the OD of the wheel at the bottom of the throat and count the teeth. Then you can work out what the pitch of the worm is and they are fairly easy to make.

Does that have a 8mm or a 10mm spindle? I have a bunch of surplus fine pitch hobs I'll never use.

Which hobbing machine do you have Bernard?

Absolutely good enough for a pipe thread Brian (or probably any other really except a measuring screw). 19tpi and 18.95tpi are only 0.00014" difference in pitch. You would not be able to distinguish between them without decent metrology and it's probably less than the error in your leadscrew anyway.

They are most certainly worth having if you do any amount of scraping. You can bring in a scraped surface much more quickly with a very (I'm loathe to use the 'precision' buzzword) flat aggressive stone.

A truly flat stone is very easy on flat surfaces and tends to only take off high spots anyway. It's the non-flat ones you need to take care with. Lubrication is key if you want to aoid clogging or gouging the stone.

For raised dings you could make a burr file as I was advised to yers ago and it worked. Take a reasonably fine file and rub a stone on the face. Now it will slide over a flat face but cut raised sections down to the face. You might heat and bend the ends up to get good purchase on it when pushing it along a the face but I never did when I made mine.

I make them from time to time. Takes a few minutes to grind a normal stone flat on a surface grinder I don't know why they should cost so much extra. I saw some report of high cost due to the wear rate o the CBN wheel but I've gorund perhaps 12 or more and my wheel is still going strong. For sure it does wear the wheel because you can see the material in the grinding dust on the guard but it hasn't been as drastic as folk were making out.

Well done is all I can say. Fair play to you for just going ahead with it Jack.

It's a worthy project send me the dims and I'll turn one for you.

I would turn a nose piece to screw onto that square thread and seat against the shoulder then mill the driving flats into it and bore it out so the collet passes through. The collet would then pull the arbor into the taper for good concentricity but the driving would all be done by the driving flats.

Edited By Pete Rimmer on 24/02/2022 17:20:53

You can't cut the scales down with an angle grinder they ar made of glass inside.