Member postings for Jon Lawes

Welcome! I'm not a million miles away in North Dorset, near Shaftesbury. I've an ML7 as well, still a novice but learning fast (most of the time the hard way).

Welcome.

Thanks Mike, I'll have a look. In the meantime if anyone has a PDF of a good design I would be very interested.

Does anyone have a good source for a drawing set for an ML7 Rear Tool Post please?

Many thanks, Jon.

Welcome, I'm a newbie too and everyone has been very helpful. Where are you based?

I'm spending quite a lot of time reworking the previous owners engineering decisions, but where he got it right he saved me a lot of time and effort. I guess it depends on the price. I managed to get my brit, main frames complete and assembled and all castings unmachined and present for £100 on eBay. Had it been £500 I would have been cursing a lot more. As it is I'm quite content.

Maybe buying a part built one that you can inspect fully first is fine, but sight unseen and a large outlay would be a gamble...

I should qualify what I am saying by pointing out I'm a complete novice, so don't take what I say too seriously, just adding my experiences.

When it comes to cars I've found a little airflow during storage is the main thing. I don't see why the same doesn't apply here.

I'd buy mentoring and self confidence!

I wouldn't have the first clue how to do that! Is it like cutting a keyway?

I'm not paying £40 for a floodlight.

Excellent!

I'm tempted to try a nitrile ball in my water pump if only because it might help with the quality of my workmanship so far...

Thanks Bill, very interesting, good luck with the lubricant.

I've just ordered another 7/16 ratchet wheel from Reeves to replace one that I don't like the look of. To their credit they did offer to replace it free of charge but I'd already rebored the centre so just bought one again.

My beef with the original is that the teeth look very shallow, and not very hard. They say they have been selling that exact type for almost two decades but it isn't very deep at all. Has anyone else used a Reeves ratchet for their lubricators and did it work ok? I'm not experienced enough at this to judge it well.

Apologies for the lack of photo but its out in the workshop and I'm recovering from surgery and don't feel like braving the cold!

Jon.

A solid axle isn't going to create an understeering death chariot surely. It's just going to slip a wheel, especially if the front axle has some weight over it.

Before I go making one, does anyone in the South West (I'm Gillingham, so Dorset Wiltshire border but work in Amesbury) have a 3.5 gauge wheel quartering jig I could borrow please? I'd be happy to rent or pay in beer for a weekend loan.

Thank you,

Jon.

Read more: **LINK**

At the Bristol show the Salisbury Model Engineering society was one of the few that was truely hands on to kids, quite a few others were (understandably) a bit guarded. My son was encouraged to use some of the things that members had made, presumable especially for the exhibition, such as a spiragraph type machine and a few others.

We need to be appealing to a new generation of engineers, or when this generation goes the hobby goes with them...

Burlen are very helpful, used to deal with them a bit when I worked with classic cars.

The local classic jaguar specialist uses sandpaper held in the chuck of an old pillar drill to gently remove some of the metal at the area which needs richening when rolling roading... I think that technique probably requires years of experience!

The needles usually have a three letter code which describes the taper, I think each letter describes the diameter at fully piston deflection, half deflection and idle, but only for the specific model of needle in use. Due to the different ways they are mounted (fully floating or spring biased for example) there are big differences in the needle spec.

Burlen will be a good bet here, they are not cheap but have never failed to help me out, especially with some of the more obscure older Astons.