Member postings for Clive Brown 1

That looks good Brian.

For Django, you obviously have the background and the workshop. My two penn'orth would be that a Minnie might take around 1000 hours, ie 2 years @ 10 hours per week for someone who knew what they were doing. Quite a bit of the tedium can be avoided with ready-cut spokes and strakes, gears are also available. A pro boiler would be a time-saver.

Go for it.

As purchased, half-round beading is quite hard. I'm fairly sure that I would have annealed the beading for my Allchin tender. Heating towards dull red makes it much more amenable.

The OP is making a differental thread, which seems to be a Hemingway alteration, but I agree that the original 40tpi seems to function adequately, unless one wants to work to tenths of a thou. I suppose.

I'd jib at £30 for one-off use. The Quorn requires a few single-point screwcutting ops. This could be another.  Alternatively a silver-steel tap could be machined.. The thread is for positioning, not load-bearing, so a truncated thread might help smooth operation and also make for easier machining.

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 06/05/2023 14:13:38

Doesn't have to be stainless steel to be tough on cutting tools. Steels with a fairly high manganese content can be as well. It's what they make prison-cell window bars from! ( No good smuggling in a hacksaw blade).

Several varieties for delivery on Ebay, in quantities from 1l to 200l.

Seems a rather strange requirement. Metals work-harden by being distorted, so your hammering needs to locally alter the shape of the crystal structure over the whole bulk of the rod, this presumably means a lot of hammering. In practice I'd suspect the result would be rather uneven, with most effect being near the outer skin. Are you sure that this is needed? Bushes don't usually need to be particularly hard.

I've had an Aldi cheapie for a number of years. Accuracy seems very good, downside is that the battery runs down even if it's not used. I generally use a Mitutoyo vernier, never needs a new battery!

I could manage without my calipers but micrometers are essential IMO.

I think it was Prof. Chaddock who wrote in his Quorn series that when this was first suggested, the editor of ME refused to print it.

There is. A google search brings up some examples; eg here

Last year I bought an Einhell cordless mower from Wickes. Great for our small lawn, (?50 sq. m), one charge finishes the job easily.

Currently on offer I see, bundled with a bare strimmer for £164. Why pay more?

The only real complaint is that the finish is not quite so good as my previous cylinder mower, but so much quicker.

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 21/04/2023 14:25:44

The blade needs to be protected by a guard. I have an Evolution circular saw, primarily designed for cutting wood but will also cut metal. This useage results in lots of hot metal chips flying around the work area. Quite unpleasan and needs careful use. The blades are quite pricey as well. I avoid using it to cut metal. A bandsaw or, for heavy stuff, my old Rapidor are much more civilised.

I can't help with an explanation but I'd echo Dave's advice. If a component as massive as a milling machine table is really being distorted by adjustment of the gibs then you've got a major problem, virtually impossible IMHO.. My advice is not to do anything rash, such as skimming / grinding. Perhaps take the table off the machine and see if you can get the use of a decent sized surface plate to make some careful measurements

Might depend on your browser. On Firefox for example open application menu, (3 bars top right corner)

---> settings; ---> privacy & security; ---> tick "autifill passwords"

You may also want to tick "ask to save passwords & logins"

Other browsers might be slightly different but can be found by a google search.

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 16/04/2023 18:46:31

Heres a copy of the original drawing in case it's clearer than the book.

Agreed, the strake ends are used as the dimension datum in the jig shown in ME, a bit of a trap for the unwary IMHO.

Also, I'm afraid that I might have repeated an error in my earlier posts. The ME drawing definitely shows the spacing washers as 9/16" and 7/32", which I quoted. However, I've now read the text and that does refer to a spacing washer of 17/32", so maybe that is the correct dimension as the OP originally wondered.

However, the essential requirement is to locate the hub correctly in relation to the edge of the wheel-rim. The drawings show that for the RH wheel hub the spokes are 7/8" below the outer edge of the rim. For the LH wheel hub, the measurement is 29/32". (These dimensions might be difficult to read in the reduced size of the book). Note also, the 2 hubs are different widths. The jig and the spacing washers should match those dimensions.

HTH

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 16/04/2023 15:56:40

Well done, I admire your skill with files and other hand-tools. Not a milling machine in sight!

One comment if I may; 4 x 12ba fasteners for the reverser stand seems rather on the light side, even for Titch. Is this to the original design? My Simplex for example, admittedly 5" gauge, has 4 x 2ba. My current build has 8 x 5ba. The reverser can get some loading, from the valve gear itself and also from the over-scale engine driver.

As Jason says, measure up on your jigged assembly against the wheel drawings before commiting to all that riveting. The rim / hub offsets are important. However, the thickness of the spacer is shown as 7/32" in ME no. 3489 for 17 May 1974 and I don't remember any dimensional problem when I made mine.

Hi Joseph,

Presumably your spacers are the two thick washers, 9/16" and 7/32". The 2 rear wheels of the Allchin are slightly different from each other. The hubs are at different horizontal offsets to their respective rims. The appropriate spacer is put on the central spigot of the jig to support the hub and so ensure the correct offset for each wheel.

HTH.

edit beaten by Jason

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 14/04/2023 09:15:57

Not really answering the OP's question but I fitted a 3-axis system to my Warco 16B about 6 months ago. This machine is broadly similar to the SX2.7. Glass scales and an LCD readout. I'd deliberated for some time, mainly over cost / benefit for a hobby machine but finally bought off Ebay. The items arrived after about 3 days and were fitted in about 3 afternoons work. The supplied bracketry was very basic and of little use but there's lots of helpful ideas on the web and I found the job satisfying, I'm (so far) very pleased. Total cost was about £280 so a substantial saving on the mainstream prices.